Open Features: With Patience, Teaching Can Be A Learning Experience
Sallie O'Donnell says that success stories are few and far between in a teaching career. When they do happen they are thrilling beyond compare. This is the story of Laura, who, as a 15-year-old, was dragged into a classroom by a truant officer.
Laura entered my life in l968 when she was 15. She was dragged into my classroom by the truant officer after being pried loose from the neighborhood arcade, her favorita haunt.
I was in charge of an alternative education program for high-risk potential dropouts. Laura appeared to be a highly qualified candidate. She was sullen, surly, sarcastic and slovenly. We became instant friends.
She hated school, but was a teacher's dream. She had a quick, questioning mind and loved to read. With my supportiveness and nagging - and her native talents - we managed to clean up her act. She reached her senior year clearly a transformed young lady.
I was not overly distressed by her F's in history. Laura had managed to pull the rabbit out of the hat before. But not this time. The teacher held firm. Three missing homeworks constituted a failure (school policy) and Laura had been warned. It meant summer school and an August graduation at best.
Only I was misty eyed when we met tht last day of school. "I need to get on with my life. I want to have kids and a home of my own," she said.
She knew I was disappointed and our parting was uncomfortable and awkward. I never got to her wedding and we lost touch. Whenever I thought of her, it was always with the pain of failure a teacher feels when potential is lost.
Then in 1981 Laura re-entered by life. She opened the door to my classroom and won me back immediately with, "You haven't changed a bit."
Her life had not been easy. Widowed, the mother of three (one with Down's syndrome), she was back to get her transcripts. She planned to take the high school equivalency exam, become a teacher's aide to supplement her insurance and complete college.
"I will be a special-education teacher. I have so much experience and love to give," she said.
Our friendship resumed and the years melted away. She had "caught up" to me agewise and the generation gap closed.
Her recollection of that June day 15 years ago was different from mine. I had never forgiven the history teacher (a friend of mine) for faililng Laura.
Laura, on the other hand, said, "She had to do what she had to do. I had choices and made them all on my own. Besides, I stayed in school to please you and hang out with you. I never really wanted to be there."
It's nearing graduation season and I have been thinking of Laura. Maybe we are not emphasizing enough an important element in the educational process. After all, how many excuses, how many second chances can we allow our kids? Don't we all have to learn to live with consequences of our choices once those consequences have been made clear? What better place to learn than in school before it's too late?
Laura did, on her own, in her own way. In fact, I would say that, despite me, she's my biggest success.
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Laura has acquired two Masters' Degrees, is an assistant principal at a junior high school in New York City and is awaiting appointment to becoming a principal. She and Sallie O'Donnell have remained friends for almost 40 years.
Sallie, a retired teacher and businesswomen, is author of "Animals, Vegetables and Minerals - From A to Z" a funny and extremely well-illustrated rhyming guide to sensible eating. The book is aimed at children, but adults can also enjoy and benefit from its pages. It can be bought from www.amazon.com (just type Sallie O'Donnell in the search box).
And delight of delights for Sallie, Laura is using the book in her junior high classes.
