Stepping Up and Breaking Through

Jose is in high school! He was one out of five students selected to take high school freshman level psychology classes as part of a program with PACE. Every day during 8th period he and four other students take the bus over to the high school. Last year during 8th period he was either wandering the hallways or not in school at all. Needless to say this is a huge accomplishment for Jose. He’s loving it and totally stepping up to the plate.

I’ve been holding off from asking him about his mom. For one thing, and this is one of the challenges of my job, I can’t do intensive therapy with students. I also don’t want to open a Pandora’s Box at a time when he’s excelling so much. I don’t want to dig up the emotional turmoil he is managing to cope with right now.

Part of why he’s doing better this year, besides the fact that his mother’s health is stabilized, is that he’s still living with his aunt. Jose was fighting with his mom’s boyfriend so much last year that he started staying out all night. He was finally moved to his aunt’s house and she actually has legal custody of him now. She is 23 years old, a mother of three, works full-time and goes to school at night. I thought I was juggling a lot! She literally gives us hugs she is so happy to see Jose’s improvements. It is good to know he is in a stable home environment with a positive role model. But, I also know his aunt is overwhelmed with responsibilities and has limited time for Jose. For now at least he’s keeping himself on track, and if and when he shows signs of slipping, I know his aunt will do all she can to help us keep him focused on graduating.

The main challenge I am facing now in class is finding a way to break through to a group of girls who are feeding off each other’s apathy. They are struggling to keep up with the class academically. It’s a combination of weak skill sets and a lack of interest. They are already on probation. If they do not improve they will be asked to leave our class, and most likely that means they will be held back another year or drop out altogether. I have to break through the apathetic wall they have up. Each one of them has to have some interest, something that I can use to get them reinvested in school. I know one likes to write, so I signed her up for our newspaper group. Hopefully by my next blog post I’ll have “cracked the codes” of the others. Stay posted.

We also hooked up with Big Brothers, Big Sisters mentoring program. Every week five of our kids will travel to this one company’s offices to meet with their mentors. They’ll take part in workshops on everything from drugs to college preparedness. This was the missing piece of our program. We wanted our kids to do something outside of the schools, and Big Brothers, Big Sisters is perfect program for us.

Uniforms, Introductions, and Rewards

It’s been an incredible week. Every single kid in our “overage” class showed up, each day, in full uniform. It may not seem like a big deal, but for me it’s clearly a huge gesture of respect and determination from this group. It’s a sign that I succeeded in breaking through to these kids on a personal level, that I tapped into their sense of hope and got them to buy-in to Open Heart-Open Mind’s program. On some level, I ignited their desire to change their lives.

Jose in particular blew me away. He’s not turning a new leaf – he’s just being his true self - a young gentleman, a strong leader, a determined and hardworking person. I knew last year this was his real nature, and that all the angry behavior and blowing off school were effects of his stress. I’d be lying though if I said I didn’t worry that he’d still end up in jail, despite the counseling. Luckily his arrest this summer sparked him to do some serious reflection on his life, and now he’s determined to graduate from middle school.

Its clear to me he’s not going to let anything get in the way of reaching this goal. He’s already emerged as a class leader, keeping the other kids in check. He even spoke to a few on his own that were showing disrespect, telling them that they need to take the class seriously or they will ruin this opportunity for everyone else. Jose also took it upon himself to walk right up to our new interns who were sitting in the school cafeteria during lunch. He stretched out his hand, looked them in the eyes, and introduced himself, following up with “Pleasure to meet you”. Amazing. I’ve never seen him or any other student I’ve worked with behave this way.

I can’t put into words how rewarding, and nerve-wracking this is. Now that I’ve got Jose and the other students to buy-in, I need to deliver. I need the steps I’ve laid out for them to graduate from middle school to actually work and I’ve got to keep them engaged even when they stumble, face hurdles, and feel the sting of disappointments.

"Overage Kids"

“Overage kids”. The term sounds like an oxymoron. In social work speak, it means kids who have been held back in school. Sixty percent of the students in my school are overage! The big unknown for me this year is how Partnership with Children is going to play out in a new program designed to help twenty overage kids in the school. It’s a first for me and the school to have a curriculum and class solely dedicated to these kids.

Over the last year we applied for a Middle School Betterment Grant to fund the program. A lot rides on it– either we’re going to succeed in bringing the kids up to speed, or they’ll lag further behind and most likely drop out, which statistically speaking means they’ll face higher chances for incarceration.

There’s a stigma - a sense of shame - for overage kids. They’re outcasts. Literally on the “margins”, they talk back to teachers who’ve given up on them out of frustration, and allow them to walk out of class and spend most of their time wandering hallways. Graduating from high school looks to them (and, their parents and some teachers) like a distant if not unattainable goal.

These kids are struggling academically because of social and emotional turmoil in their lives, and without the support of their parents, teachers, and school administrators, they fail their classes and get held back, sometimes for a few years in a row. Take Jose (not real name) for example. I worked with him last year, during a time when he was dealing with personal issues that any adult would find stressful.

His mother was so ill “Jose” had to serve as her caretaker. The roles between parent and child were completely reversed. He had to feed, bath, and dress her. His parents split up long ago. His mother’s illness was probably contracted from his drug-using father. All this was happening against a backdrop of drug use and gang violence in his neighborhood. When he came to school, he could not handle adult authority, particularly his female teachers. He cursed at teachers, failed tests, got into fights. At the same time, he’s this totally charismatic, intelligent young man.

Since he failed last year, “Jose” is now an overage student. It sounds bleak, but I see two options for him – either our program is going to help him turn his life around or he’s going to drop out and end up in jail. He was already arrested this summer. Right now, he’s at the fork in the road, and I’m the sign. I can help point him in either direction. Getting arrested this summer was his wake up call. He knows he’s been tossing his life away.

Is “Jose” going to turn things around and graduate from school or is this a short-lived enthusiasm that is only going to set him, and me, up for disappointment and failure? That’s what I’m waking up thinking about every day. And he’s just one out of twenty kids in the program.