Small Wins

First of all I apologize for leaving you in the dark following the last post. As it turns out it was some kids that are neighbors that have a history or breaking and entering. They like to try out the new people in the area. It was a coincidence that it happened when it did. However, it would’ve been a bad deal had they made it inside.

This week has been extremely busy. A Covid outbreak caused almost half of our staff to be out including the Principal. This is the first opportunity I’ve had to take a pause and get through a complete thought.  Every day I made the rounds to make sure we had our 60% attendance in order to remain in school for the day. Most days we made it with a handful of students to spare. With half of the staff out we had as many subs as we could get and still combined classes to get through the day. Of course, in these situations discipline problems are always more frequent and I spent a lot of time on the move.

There are times when small wins seem like big wins. This week had a few instances where this occurred. Students that had been openly hostile and wouldn’t talk suddenly opened up and walls that had been there fell. One thing I realized is that the questions that were relevant at schools at home were no longer relevant. Open ended questions such as what do you like were met with silence. I changed my approach and began asking pointed questions such as, “Do you like to hunt?” When I began using this approach I started making progress.

One big thing that we have decided to work on is high school students knowing what grade they’re in and what a plan for graduation would look like. So many of our students have no idea the grade they’re actually in. It blew my mind when I realized this was the situation. Back home, students know their grade as well as they know their birthday. Seniors know what classes they need for graduation but not here. There are no counselors on campus. We have a remote counselor that the students never see. I’m trying to help as much as I can with this. We have a junior girl who wants to go to college to study medicine so that she can come back here and help her community but she has no idea how to go about starting the process. Others don’t know the many opportunities that exist in the world. All they know is what they see every day.

One student that I had so much trouble with for the first week was sent to my office one day this week. I finally got the question right for her. She gave me an opening and the next thing I know I’m actually having a conversation with her. The next day I passed her in the hall and she smiled at me. The third day I ran into her outside the office and she smiled and spoke to me. I stopped and we had a conversation like to normal people who had known each other for a while. What I found out that explained a lot is that her brother is in prison and she blamed all white people for him being sent away. She hated all whites. The battle for her was her hatred for whites and the fact that myself and the principal have been consistently nice to her and have tried to help her with her problems. I think she has been at war with herself. She finally broke down crying in the office one day and it was after that the change occurred. That is one example but there have been several instances like that this week.

With small wins like these eventually I feel that a difference can be made in the lives of some of these kids. I know we can not win every time but if we stay consistent and firm in our commitment we can make a big enough difference that just maybe the impact will be felt in this community for years to come.