My Students do Hard Things

Today I do not want to write and mostly it's because I finally found out a hard thing one of my students is going through.

My students do hard things. Near the beginning of the year I told them that they only put students in my class who could do hard things. It helps that above one of the whiteboards are the words "I can do hard things". The teacher who had my classroom last year painted them up there.

When my students say that something is hard I will point to the words on my wall and ask them what it says. They have to do whatever it is they are doing anyway. It's okay if it's hard and it probably will be hard, but they do hard things.

One of my students has been acting out a lot more than usual the last few weeks. I showed this student my magic mirror. It helped for a day. I gave this student a bit more attention. They sought more negative attention. I tried ignoring this student's negative behaviors. The other students thought it was funny.

Today, as my students were working on their opinion essay, this student, always the fast finisher, came up to me saying that their essay was ready to be typed up. I looked at the essay, gave positive feedback and suggested some edits. To which edits, the student began arguing with me about the quality of the essay and how I don't do this with other students.

Ah. I thought. This student needs to see my magic mirror.

The student refused to look into the mirror.

That's odd, I thought.

Finally it was recess. We went outside and I continued to talk to this student. It was finally brought up that this student's parents are probably going to get a divorce.

"They weren't even going to get married but my mom got pregnant with me and then they had to." This student cried while saying the words.

"Recite our poem," I told this student. And with a bit more prodding, and a claim that nobody even knows what the poem is about because it's just about trees, she began.

"The tree that never had to fight for sun and sky and air and light, but stood out in the open plain and always got it's share of rain, never became a forest king, but lived and died a scrubby thing." Good Timber by Douglas Malloch.

Then she recited the second stanza, "The man who never had to toil to gain and farm his patch of soil who never had to win his share of sun and sky and light and air never became a manly man but lived and died as he began." She has the whole thing memorized. She passed it off weeks ago.

We talked about those two stanzas, how man means person, how tree means her, how fighting means figuring out how to be kind and knowing that things are going to be okay, but right now they are going to be hard.

I wondered why it was so hard for this student to pay attention, to be obedient, to sit still. I wondered why the magic mirror wasn't working like it's supposed to be working. I wondered how I could help this student be the better behaved child they were two months ago.

Now I know. This student needs to know she is loved.

My students do hard things. Near the beginning of the year I told them that they only put students in my class who could do hard things. It helps that above one of the whiteboards are the words "I can do hard things". The teacher who had my classroom last year painted them up there.

When my students say that something is hard I will point to the words on my wall and ask them what it says. They have the do whatever it is they are doing anyway. It's okay if it's hard and it probably will be hard, but they do hard things.