Grey Areas

Olivia almost killed herself last week.

Lines are fuzzy; areas are grey; values aren't always black and white.  I don't think I've ever been one hundred percent certain of what I should do with a student in any given situation.  There is always two sides, there is always twenty five factors to write into the equation, and when the equation finally balances out.... the answer isn't always right.

My students and their parents are involved in extremely codependent love hate relationships. My students see their parents as both friends and enemies, but they don't really see them as their parents. They will humiliate their parents, physically beat them, throw them under the bus, and then turn around and put a bullet in your head if you say anything remotely negative about them. It's completely messed up, but I still make sure I get in tight. I am connected with  every single student's closest adult family member by text or social media on a regular basis. 

Whoever said that an alternate student's parent doesn't want to be involved in their kids school experience is dead wrong. As a teacher I just have to open the dialogue in a non threatening way that doesn't throw gas on their social anxiety fire. They might hate the system but they are thirsty for positive influence and friendship...and they do want help. I go to their homes and eat dinner with them, I get invited to birthdays and baby showers. I am absolutely involved in their lives on so many levels.  However, this is risky business and requires an extreme level of balance.

First and foremost, I work for my students.  They are my priority and my focus. I am entwined throughout their entire world, and therefore, I get respect both as a family member and as a teacher. The super crazy part is that I have to balance this dedication to them with my relationship with their parents. It's almost an art.  Both my students and their parents have to have one hundred percent faith in my guidance without seeing me as taking the other one's side. I do succeed in sustaining this balance ...and the kind of influential power that I have because of it is extreme. I use it to literally change their lives.

Then shit gets grey.

I've been working with Olivia's (not real name) family for three years now. She has the scariest family I've ever known.  Guns, knives and wrench fights. Weekly police visits. Heads through walls, nightly fist fights. Eleven people in one house, three older brothers addicted to methamphetamine, two violent alcoholic parents.  An entire home running on violence and self-destruction, but the loyalty to each other is extreme. The love is abusive, but there is definitely a lot of love, and it is very strong.

My Olivia was sleeping with her phone and her money in her hand, under her pillow .  She was ready to grasp her valuables the moment a family member tried to steal them. The whole family  has always been very open about their situation, Olivia is a tough little girl and her defense is extreme bad language, constant threats, and an attitude problem that would instantly kill most people's grandmas. I've worked hard with Olivia and her mom, but as a society our backs were turned. Everybody just accepted that this was the family's reality and shook their heads at the horrendous situation. The police didn't intervene, except to stop the fights and throw one or two of them in jail for the night. This family needs so much help.  Perhaps the situation was too scary for anyone to take it on?  Too overwhelming to face?

Olivia messaged me last Friday night. She said that she needed to be removed from her home. She said she was worried that her mom might hurt herself if she leaves, she called herself her mom's rock, but she said she was having suicidal thoughts again and she just couldn't go on living in the violent prison that was her reality.  I told her I would get her out.

She was her moms rock. What an incredible weight.

It was at this moment that I realized how incredibly trapped Olivia was. She was the only one in the house not addicted, and it was up to her to keep everyone else alive.  Sleeping with a death grip on her money.  

Olivia survived the weekend in her room and took what little possessions she owns to school with her on Monday. I watched in tears as our community came to together for this child. Policemen, social workers, counselors, teachers, principals, and youth workers rallied around Olivia and created an effective plan for her immediate safety and well-being. The first policeman in the room gave Olivia a hug and said "You are an incredibly brave girl."  That cop knows her.  That cop had her back turned. Olivia is now protected and completely isolated from her family. I was proud of our community last Monday. 

Throughout this week I have seen a drastic positive change in Olivia. I pick her up for school everyday now. I realized, with shock, that I have never before heard her tell normal teenage fun stories until this week. She said to me yesterday, "My suicidal thoughts are gone.  I didn't realize that all it would take to get rid of them was leaving my house. " Profound.

I guess my question to myself is, what if Olivia had not messaged me last Friday night, might she have killed herself instead? Am I so intertwined in the lives of my students, in balancing the family equations that the situations have actually become math problems instead of human issues?

I don't really have answers...but what I do know is that these math problem are hard...really fucking hard.

I've been scared of writing a new blog entry for almost a year now. Honestly, sometimes life gets too tough and it's really not easy to write about it.  I had to take a step back, re-assess, re-create, and implement change. It's what good teachers do, but it definitely takes it's toll.

At the beginning of last school year I was super excited to begin a new adventure.  I was venturing out into new territory,  joining the movement in hip hop education that seemed to have swept the nation. I had my classroom re-modeled as a hip hop room.

I learned about rhythm and rhyme and the evolution of the rap world.  I read about Tupac and researched deejay equipment.  I recruited local hip hop artists and started encouraging my students to come out of their shells and get on the mic.  At first it was really incredible to watch their excitement.  The music drove them, the lyrics inspired them, I could see the passion in their eyes. I could feel the excitement vibrating through the air.

In no time at all I was lost in the lust, the inspiration, the lyrics....as well as the utter devastation and destruction that went along with it.


I watched in horror as the positive and empowering 'bubble' that I had spent years creating slowly started to deflate.  Over the next two months I struggled to keep my head above the water.  My intent had been to draw on the positive side of the hip hop industry.  The wordplays, successes and empowering lyrics.  However, I quickly realized that this was not the side of the hip hop industry that my students were interested in.  They couldn't get passed the negative side.  The drugs, the violence... the degration. I was being sucked dry.  All of my energy and all of my passion left my body.... and I crashed and burned.

I literally burnt out.  My flame went out.  I went home one Friday and I didn't go back. After fifteen years strong...I didn't show up on Monday....indefinitely.

It's funny because I can't even count on two hands how many people had told me over the course of ten years that I needed to start putting myself first."You need to slow down". "You have to put yourself before your students."  "You have to take steps to make sure your mental health is taken care of". Blah Blah Blah....that's all I heard.  I actually had no idea what healthy coping even was, and I spiraled out of control for a good 15 years. From addict husband to addict students.  I was so lost in crippling codependency that it wasn't even funny, and I thought I had it all under control.


I turned first to my doctor and a random therapist. After a while,  when I had finally kicked the pills that my doctor felt were necessary, I turned to mindful meditation. I was on a  journey to find the mental stability that I didn't know I didn't have.  Unfortunately, I had to push my students to the side.  I couldn't answer their calls or messages, or help them, or talk to them....I couldn't even think about them. When I finally succeeded in only focusing on me... I found myself.

I found myself.

My classroom this year is a far cry from the hip hop home of last September.  I have a lot of the same students, and I have a back room full of deejay equipment that still inspires them.  However, we begin our school days in a completely alternate existence.  It's a lamp lit room filled with sweet aromas and calming music.  We speak of our anxieties, our needs, our hopes, our dreams... and we meditate.  It's three weeks in and I'm already noticing massive changes in the focus and the disposition of my students.

This year my classroom is going to change the lives of so many people. I was changing lives before I even stopped to think about it. Obviously the more I understand about my own mental health...the more I can share, change, mold, and inspire.   I am completely committed to practicing mindfulness and sharing the power of focus with my students.

I don't think that I've ever had it exactly right (the practice of positively influencing young minds I mean), but I think that for now, I'm the closest I've ever been.....and that's pretty damn close.

Why would I invite an ex-gangster to teach with me in my classroom?

Because I'm not one. The reason I would invite an ex-gangster to teach with me is because I've never been property of the government, I didn't have 10 foster moms, I wasn't abused and thrown away, I haven't gang banged and I didn't have to bounce back from a negative childhood of crime, hatred and pain. I can empathize and try to understand, but I will never fully relate to my student's inner thoughts and deepest secrets...I just didn't live it.

I'm me and I'm one hundered percent raw and real in front of my students and they love me for it. I expose my flaws and my insides and I don't pretend to be someone I'm not. I want my students to practise authenticity too.  This is why I struggled with grasping how to teach the concepts and skills of hip hop and use it to deliver my message.  I redid my classroom and bought the dj equiptment...then what? I'm not a rapper and I'm not a lyrical or visual artist. I don't live the hip hop culture and I wasn't even sure I understood the concept of what I was doing.  What is hip hop? How was I possibly going to pull this off without loosing my authenticity?

my classroom

my studio

I was at my lake cabin this summer and my son had a few friends over.  I walked into my garage and there's this kid, and he's rapping...and he's exceptionally good.  I was immediately drawn to him, mesmorized by his words...the first thing out of my mouth after I shook his hand was, "I think I just found what I didn't know I was searching for".  Long story short, Jay-Jay, a.k.a J-Dub is straight from the streets of Los Vegas and spoke to me immediately about spreading a positive message through lyrics to kids who grew up like him. I know oppurtunity when it presents itself and I immediately brought him on board...right there in my cabin garage.

 J-Dub made his first appearance in my class this week.  He brought with him, Dave, aka Ministry Kid, an ex-gangster, local musician, lyricist, manger, and respected DJ.  Two individuals deeply immersed in our local Hip Hop scene and willing to spread my message of positivity and inspriration through education  and music.  My little voice just got way cooler and much LOUDER.

Through meeting with J-Dub and Ministry Kid, I am starting to see my role in this whole project a little bit clearer.  Hip Hop is an individualized perception of how one sees the world.  It's about telling your story and then redefining yourself to become the person that you truly want to be without being ridiculed for it. Hip Hop is finding your voice, it's about confidence and peer support and positive energy.  It's letting the confident person inside you come out and encouraging others to do the same.  I've seen the new appreciation for language and words that my students all of a sudden have in the face of hiphop.  My non-readers are studying poetry books and reading dictionaries trying to gain a broader understanding of the English language and practising word play, using metaphors.

Let's pause and think about this for a second...my anti-education alternate students are practising metaphors and writing poetry as a hobby. It's extraordinary. This is higher level thinking people. 

The best lyricists are language geniuses.  All of a sudden its super cool to use big words and sound educated when you talk? Genius! Hip Hop is motivational speaking put to a beat. Sure Hip Hop can be negative, like anything else, but with a positive spin and positive leaders, it becomes life changing and inpirational. If my alternate students can preach positivity and talk about changing their lives when they put it to a beat, then my voice just got even LOUDER. 

J-Dub (left) and Ministry Kid

J-Dub shared some of his newset lyrics and beats with my students and he didn't swear once. Apparently it's a choice!  It was interesting that noone in the room had ever met J-Dub, but all of them pulled out their phones to record when he started to spit his rhymes. These kids put rappers on pedestals, and as a teacher I need to embrace that.

One girl commented that we need his CD for our weight room since we often struggle with finding clean rap to pump.  All the kids laughed at this, huge smiles, the hurting cheeks kinda smiles. My students were held captive for a full hour while my guests rapped and preached about supporting eachother to find our voices and speak out against the negativity in which they live. They also touched on all of the avenues available through the Hip Hop world for job employment, and promised on going connections with people in the industry...video editing, fashion design, make-up, film, music, and art. This is what the new era of teaching is all about.  It's about humbling ourselves and admitting we don't know everything.  It's about partnering up with the leading experts in the community to get back to the idea that it takes a community to raise a child.  I am currently looking into numerous other partnerships. 

These Hip Hop boys talked about starting up a sober and positive "bars and beats night" in the school where students could come to free-style in a supportive and encouraging environment with a pass the mic approach. They are going to join me as educators in my classroom every two weeks to keep me on track.  They are going to teach how to count bars and make beats, how to write from your heart, use educated language, and rhyme to your own rhythm. They are going to give us the skills of hip hop and the courage to come out of our heads and rap our thoughts in a song. Girls who I didnt even know were interested in singing raised their hands when they asked about any female vocalists.  I saw true happiness in my students, but most importantly, I saw hope.

Ahhhhh...okay, now I'm starting to get it.  I don't have to become a rap artist or a dj to teach Hip Hop...I already am Hip Hop.  I inspire and I motivate, I tell my perception and my story and I'm raw. I encourage, and I create feeling.  Now it's time to step out of my box and put my inspiration to a beat...if my students 

are going to do it then I will too!  It's super scary!

Our little Education Centre in Chilliwack is carving a new name for itself. It's just the beginning, but this positive Hip Hop culture may just blow up! Watch out Chilliwack...

We are about to implement negative vibe elimination,  reaching out against descrimination through inspirational lyrical creation ...

Now go back and rap that last line I just made up...now rap it into a mic in front of your peers...now listen to your peers cheering you on and telling you how awesome it was, now feel the positive energy...lol, now that's what I'm talking about. 

 

Hip Hop Genius

I only last a couple of years before I start going stir crazy. I need change, I demand change, and I thrive off of it. Like many people I'm sure, when I repeat the same thing over and over, no matter what it is, I start to feel depressive thoughts set in. At the onset of Christmas break this school year, I was literally beating my forehead on my office wall. I didn't want to go into work. No matter what I did, the situation stayed the same. The kids kept getting beaten up by their parents, by their peers, and by society... no matter what I did. My program was awesome, but it was stagnent. They were sucking my positive energy dry. My thought was, "How long can I possibly keep this up before I malfunction? Heart attack? Emotional breakdown? Stress related organ failure?" I was actually having thoughts of leaving teaching all together. I needed change. Luckily, my principal is innovative and constantly revolving as well. In the last six months he recognized my need to redefine myself and my program, and he made me an offer.

My principal introduced me to the world of Hip Hop Genius. Not that I'm a stranger to rap music. I remember quite clearly blasting 'Too Short', 'Spice 1', 'Scarface' and 'Snoop Dogg' loudly from my brand new little black Hyundai all souped up with 20 inch subs, tweeters and a massive amp. I remember drinking, speeding and singing my super naive heart out to the overly degrading lyrics. I didnt give a $#%& back then, and the lyrics I sang let people know that. Today, these are the exact same artists and lyrics that I tell my students to turn off or turn down when I walk into the classroom. Now these rap songs annoy me. I physically feel the insults that are being thrown at women and the negativity that is intertiwned into every verse. As a person, I swear all the time, but I cringe at language that is thrown around in the rap songs. I feel negative and I just want it off.

So now, all of a sudden, I am being challenged to take a look at the world of hip hop through an entirely different lense. Hip Hop Genius is a culture, it's a way of life that encourages creating something out of nothing. It has been mainstreamed and commercialized straight out of the inner city ghettos where kids have had to fight their way to freedom. The message embedded into the hip hop genius culture is that you can make it out no matter what dire circumstances you were born into. I understand why the students that I teach would embrace this hip hop lifestyle. Alot of the rap lyrics do tell my students' own personal stories, they can identify with the negativity, and they love the endless alludence to quick money. How else are they going to make big money? Certainly not working a minimum wage job.

My plan is to take the highschool curriculum and intertwine it with the hip hop world. I want to expose the artists for who they are (and there are ALOT of great positive rap artists) and get the students to understand that the music they listen to is truly defining them. My students are consistently ranting about the 'crooked' government, anarchy, conspiracies and zombie apocalypses...they don't understand that the lyrics they are blasting into their brains all day (while I try to teach) is societal brainwashing at its finest. I want to teach them to use this musical avenue to express and to come to a deeper personal understanding of themselves. The difference is, instead of an essay, a powerpoint, or a fill in the blank questionaire...they will be rapping. Not only just creating the lyrics, but also mixing the beats to accompany them.

Hip Hop infused teaching is not only tapping into their interests, but it is also encouraging them to get out of their own heads. Rap creation is the current school curriculum concepts expressed through journaling, poetry, creative writing, art and music. Hip Hop is expression. It's brilliant really....if it's done tastefully. I have to make this work within the framework of the positive bubble that I teach in. I will never sacrifice my positivity or my famous classroom vibe. I want to take the fun side of hip hop, the poetic side, the personal side, and use it as a teaching tool... without letting in the degrading harshness that engulfs a lot of the rap music world. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against swear words...but only if they are used in the right way, to reinforce. Of course I will let my students use fuck in their rap music....if their lyrics are meaningful and thought provoked. I am highly sensitive to negativity, when I'm around it my body actually tenses up without me realizing it. The kids will learn quite quickly what is, and what is not acceptable.

I love the whole idea of this. I love that I will be using an avenue that my students identify with and are inolved in each and every day, with or without school influence. I love that I can show them a way to take their thoughts and feelings and open them up to the world. I love that I can teach them to identify which lyrics are poisoning their minds and which lyrics are making them stronger. I can teach them to take control and rap their way to a brighter and more positive future. They can change for the better ...and they will.

I have renovated my classroom to feel like a coffee shop sitting in a back alley way. Graffiti will be encouraged. My office has become a recording studio. I have innovative, creative young artists from Chilliwack and Vancouver who have offered to help me begin this journey. I have amazing new mixing and recording equiptment that I have to begin to understand, and I have an entire curriculum overhaul to be made. I am in my element again.... I feel free.

Let's just let our jail system fix it.

On June 13th, 2014, five students in my classroom will graduate from my program and enter the adult world. Every single one of these 5 boys have recently began to emphasize their need to stay in school. They have started panicking. When they leave me in June they have to begin life without the support of their class family. I have been their role model, their positive energy flow, and their stand in parent for years. They are scared of what it means to function without me. This is a legitimate fear as it actually seems like functioning healthily and legally after graduating from my Empowered Program just doesn't happen, or at least it hasn't happened yet. Every single one of my graduates is addicted to drugs or selling them. All of them tried hard for the first few months after graduation, but failed to get a job. The sad part is that every single one of them would happily trade their lives now to come back to the classroom and be supported, and feel successful. This is the complete and devastating truth.


This month I watched this incredible downward spiral unravel before my eyes. A student I recently graduated was coming by the class every single day. He would grab a computer, apply for jobs online, then he would grab resumes and leave hopeful that this was his lucky day. Hopeful that by nightfall, he would have a job. I would encourage him and praise him for his efforts each morning. At first he accepted my kind words, he would smile and step out of the room with a bounce in his step, full of hope. Then slowly he started to doubt that he would ever be hired. His positive hope turned to negative self-talk. He said he didnt think he was smart enough or looked good enough to be hired. He said he had trouble talking to the managers. He needed more help than I could give him. I have a classroom full of students that need me.

Then I noticed that he stopped pulling out the computer. He was still coming around the school in the morning, but he stopped talking about his job hunt. It didnt take us long to figure out he was dealing drugs to the other studnets. It's just too easy. Drugs are rampant in the lives of these kids. This student already spoke the language of the streets, he had the cliental and the product at his fingertips. He needed money and now he has cash in his pocket. Too easy. There are too many for me to consistently support into adulthood.

One parent writes, "My son has struggled through school, right from elementary with no success....his confidence was at an all time low and I let him quit school...he has started Stacey's program and his confidence went from 0-10...he now knows he isnt stupid...his self-worth and attitude have changed from night to day" Another one writes, "My son didn't get out of bed for two years and now his depression and anger are gone, thank-you". Another foster parent writes, "Thank-you so much for saving my child". A text message I received two days ago from a parent of a new student of mine reads, "I am so thank-ful that you have helped my son finally like to go to school. He was definitely not getting much positive reinforcement in the past". I could write pages of parent and guardian quotes that all sound the same. The general message is that they are grateful their children are finally being recognized for their strengths and are finally happy to go to school.

As a post elementary system we are beginning to get the alternate school experience right. This is fantastic. I watch my students flourish before my eyes. While they are with me, I see their confidence build and I see them try to change their negative thoughts and language to positive. I see them start to believe in themselves. Even my student who was born and raised in a remote reserve hours from civilization. This student watched his entire family die. He watched his cousins homes be burned to the ground, he watched his sister learn to live without arms, he was pulled from the drunk driving accident that his parents parished in. He can't even sit in the front seat of my car for fear that people will look at his face. He is so broken, and even he is currently succeeding within the loving walls of my room. Even he is trying to change his thoughts. I watch him struggle with the anger inside of him every single day. He only just recently began to let me hug him. He will be gone in June. Gone to what? Gone where?

This is where we are falling short. We are working hard on these kids for only a snap shot of their time on earth. Why are there no serious alternative supports before middle school, and none after highschool? These students are constantly compared to mainstream students all through elementary school. They feel stupid, they feel different, and they struggle to fit in. By the time our alternate system gets a hold of them in grade 7 or 8, they have already formed their negative self-talk and their self confidence is at rock bottom. They have felt alone at school since kindergarten. Our alternate sites finally give these courageous individuals a chance to show what they can do. Who cares if it's not algebra or a freaking novel study. These guys don't want to go to university. These students just want to be unjudged and successful in their own lives.

A small, loving, supportive alternate school environment from kindergarten right through until graduation would make our jobs at the alternate highschool make a little more sense. Why can't there be a different plan for these guys right from the start? Full support, a seperate acheivable curriculum that actually prepares them for the life they are going to live. A place where the teachers teach love and positive thinking and where hugs are rampant. A place where there is no comparison and they feel special. Too much to ask? Then I guess a university program that supports them in their job hunts, whatever direction that may be, is also too much to ask. A few years of success is all we, as a society, is willing to give them. When they turn 18 they are kicked out of the school system, out of their group homes, out of their foster homes, and onto the street. The only true support system we have developed for these guys, after they leave me, is the jail system. That should fix them.

Our jail systems must be pumping out successful, empowered individuals by the second, or else we would have something else in place for them. Wouldnt we? Its enough to make me scream.

I delivered work this month to one of my students who is too drug addicted to come to school. He lives in a shed. He asked me for money, like he does everytime I visit him. I told him I don't carry cash, like I tell him every time I visit him. I gave him a brief counseling session. Then I asked him if he wanted to get clean...again. He got mad at me...again. Then I left. This is the extent of my contact with him. He has lost his family, he has lost his life. I believe this could have been prevented, our school system could have made a difference. He is actually a bright individual, he just isn't academically bright, so he thinks he's stupid and worthless. He thinks he is a worthless human being because he can't complete the math requirements that his age is "supposed" to be able to complete. He thinks he can't do life because he forgets where the punctuation marks go. We've been telling him he's not good enough from the start. We failed him.

Yes, we can continue to rant about the lack of parental guidance, and the neglectful upbringings. We can rage about abusive homes and drunk pregnant women. We can say it's their fault. We can continue to forget that it takes a community to raise a child. However, until we rememeber, we are truly failing a large portion of our society's children.

Oh ya, I forgot, we have our fantastic jail system to fix this for us. Thank-god!

Power Circles: They change lives

As I sat there, I was able to remove myself and look in from the outside on the situation. My son, his vice principal/favorite coach, his favorite teacher, and myself in a cozy little lamp lit room. This is the second time in 13 years of public education that I had been pulled into school due to my son's negative choices. I didn't even really realize the extent to which he was struggling. When you're very close to someone and caught up in the fast speed of the days racing by, it isn't a natural thing to step back and take a look at the bigger picture. I sat watching as his principal/coach, a very special person in his life, stared him in the eyes. I watched her eyes well up with tears, and I saw the love in her face as I heard her say, "Please tell us...where is the happy, passionate boy that we all know and love?" My son was in a bad place, he was angry and stressed, sleep deprived from working too many night shifts, lacking commitment to his academics, and no longer involved in his passion from birth...sports. This meeting was his power circle, his life line....his gift.

Just last week I sat in a similar meeting. A student of mine is really struggling. When he does make it to class he won't do anything unless he is able to sit on the couch. If we leave to get coffee, or to go to the river, or the forest, or to bowl (and we leave a lot), he immediately swears and walks out the door...gone...there is no reasoning with him. We have recently had to stay back from exciting activities because he won't get off the couch. After a month of trying to get him to commit to my program, I had myself convinced that he should give up his spot and return when he is ready and willing to participate...for the sake of the other students. I called a power circle meeting. The only person to join our school team was an extraordinary Sto:lo youth worker who has taken this boy on because she happens to be his friend's youth worker. She started and ended the meeting with telling this boy's story. Until this moment I had not spoken with anybody involved in his life. Nobody cared enough to return my calls or make contact. I didnt realize that this is the first school experience that this boy has EVER had. I didn't realize that he wakes up in a household where nobody cares if he even wakes up at all. I didn't realize that his mother is so drug addicted that he is scared to talk to her in fear that he might connect, and then she might die and he will be heart broken. I didnt realize that he had just told this youth worker the other day that he loved my class. He loves my class. I found myself re-creating my entire program schedule to accomodate this boy. He will now come to class two days a week and I will be one hundred percent ready for his day on the couch. I will design these days around the couch because this is what success looks like for him right now...and we will go from there. A powerful change of direction.

Another boy I have had for two years now has been the center of several interesting power circles. I called a power circle when he was addicted to heroin, then another when he was addicted to crack, and another when he couldn't be in class without punching someone in the face. Most of these circles occurred in his home, and all of them focused on baby-steps to move him forward in his life. No lies, no consequences, no sugar coats....just a bunch of people who cared coming together to brainstorm achievable goals that everyone could follow through on. This boy is now a solid, committed and positive force in my classroom. The next power circle I will have for him will be to move him into the workforce...I never gave up.

This last week has tested my committment to these kids and to my program. I have always preached about the importance of student/teacher relationships. This week, the overwhelming realization that this is the whole entire thread of my program has hit me like a brick. As September ends and new kids come pouring into my class family, I am struggling to find balance. I have been working super hard to build new relationships with the students who still need to buy in, and through this process I felt like I was losing a couple who needed me more than I had had the time to give. There is one particular boy who always struggles with adjusting to the demands of school life coming back from summer vacation. He is now in his final year and we are extremely connected. I was up all night the other night because I haven't gotten him back from summer yet. This month he has come to class randomly, and just recently has had big trouble with the law. With all of these new relationships I have had to work on starting, I feel like Im losing him. On friday I texted him right before a power circle with another student. My text read, "We really need to talk". When I got out of the meeting, this boy was sitting outside of my room speaking with my assistant. He gave me a great big hug and said, "what do we need to talk about?" I was moved. He hadn't come to class all week, but as soon as I told him that we needed to talk, he dropped everything and came to see me. I really didn't have to worry, we're obviously still connected, the connection is positive, and I will succeed in getting him to attend full time very shortly...as always.

My struggle is simply that making connections with my students is hard work, and keeping these relationships solid and positive is even harder. I took a minute this week to take an outside look at what I do.....connecting. I make positive connections for a living. I can see how hard I work at this and how precious the relationships that I succeed in building are. I know that, like they do every year, all my connections will start to work together to create the full functioning family unit that I have succeeded in building seven years in a row. Im almost there.

So as I sat in my son's power circle, I took a minute to remove myself, and I was able to see the big picture. I saw my son, and I saw three very strong and influencial women cheerleading for him. My son had succeeded in making crucial positive connections that were now teaming up to help him achieve the balance and happiness that he deserves. A feeling of overwhelming pride came over me as I watched the meeting unfold. I heard my son open up, and I saw a team come together to change his current life. We developed a plan. We closed some doors on him and we opened up new ones. I already see the happy bounce back in his step.

Life is all about the power circle. Hats off to all the people who are reaching out to connect and create a positive bond with someone who needs it. True success is succeeding in creating a circle of people who will come together for you when things get tough. A circle of people who will vow to make changes in their own lives in order to help you make changes in yours. It takes a team. I now find myself asking, "Who is in my power circle?"

I dont teach...I save lives...

Sometimes my students aren't ready to go when they reach graduation age. The flexibility of my program allows me to hold on to them until they are ready to go. Yesterday, a boy who I watched grow up, taught for four years, and held onto for an extra year, phoned me from the streets. He is now selling drugs to eat, sleeping at a bus stop, and he was reaching out to me to tell me he couldn't see anyway out...except for death. His voice held true and deep sadness, his words were heart breaking. I had tried so hard for so many years to save him, but his mental illness is his worst enemy, consuming his ability to function. As I sat listening and fighting back my tears, I wondered how a child goes through 19 years of life and the only person he can call to save him from ending his life is his teacher. So many important people who should have been there failed him. I talked him through it, I told him I loved him. Today his social worker told me I saved his life.

I saved his life.

Now that I have many students graduated I am starting to hear those words more and more. I am invited to their baby showers, birthday dinners, and family events. As my students grow older they are able to articulate to me exactly what got them through. One student said my class changed his perception of himself. He came into my program thinking he had no chance at doing anything in life, he graduated thinking he can succeed at anything. Another said their suicidal thoughts went away after only a few months of being in my class. Yet another called my classroom a bubble, and when she was in that bubble she was safe and she was happy.

This is a bubble that knows no grades, marks, or report cards. There are no desks. The only criteria for any given assigment is that all students must encourage eachother to complete every assignment that they start, all completed assignments are hung on the wall, and all wall hangings are praised. By the end of the year there is barely an inch of wall to cover and student artwork spills out of the room and into the hallways. This bubble knows only respect and positivity, and the prescribed learning outcome is love. Manditory support for eachother both inside and outside the classroom walls fosters a very tight knit family atmosphere. Family arguements are dealt with and talked out immediately. Even on the weekend, if my students are in an arguement I am immediately informed and if possible I mediate before the weekend ends. In this bubble, if a student has not had friends throughout his entire life, he does now...and not just any friends, very close ones. Report cards are positive conversations and hugs are a necessity. It is almost unheard of for me to call a meeting with a parent because of something negative. There may not be expository essays written, theorms solved,or grades passed, but this bubble teaches the true meaning of family and it will succeed in providing a model for my students to use in their homes as they grow into young adults.

My son came to my class for the day a few times when he was in middle school. He once said to me, "I dont know what it is about your room that makes me want to stay there, but whatever it is, that's the reason your students start liking school again." He couldn't quite put his finger on it, and he's right, it is near impossible to put into words what is the essence of my room. If I could catch it and stuff it in a bottle I'd make millions off of it. In 7 years of alternate room teaching there has never been a student ask to be removed from my class, and not one student has dropped out of it.

Three months ago my ex-husband lay drowning in depression within the dark confinement of his downtown apartment. He succeeded in defeating his addiction a year and a half ago and was now sad, lost and miserable. I was visiting him often and assessing his mental health. With each visit I would brace myself for the worst, I honestly thought he was going to kill himself. Then I asked myself, "What the hell am I doing?" How can I sit back and watch the father of my children drown in a sess pool of negativity and darkness while I run around saving everyone else from this same devastation? So I moved him in with me and built him a bubble. I watched in awe over the last two months as his whole entire being changed. His depression is lifted, his sparkle is back...he is alive again. His level of functioning is the highest I have ever seen it. I know for sure, with every ounce of my existence, that this is why I am here. The passion inside me is extreme and almost unexplainable. I build bubbles, I teach love, and in doing so...I save lives.