Small Gifts

Somewhere along the line you receive small gifts. They are not financial, or material at all. Maybe some folks would not even recognize them as they come along. Maybe for Bernie it is the fact that I am still sitting at my computer typing away at this thing that has become a voluminous , yet somehow satisfying, monster made of words. Anyway the school year has come to an end and my senior students are moving on with their lives today, graduation day. Yesterday I received exactly three gifts. The first was a thank you card. Now I said the gifts were not material, this is not an exception, for it is what was written in the card that is the gift. The particular student who gave me the card poked fun at me all semester for creating sentences including as many of the weekly vocab words as possible. Out of ten words the closest I came to using all of the words in one sentence was nine vocab words in one sentence. It became rather humorous, as the students would groan in disbelief, and advise me to get a life. So the small gift I received was the smile that grew on this old face when the Thank You note was written using ten of the vocabulary words that had been taught during the semester (and used properly by the way) ;-}
The next gift walked in the door after all of the grades had been added up, and all of the students who were graduating knew it. One student brought me his portfolio. I said, " But Daniel, you passed." He replied that he knew, but he still wanted to turn it in. We went on to discuss his plans for the future, which college he would attend, and such. I will predict Daniel will do well in this world:->
But probably the most poignant gift came later that day. It came from a student who I am sure has a learning disability, but has always had a network of people, however well meaning, that protected him from being evaluated. They did this by "helping" him with his work. I know this because his in class work never possessed the quality his outside projects displayed. By sheltering him they neglected to realize that he needed help, and he would never receive it as long as they protected him from the reality of his situation. So when it came time to graduate he could not pass at college prep level. I refused to play the game, and pass him along as having achieved an acceptable level of college preparation. He is simply not ready for college. He is going to graduate with applied arts credit. But if he chooses to go to college, hopefully he will go in at a remediated level, and just possibly receive access to the resources he needs to be successful, resources he has probably needed since grade school. But I worked with him as he tried to bring his grade up. He had an author research paper which needed revision as he had confused the author' life with the short story he had read. I read the story to him out loud, and we discussed the story and the author. He had to relate how the author's life and influences were displayed in the type of writing she did. It was an impossible task for him as, even with hours of coaching, he could not comprehend what the story was about, nor could he separate the author's life from the story. Here is where the gift comes in. While reading the story to him I became emotional at the sad ending as the story was about two brothers, one of whom was treated badly all of his life. The badly treated brother ends up saving the life of his more fortunate younger brother, but in doing so he loses his life. The story is "The Half-Brothers" by Elizabeth Gaskell. I was unable to continue reading the story out loud because I was badly choked up. I had the student read the last paragraph silently on his own. After reading and discussing how Gaskell wrote many things involving family relationships, the student went on to rewrite his introduction and plot summary. I read it and I was so frustrated by what I read, not angry, but that kind of despair that accompanies a strong desire to help, and it just goes sadly wrong. I asked him to come see me the next day. I discussed the situation with my cooperating teacher, and when the student came to see us the next day we told him he did not pass at college prep level, but that he would still graduate at Applied Arts level. He still seemed so unhappy as he turned to leave. He stopped and turned back to me and said, " Ms. Adams can I ask you a question?" I told him that, yes, he could. He asked " You know how the story made you sad?" I nodded, "Well did something bad like that happen in your life?" I assured him that nothing like that had ever happened to me, and that I just felt emotional about people who were treated badly in life and still cared about others. The story was sad is all. The student then smiled broadly as if vastly relieved and went out with his friends. He was more concerned about me than he was about whether or not he passed or failed. That was the most beautiful gift I received all day, all semester for that matter. Somehow he will make it in this world.
I must sign off for now, the mean one is getting misty.