Another year gone. Did it count?

Just finished another school year. It was a high casualty rate this year. Out of twenty-six juniors in one class, eleven failed. Here's the tough part, they chose to do so.

'Mark,' you start off, 'We think you're just a crappy teacher.' Well, sure if you are any teacher at all, you should go there. What can I do differently? What didn't I do? All of it. Many times we can, as teachers, differentiate our teaching and adapt. But sometimes, sometimes we need to let choices be lived out.

I've heard people say that kids don't choose to fail. They would be wrong. I've seen it. I've talked to them. I've actually heard them say 'I choose to fail.' Why?

That's all they know. They're comfortable with it. They've been told all their lives they were worthless, no good, wish they were never born, by those that were suppose to be their biggest fans. Some of the lives of these students are what make up bad movies. Their lives are terrible. They are old before their time. Parents? What parents? I am a firm believer that some parents-many parents, should never-ever be parents. They leave a wake of damaged children in their path. Somehow they breed and have children they don't care about, sometimes even hate. The cycle continues with the next generation.

But then there are those students that walk into class, torn, worn, beaten, and still they would rather spend the day with me than at home. It always happens just when you are contemplating changing your career path and thinking that being a roofer is the Arizona summer sounds like a nice break from this gig we call teaching. There's a look in their eyes. So, we take a walk, using whatever the non-educators at the state tell us we should be teaching. Ahhh, and here is the best part-I have learned that I can adapt and teach Life using anything-ANYTHING. Somehow, I can find an application to these young minds while identifying a preposition; how about Shakespeare? Way too easy. Give me a stick and a ball of twine and I will tie a life skill and a literary element to it. I can look any geek from the state in the eyes and justify why I used pudding pops and sock puppets to explain the literary element of characterization in Homer's Iliad while the transcendental metaphor was ignored. Yeah, I know, it makes me dry heave too. Same with the kids. We don't teach this crap for any other purpose than to help them understand the life they've been given. So, I usually tell the kids -"Look, the parts to Shakespeare you can't understand, well, those prose were probably written in the afternoon after he had been drinking rum all day because the water in London was so foul (sucked). The stuff that makes sense-the 'once again into the breach...' that good stuff? He wrote that in the morning before he got tanked." They buy it because instead of rum-momma's live-in-boyfriend is doing Cobra 40's.

Some of these kids, actually, most of them, will be the first in their family to graduate from high school. In some countries they make doctors out of a high school graduate. Here, you'd be lucky to mop the blood off the floor of the surgical room the doctor was in.

So, we as teachers, are running for the door at this time of year. This teaching crap really takes its toll. Lives are used up and spent before they even have a chance to grow whiskers. We get front row seats at the train wreck. We can even predict them, with almost 100% certainty. But, then there are those that have the eyes, looking into mine. The worn out and broken ones that somehow show up and stay.

I think about the course changes that have brought me to this very spot. In some districts, I'd be fired for talking to someones little spoiled brat the way I do. Here at my school, ahhhhh---I have students like 'Jose' come up to me. He was timid, shy, struggling with the language and life. He was almost completely broken, badly bruised, and his heart had been spoiled.

He waited until the room was empty before he spoke. "Mister, is it true?"

"What?" I responded. I was distracted with something meaningless.

"Is what you say, is it true?"

"About what?" I don't even think I looked up when he clarified. It took a minute before the radar picked up something.

"About what you told us all year, that whatever we can dream, we can do? I come from a real bad neighborhood and life. I don't want that. They shoot people and do drugs on the corner. My cousin, he wants me to join his gang-I want what you said."

Its was then that a middle-aged teacher's back straightened. Somewhere deep inside, as I get older, I find myself looking back and identifying, in times like these, with my heritage. My one grandfather was a Scotsman and my other was a rancher in the 19th century. Both, if they heard this, and I reckon they did, would look at each other and wink.

Grandaddy Jim's family, my brother and I figured, were not great warriors in Scotland; maybe his great grandfather, although doubtful. They were probably bakers. But in Scotland three hundred years ago, you were all warriors. You all went to the fight with whatever you had-an axe, a mallet, a long stick sharpened on the end. Your clan lived for a good war. You'd kiss your wife goodbye whom, by the way, could kick your ass, and you'd go. "Aye, looks like the lad is in need of some guidance he is," James would say, swirling some fine single-malt as he watched my show from the other side.

"Yep, reckon the boy needs someone with a good rope and a strong back to carry him if need be," Harrison would say missing the spittoon and leaving some pug on his chin. Grandad Harrison's idea of fine medicine was a kerosene soaked rag wrapped around whatever open, leaking wound he had, usually caused by a dull knife covered in cow dung. He would gargle with it when he had a sore throat. The brothers and I tried the kerosene treatment. It actually worked. He had the rag always with him, around his neck. it was his kerchief and if he needed to, he'd blow his nose in it too.

Sometimes, when God sets you down where you are, you don't know why most of the time. You look around and you question the foundation of life. 'This isn't my plan.' But sometimes, sometimes, he lets you see behind the veil. Instead of flying fighters off of a carrier, I am here. Aye, tis a good day for a fight! I could hear in the back of my brain.

"Yeah, Jose, every word is true-every word. Stay, and I'll show you," the old middle-aged teacher said.

Yeah, give me time and pen and paper. I'll make it fit into anything the state wants me to 'teach.' I'll even issue a grade.

As you read this, I am on my way to graduation. I don't want to be late. Jose is walking. He will be the first one on his block to graduate from high school.