Never Stop Trying

Sitting in the theater, waiting for the show to start, I watched as a woman led a trio of young boys to a row of seats in front of us.  Two of the boys looked so familiar.  One locked eyes with me, gave a little wave, and turned back to his family.   Several more times he and I looked at each other, smiling with recognition.   For the first half of the show, I tried to figure out who he was. And then his name came to me, as did the name of his brother.   

My brain bubbled with curiosity, and my heart swelled with gratitude.  These boys made it out.  How, I do not know.   I figure the countless teachers, Healthy Start coordinators, and other school staff members who had confronted the family, filed Child Protective Services complaints, surrounded these boys with love, and tried to provide some of their basic needs all played a roll.    They never stopped trying, even when it seemed nothing was ever going to change for these kids.

As I watched them interact with such love and connection with the woman they sat with, I thought about where I knew them from...  I remembered their sunken cheeks, sallow complexion, dry stiff hair.  I remember them wearing shoes too big and shirts too small, freezing in the cold rainy weather.  Shaved heads from lice, and rotten teeth from lack of dental care. How they would ask for food and look hungrily at anything you were eating.  How they struggled with learning, and were battling twin barriers of environmental deficits and learning difficulties. 

But mostly I remember the effects of their emotional neglect.  They were starved for attention of any kind, and were traveling down the path of accepting negative attention as the easiest and quickest attention to get. They were often confused about expectations.  They were distractable, could not sit still, and seemed to move like whirling dervishes through their day.  Some adults mentioned ADHD.  They both had behavior support plans. Both repeated Kindergarten.

These boys, and their two siblings, lived in deep poverty. Lives fraught with homelessness,  mental health issues, drug and alcohol abuse, violence, lack of food, fractured families, frequent moving, inconsistent or non-existent adults, and extreme lack of resources.   They lived with step uncles, ex-grandmas, fathers, mothers, grandmothers, sisters of step-fathers, etc.  They lived in a shack with no running water or kitchen or bathroom or even beds. They slept in heaps of clothes and bedding with dogs. They lived in a broken down trailer out behind another house. They lived behind the wall of a compound, with angry dogs and angrier men.  Occasionally an adult would get it together (threatened by CPS or the school), and these boys would come to school with clean clothes and scrubbed faces. For a week or so. But when the adult fell back into the chaos of addictions, the boys were dropped back into the desolation of neglect and abuse.

Their teachers and the staff members of their school cared and fought for them. They held student study meetings and IEP meetings. They filed CPS reports, had special conferences with whatever family members they could contact.  They fed them, clothed them, gave them books, kept them in at lunch and recess so they could be warm and get extra attention.   

I remember packing extra food for lunch, so I could give them a snack.   I remember they would come to my office at recess and hang out, wandering around looking for things I might give them (food, notebooks, pencils, toys). For Christmas, I bought them hats and gloves because they were so very cold waiting for the bus.  The hat and gloves disappeared into the rubbish of their house, never to be seen again. But oh they were so proud of those warm things for the day or so they had them at school.  I would go into their classrooms to give them extra help in class, and pull them to my room for extra help with homework and reading. The Americorp worker I supervised did the same. 

If a school could have adopted a group of kids, our school would have.  Often, the belonging, optimism, pride, purpose, and place provided by a school is enough to make the difference in a kid's life.  But sometimes it isn't enough. Sometimes the only way a kid is going to survive is to get out.  If they don't get out, their chance of carving out any bit of a good life is about zero.

Oh wonderful day!  These two boys, they made it out.  They made it out into a home filled with love and light.  They have a chance. They have hope.  To see them interacting so happily, with round cheeks, glowing eyes, shiny hair, and clean well fitting clothes just took my breath away.   I spoke with them and their new mom. She explained how much progress they had made in a short time. It was so obvious they were in a good place.  The one boy talked about remembering me, and about our interaction at school.  He remembered I was "Dr. Gibson" and seemed really happy to see me.  The other boy would not recognize me, or could not.   It doesn't surprise me. He had suffered so terribly, more than his brother had, because he was more sensitive to it all.  I don't doubt he's blocked the whole thing out, though I had actually spent the most time with him, and invested the most interventions with him, not his brother who remembered me.

Sometimes, all the things we do which don't seem to get anywhere... sometimes the effort pays off and life does get better for a kid.  It's that starfish parable.  For all the kids that don't make it, we feel sad. But we keep trying because for that one kid who makes it, it matters more than anything.

Never Stop Trying.

Kentucky Knows About Hope

"Wow!  The research shows that what feels like 'the right thing to do' actually IS the right thing to do!"

After spending the day in Corbin, Kentucky working with teachers, administrators, and counselors in the Southeast/South-Central Educational Cooperative, I know a little more about why Kentucky regularly makes the news for education improvements.  I walked away from this day with a deep respect and admiration for educators in general, and the members of this education cooperative most of all.   What especially impressed me about the educators we worked with is how they truly understand the importance of hope, and of the social and emotional aspects of learning.   In communities with high levels of poverty, schools provide one of the only pathways out of poverty. But those who work in schools must address the culture of poverty and help students feel they belong in school by providing optimism, hope, and a welcoming atmosphere.  Only then can we provide opportunities for students to develop personal pride and find purpose for their schooling and lives.    

"It's about relationships!"

At one point, Bob asked the group, "Students are doing well in elementary and middle school, and then they reach the high school and start faltering, failing, and even dropping out. What is happening?    What happens to the progress?"    A gentleman called out, "Relationships.  There are too many kids in the big high schools, and they get lost. There isn't anyone they connect with.  It's about relationships."  

Bob gave this administrator the microphone, and we listened as he explained more about students' need for connection and belonging, talked about how his staff worked to provide that belonging and connection.  Counseling, time for teachers to meet with students, and freshmen support courses were among the many interventions his staff employed.   When I spoke with him later, he shared the long list of questions he had for his staff to consider. I asked what he'd taken away from today, since he obviously understood the importance of  the Culture of Hope.  "I take away more support for what I'm always preaching about at school.   I have new phrases, new language to explain how important relationships are for our kids."   He then told me his story of how he ended up in education.  Took my breath away....

"I was a good student.   But it changed in 4th grade, when I went for a drink of water. When I came back to class, my teacher asked where I had gone, and when I replied, 'I went for a drink,' she slapped me.  From that moment, my grades plummeted and I hated school.  I became that kid no teacher wants in their class. I figured, if teachers can disrespect students that way, why should I respect them?  I became that rebellious, belligerent student, I "passed" Geometry with a D-, because the teacher didn't want to see me again.  Eventually, I became a teacher because I wanted to make a difference, and help ensure what happened to me didn't happen to other kids.  As an administrator, I push my teachers to look beyond students' prickly presentation to see the pain, disconnection, and issues which may be behind the negative behavior. Those students who are pushing us away are the ones who need us the most."   

"The students who push us away the most are the ones we need to connect with the most..."

Every table shared stories of students, teachers, and situations that filled my heart to bursting.   At this table, educators struggled with how to challenge inequities that were perpetuated by administrators and school boards.  At another table, an administrator planned with his team of teachers and counselors how to build consensus with his school that All Students could learn and be held to high standards.   Over at that table, a lone principal sat, reflecting.   He said, "I can't begin to put plans on paper. I need to think about all we've been given today."   One superintendent pushed her team to consider scheduling and the benefits of semester vs. trimester schedules. She explained, "There are benefits to both, but we need buy-in of the whole team, and we're divided as a district."    Another team leader was trying to decide where to start, given the high turnover of staff in the last two years, and she talked through the issues, finally determining that optimism was the best place to start because everybody can contribute to optimism. It is a failure-free concept.

"Optimism is a failure-free concept. Everyone can contribute to optimism, regardless of their skill set or role in the school."

At one table, a principal worked with his team, looking like a general leading a war-room conference, except they were smiling and eagerly planning their next steps.  As I knelt down to listen in on their conversation, I learned this school had gone from bottom of their district (in the 300's for ranking in the state), to top 10 in the state in a period of 5 years.  How did they accomplish this amazing transformation?  Relationships, high expectations, optimism. And a lot of collaboration and community building. The Culture of Hope resonated with this group, and the principal indicated he'd read our book and found it to be one of the best books on educating students living in poverty.  (Wow!)   

To see what this school had done, the enthusiasm that poured off of each person at the table....   The vice-principal, when asked what they saw as next steps, said, "We're always looking for what's next.  We know we're never done, and there's always something we can do to increase the impact we have on every student."  One teacher at this table said that he benefited from the new language for things they were already doing. Another way to understand the why behind their actions.

"Our families are so poor, they can't even begin to think about education for their kids. They know it's important, but they just don't have the bandwidth to get involved.  We take care of the education piece, and help them access resources for the rest..."

When Bob presented information about the crushing nature of poverty, and the disconnect between poor families and the middle class institution of schooling, a principal stood up: "Our school serves a student population with over 85% poverty. Parents know how important education is, and they want education for their children. They just don't know how. It isn't that they don't care, it's that they can't muster the resources to do much. So we take responsibility for the education and we provide resources and support for the rest.  Our families are real pleased with what we are doing, and that keeps the kids in our school instead of moving every six months." 

One of my favorite comments came from a teacher who said, "I love getting the research that explains why what I've felt was 'the right thing to do' IS the right thing to do.   Nice to know my gut instincts have research to back them up."  This statement resonated with me, because my time with the Southeast/South-Central Educational Cooperative showed me that the Culture of Hope has solid, real-world, practical application.   Every time someone spoke, they brought to life an element of the Seeds of Hope or the Power of We.  While the Culture of Hope was borne of Bob's experiences working with schools for 15 years, my work with the Culture of Hope is from my own experiences as a teacher in high-poverty schools, as well as my research for the book. Witnessing the hope pulsing in the room, backed up by what these educators were doing every day with and for their students, humbled me deeply. 

"Kids don't have real futures in their communities.  If they want something more than minimum wage jobs, if they want a career, they need to leave home.  But they won't learn about the options unless we teach them."

Yes, Kentucky knows about Hope. Kentucky knows about the promise of a better life that is every child's birthright. Thank you, Southeast/South-Central Educational Cooperative. As educators, we have the ability to make a difference every day.  And that is why, when it gets hard and overwhelming and there are too many things that we need to do, we dig in, work with our students and colleagues, and never give up hope.

-Emily Gibson, 2014, Corbin, KY

 (Note:  All quotes are paraphrased from memory, and some stories are condensed from several stories for ease of reading. Thank you to all for sharing your realities and the realities of your students.)