One of many

My Failure Story

One of Many

Preface:

When I began thinking about a “failure story,” I thought of Hank Bounds and his assertion that every child who is a behavior problem in your class is a result of a failure in your classroom management. In fact, he never said exactly those words but that was what I heard, at a time when I felt decidedly low about my classroom, the behaviors that I had allowed myself to tolerate, and the effects that my classroom management had on my students. I think he was right. Even the worst students I had, the absolute classroom terrors, the pregnant gang-banging girls, the bipolar ones, the sleepers, shouters, paper-throwers, and so on and so forth, each of them showed me on more than one occasion that they still carried within them a kernel of childhood, the desire to do well, to please, to succeed. They wanted to be successful, and at the times when they wanted it, I did not have the vision, the energy, or the clarity to show them a path to get where they wanted to be. Very few people would choose the lives that my kids are choosing for themselves every day, if they knew anything else, if they knew how to make that choice of something different, but they don’t know how to make that choice.

So what story do I settle on? Dominique, who I lost from day one? Ebony, who I lost from day two? Kendra, who I thought had gone for good only to return from alternative school just in time to disrupt final preparations for state testing. Tim Kelly, who cost himself his place in the tenth grade by cheating on his algebra final? Or should I choose my best students, whom I failed equally but in different ways. Keyera will still, if there is any justice in the world, go to college. Not community college, but a challenging, academic school. Millsapps? But if that girl does not get in to one of the elite educational institutions in the country in three years, I will have failed her too. I already did, by not challenging her enough, by not cutting through the mess and finding a way to teach her something stimulating. In the end, although I failed all of my students in one way or another, I can probably only write this story about Keith.

Keith

Keith sat in the second row. He survived the exodus to pre-algebra, and remained in my class when nearly half my students were sent elsewhere for a remedial course in adding integers. His hair was always, well, rather unkempt, or else done in an entirely ridiculous manner. There was very little that was serious about Keith, but the pink beads hanging down from the beads, or the ridiculous halfro that he often sported were especially absurd. But they always managed, along with the rainbow headband and extra small female jacket, to get someone’s attention, and that was enough to light up his entire face with that equally absurd grin, so absurd that I struggled to keep my own smile encased within stern, teacher lips. That was all the boy ever needed, was attention.

Keith thought everything was funny, and would disrupt class in most ways he could, if he wasn’t asleep. One incident stands out, in which I take the blame. As the class was commenting about my the ever-present wrinkles in my pants, Keith, upon waking from a nap, uttered something to another student, disguised by his habitual, yet sleep-enhanced mumbling. Apparently, as he told me later, he said something about someone’s Dickies. You can imagine what I heard, and I pulled out the referral. As I began to realize my mistake, it was much too late, and Keith had already huffed and puffed himself up into a storm. I said, Keith, if you did not say what I think you said, tell me what it is you did say and we’ll discuss it after class. No, you think you heard me say something, you go on and write it down there and send me outta here. I want to go down to the office. Give me some days at the house, I don’t need to be back here no more. And so on, so off he went.

Hope

Keith’s expertise was slope. He could graph a line better than any student in my fourth block, finding the intercept, using the rise and the run, and making great lines. He was actually quite good at transforming equations into slope-intercept form as well as calculating the slope from a graph. He showed the entire class how to do it. There were plenty of concepts he struggled with, and some that he didn’t even bother to struggle with. I remember when he stayed after school, for an entire week. One day I called him to the board to explain something the class was struggling with, and heard the following conversation:

Keith, how you be knowin how to do all that stuff.

We did it after school the other day.

You be stayin after school? Who else be stayin up in here.

Just me and Mr. G. It be crunk though.

I took him home, to the little house on the end of central street, squat and square and very yellow. As we drove down the road towards his house, I thought I smelled a whiff of marijuana. You smell that, Keith asked. That’s my antie’s house. She always be smokin up in there. Sure enough, as we eased toward the white house on the left, the aroma became stronger and then faded as we moved on, bumping past the potholes and over the train tracks. His dad, all 300 pound of him, was sitting on the porch, or rather the concrete area under a small awning in front of the little yellow house, that performed all the functions of a porch. He sat, paper-bagged bottle in hand, waiting. As his son clambered out of the truck and past him, into the house, it became obvious that he was waiting not for his son, but for something much more elusive. He had been waiting a long time, and six months later, when I stopped by to check on Keith, long after he had dropped out of school, his father was still on the porch, still waiting.

Gone

Keith dropped out in October. He had already been suspended three times. He was still failing my class, but getting closer. During my first block class (Keith belonged in my fourth block) he knocked on my classroom door. I saw him standing there, his sheepish grin somehow absent as he held out his textbook and his withdrawal slip. He did not say anything. I took the book, and signed the slip. Made sure that he had my number, in case he needed anything, in case he needed help with the GED he has insisted so many times he was going to embark upon. I took a moment to collect myself before I re-entered the chaos of first block, and had to wipe away a stray tear. I never should have signed that slip.

What could I have done for Keith? I failed Keith in the same way I failed too many of my students, by not creating a classroom environment designed for success. I failed Keith with inconsistencies. I could have given him more progress reports, so he could see the huge improvements that I saw him making. I could have called his mother more, coerced him to stay after school more often. I could have done so much for Keith, he was crying out for attention, for love, for anyone to help him do right. He never wanted the eternal waiting of his father.

Epilogue – Touched down in the land of the delta blues

It was fantastic to be home for Christmas. After seven lonely months in Mississippi, I never appreciated more the love and support that I have from so many people at home. Without any understanding of god, I still felt blessed, for if there has ever been anything to be supernaturally thankful for, it is a plentiful group of people who love each other.

When my flight touched down in Memphis, I turned on my cell phone, a ritual that is still new to me. A few moments later I heard the text message chimes, and wondered who could be texting me. Since this story is all about Keith, the answer must be obvious.

Wat up mr. G this keith i was just textin to mess wit you since i aint heard from you in a min...3341234 this my number if you want to call in holla.

That was the first message. In the second, he explained that he would be joining up with the national guard in a few weeks. I called him the next day, and we tried to set up a time to get lunch, but it never worked out.

As the months passed, I did not hear from Keith, and the number he had given me, unsurprisingly, was soon disconnected, so that I had no way of getting in touch with him. I heard that he had not gone into the guard; rumors suggested that he had possibly joined job corps. So one day I went down to central street. Keith's father was still waiting one the porch, and was glad to see me. Remembered the truck. No, Keith had not joined the guard, no, he had not joined job corps. He was just trying to stay out of trouble. Was he succeeding, I asked. No, not really. He's looking for a job, but has not been looking too hard. Here's his cell phone number; I know he'd like to hear from you. On my way back to Leland, I thought I saw someone waving to me in an old Blazer when I stopped at the four-way. I wasn't sure, but the Blazer followed me through the two turns to my house, and as I got out of the truck, I realized it was Keith, with his absurd grin and do-rag covering his ridiculous hair, and my face lit up. I just stopped by your house. I know, my momma called and said you was there. I gotta go drop my sister off now. This where you stay? Yeah, this is where I stay. Aight, well, I'll holla at you some time. Ok Keith, I got your number, I'll give you a call. We still haven't managed to get lunch. But I have the number and if it changes, I always know where he lives. So I hope we'll get to sit down and talk, and maybe he can muster up some sort of initiative, some sort of drive. I just don't want to imagine that absurd smile extinguished behind a paper-bagged bottle, on a porch that isn't a porch, waiting for a future that has already come and gone.