Sunday

This morning, I took Pete for what we call a "constipation" walk, or as Paul calls it, a "consti-Petie" walk. Now that he's in his golden years, aged 12, he sometimes has difficulty with "regularity," so we, (or should I say, I) try to walk him a lot for his relief, as well as his excitement. Staying in the house all day with nothing but a sleeping cat must be horribly boring. As we turned into the woods, I spotted a colorful orange patterned turtle sitting on the path. In all the years I've walked in those woods, I've never seen a turtle there. I approached cautiously, remembering the time we confronted a genuine snapping turtle. Years ago, Liberto, Paul and I were driving to the movies. We turned onto a side street in the Windsor Forest neighborhood and saw a huge turtle plodding along the middle of the road. We got out of the car to have a closer look at it, to decide whether to move it to the curb, so it wouldn't be squashed by the next car. Paul still remembers to this day how that dull, sleepy turtle head, hanging lethargically from its armor shell, came to life in a split second and snapped viciously at Liberto, who leaped back in horror. I don't know what became of that turtle because we peeled away.

Today's turtle just sat there. I wondered whether it was alive. I tossed a twig gently at its shell and the head moved. Was it someone's pet turtle that had been abandoned there to die? I questioned whether I should drive it to the wetlands at the dock. But I remembered that big ole snapping turtle from Windsor Forest, the sound of its jaws clacking closed like a steel trap. So I turned around and walked home since Pete had gotten his relief already, and looked it up on the internet. I discovered it was a box turtle whose natural habitat is woods located near water. So this one was just out for a stroll, I concluded, and didn't go back to offer assistance.

Continuing my on-going de-cluttering project, I was tickled to find an unexpected $10 bill in my closet this morning. Not enough to retire on, but enough to make me feel lucky. Then Liberto and I went to Wal-Mart for the food haul. We also buy our household items and cleaning products there. Since he's going to Venezuela in a few weeks, Liberto has been buying and stockpiling those lovely stick-on heating pads for his father, who loves the heat on his muscle aches. We never go to Wal-Mart without running into someone we know. This time, it was a student from Groves named Andre, who was a very talented and bright guy. But last spring, he stopped coming to my senior English class. I called his home a few times, to no avail. This morning, he was wearing a Wal-Mart uniform. I said hello and told him I'd missed him when he disappeared. He didn't elaborate but told me "some things happened" between him and his mother, and he'd had to move out. Then he couldn't afford the gas to drive to school. Thus, he'd stopped coming. But now he is at Windsor Forest High School finishing up his senior work.

Many students have issues going on in their home lives that teachers can't see in the classroom. This is true at Richmond Hill as much as Groves. At Richmond Hill, I have a student who seems druggedly sleepy all the time.
He plods in and plops forward onto the desk in slumber. I shake him a few times during class, and he looks up, stunned and faraway, and then falls forward again. I've contacted the guidance counselor about him, hoping she could set up a parent meeting. His parents are "unavailable," she's told me, and added that has a freon-sniffing addiction, which makes him tired. Most of the time, this boy is in ISS or OSS. I can't fathom how he has the energy to do anything bad enough in other classes to warrant a disciplinary referral. Another loose cannon in that same class is a boy who has a desperate, desperate need for attention and disrupts constantly. He has openly stated that his parents are cocaine addicts. I don't know what he's on, but I've had to write him up because his daily disruption is extreme. The AP told me that he's trying to "clean out" the class of the vagabonds, and he's been true to his word. I haven't seen this boy for several weeks because he's been out on OSS. I overheard another AP state that he's a hair's breadth away from expulsion. I feel sorry for his situation, and the other boy's too, but I think their problems should not carry over into the classroom enough to prevent others from learning. Another boy was a little mischievous one day, so I called his mother, a teacher in the same school system. She apologized for his behavior and promised he would apologize to me the next day. She added, "He may be a little hyper these days because I'm going through a divorce, and my ex and I are in a custody battle over him." Yes, I can imagine how this would be a weight on his mind during school hours.

I'm so academically focused that I have to remind myself frequently about the unbelievable burdens which many students carry in silence. Imagine it from the opposite perspective. How well would I do at my job if I had a secret drug habit, an abusive spouse, a pending eviction, or no lunch money?

The social elements of high school are also intense. I reach back over the decades and become my 15-year-old self, a student in high school and even now, I recall with bittersweet feelings how hugely crucial the social aspects of high school were, far more important than academics. For a few seconds, I can re-experience the harrowing emotions associated with teenage social life. Would my crush of the week look at me, notice me, pass me a note? Would I be invited to Susie's party that I'd heard about (hadn't gotten an invitation yet!!) Did my clothes look stylish enough? How about that unruly hairstyle? What could I do to be more popular? Would I say or do something stupid that everyone would see?

The students I have now experience all of the above issues, and often many more. Reminding myself of this increases my compassion. I feel strongly that I should never humiliate a student in front of others no matter how evil he or she appears to be. A belitting remark from a teacher in a public forum will be remembered for years to come. Yet, teaching is a hard job, and by the end of the day, I can see how a teacher, myself included, might blurt out something less than diplomatic to the student who is tossing the LCD remote across the room to another student.