Eddie…
… the child who came in from the cold…
It was my first year teaching elementary school after serving two years teaching in the Peace Corps in Morocco. I took over a 6th grade class in Corning, New York, in March.
As I entered the school each morning, I interacted with children as I walked down the hallway on my way to my classroom. In those days, I was too inexperienced to understand the power of targeting a child who needed positive involvement from an adult before school. Nevertheless, I did believe that fleeting moments – even seconds – could positively impact a child and help him or her get the day started on the right foot. So at that stage in my career, I wasn’t targeting anyone, just being cordial.
However, there was one child who “found me” during those early morning moments. It was Eddie. Eddie wasn’t one of my students. He was in fourth grade.
I noticed that other children avoided Eddie. He seemed to accept it, apparently making up his mind that peer relationships were not going to work for him. Some of the children made fun of Eddie. If I saw it, I intervened. At that stage in my career, I didn’t know how to systematically resolve conflicts between students.
(See Appendix C for details on one way to resolve conflicts between students.) Sure, I could do the “business as usual” thing and lecture them, warn them, or give them a consequence. Later I learned that those techniques were not very effective in resolving a problem for the long term. They were only stop-gap “man-on-the-street” measures.
“Man-on-the-Street” Techniques
These are methods, techniques, or measures that might be used by an untrained teacher, hence the idea of “the man-in-the-street.” Teachers who are untrained (who perhaps have a B.A. and have just gone through an eight week crash course in teaching) often resort to “man-in-the-street” methods, simply because that is the best they know how to do. Child development has a broad knowledge base – and it is impossible to pick up “enough” to enable one to be an effective teacher in a crash course. It’s like teaching someone to fly a plane once it’s in the air, but not teach them how to take off or land, or deal with turbulence.
Eddie seemed to seek out adults to interact with rather than other children, perhaps thinking that it would result in less loss of dignity, even though when he did interact with teachers he maintained a concerned, guarded expression, being careful about saying the right thing, so as to not get chewed out about something.
Eddie seemed almost too free with me. I wondered if that was good. I felt a bit naïve about the kind of relationships that teachers were supposed to establish with students. Other teachers smiled when they saw me listening to Eddie. They would roll their eyes at me, seemingly signifying that Eddie was wasting my time or telling me some tall tales. I didn’t let it change my attitude about the importance of being open with children. I was experimenting with the issue of the degree of “familiarity” one should establish — formal verses informal relationships that we construct with children, and I was trying to figure out what was most helpful or effective. My gut feeling was that I had to be genuine and involved with any child with whom I came into contact with, as part of my job.
After Eddie got to know me from those short early morning chats, I found him hanging around my classroom door at the end of the school day. He would stick his head inside as the last students were on their way out. The first time he did this, he looked around and said, “You know, that fish tank’s a mess. You’ve got a bunch of snails in there and the water needs cleaning. And you can’t just put tap water in there – it’s got too much chlorine in it — it could hurt the fish.” He didn’t immediately ask if he could take it over, but he continued telling me more about aquariums and how they function. He explained about the growth of the snails, the color of the water, and why you had to let the tap water sit for a while before introducing it into the aquarium. Eddie soon had me convinced of my profound ignorance concerning aquariums. He also implied that it was my responsibility to know about these things – that it mattered. He had told me more than I had ever known about tropical fish, aquariums, and how one provides proper maintenance for them.
Soon Eddie had me begging him to take over the aquarium. And take it over he did. He stayed after school as long as I would let him, and worked on it, conversing with me as we both worked. I was usually grading papers. (In those days I didn’t know how one could assess students while they were working and provide timely feedback during the school day.)
Providing Timely Feedback to Students
In my early teaching days, I killed myself every night dragging papers home to correct or grade. I had agreed to live for my students, but not die for them. I had a lovely little daughter and a sweet wife at home – and they deserved my time and attention also. So this was a challenge: how to give my students timely feedback without carting home all the papers. Even when I did a good job of correcting/grading papers, the feedback was often (1) too late, (2) not understood by the student, and (3) did not provide the student with a model for improving their proficiency.
It was later that I learned how to give my students timely, valuable feedback and have time for everything else in my life. It mostly had to do with switching from a traditionally-taught/workbook/basal/teacher-centered/sage on the stage approach, to a workshop/student-centered approach that involved lots of conferring with individual students and the use of modern teaching methods such as mini lessons, activity times, sharing sessions, individual conferences, running records, retellings, modeling, and so forth. Once I learned about these more progressive strategies, my students began to make more progress, were happier, and I knew exactly where everyone was and what they needed.
Eddie started out with a complete overhaul of the aquarium. He dumped all of the stones into the sink to clean them. It was a big mess and I was wondering if I had made a mistake by agreeing to let him take it over. But he got it all working well and everyone began to enjoy the aquarium again. Some children also realized that Eddie was an expert at something, and I believe it raised, at least a bit, his prestige among some of the students.
There were some teachers who were wondering what I was doing, bothering with a child who was not one of my students. They might not have understood that I was the one benefitting.
Eddie loved to laugh. He smiled a lot and enjoyed telling immature and interactive jokes. He tried to catch me with them. Like, for example, “Are you PT?” If I answered, “Yes,” he would then say out loud, “Oh, you’re potty trained?” If I answered, “No,” his response was, “Oh you’re not potty trained!” Eddie was a socially inexperienced, harmless kind of a kid, and was considered a child with “special needs.”
Youngsters with Special Needs
There are quite a few categories of students with special needs. This could include children who qualify for special education services (which itself has many categories of qualification and service), as well as students who are disadvantaged based on below poverty-level family income, students who are believed to be gifted and talented, children who may have a physical disability, or who have been determined to have a learning disability that does not qualify for special education services.
After the aquarium was running smoothly, and only needed light maintenance, Eddie occasionally dropped by after school to tell me about reptiles and amphibians – creatures that I knew very little about. I had very little interest in reptiles and amphibians, but as I listened to Eddie share facts about them, they became more interesting to me.
When all the classes switched for reading first period in the morning, I noticed that Eddie reported across the hallway to Mr. Bob McDaniel’s room. I looked in a couple of times and saw that there were only about eight to ten students there. It was obviously a reading class for students with special needs. Bob told me that it was the class for non-readers, giving me a roll of the eyes and an expression that said, “God, I hope this doesn’t last much longer.”
Non-Reader (faux term)
The term “non-reader” is a faux term that was used in the past to describe a child who was having serious difficulty learning how to read in school. Faye Bolton has suggested a more accurate term: “inexperienced reader.” Some people have used the term “struggling reader,” but reading doesn’t have to be a struggle. I agree with Faye that it has more to do with experience.
Bob worked hard with his students, however. He had all kinds of exercises that they worked on, and an SRA Kit, as well as other materials.
SRA Kit
Although this kit has gone through many revisions and updates, in the early 70’s it consisted of a box containing a variety of written texts that were color-coded by reading level. Alongside the reading selections (which were glossy folders) was another
section inside the box which contained the answers to questions at the end of each story. These could be used by the student or teacher to check the answers. As students were successful with responses to the questions, they could “move up” in their color (reading level) and attempt more difficult reading selections. In the early 70’s no one knew how to take a running record or a retelling – so the teacher never knew what reading strategies a child had under control – and what strategies the child needed to see modeled. It was just read, respond, and check the answers.
At the end of the school year, the intermediate level faculty had a meeting to decide who would be assigned to teach the various leveled reading groups the following year. Bob Mc Daniel spoke up, “You know, I have had the non-readers in resource for four years now, and I think it’s time for someone else to take over. Greg is the new guy on the block and I think it would be a good class for him.”
In my naiveté, I didn’t see any problem with it. I didn’t know how I would teach them, but I figured that I would use the same materials that Bob was using. So I said I’d take them as long as Bob provided me with some information about how he ran the class. He responded, “Oh, don’t worry about that, I’ll give you everything you need.” The meeting ended shortly after we got that out of the way. I guess that was the main issue that everyone wanted to resolve.
When I received the roster of students in my new reading group, I noticed that Eddie had a sister who was two years behind him, who was also in the class.
When the next school year rolled around, Bob gave me all the materials that he used with the “non-readers,” and explained how he ran the class. There seemed to be two main parts to the way he ran the class: a skills lesson, with worksheets to fill out – and when the kids finished their worksheets they could go to the SRA box and choose a story from “their color,” then complete the multiple-choice questions at the end of the story – and then bring their answers to me and I’d check their work to see how they did. I’d tell the kids how great they were doing, and when checking their answers, I only marked the ones they got right. They would smile and get this warm look on their faces. Before they went back to get another story to read, they liked to chat for a couple of minutes. We talked about the things that interested them. Eddie was the oldest student in the class and the one who talked the most. He shared his enthusiasm and knowledge about reptiles and amphibians with everyone. He did such a good job that the other children regarded him as an in-house expert. They got more deeply interested in this topic, so we made library visits to look for books on these creatures. We read them together and Eddie explained all the details.
Each child was encouraged to pursue his or her own interest. My goal was to make each class an interesting, enjoyable, and productive experience. When report card time came, they all got A’s. I didn’t hear anything about it the first time, but when Eddie got an A the second time, the principal came to visit me. He said, “Greg, some of the teachers are questioning why you are giving Eddie A’s in reading. He gets his report card and runs all around the school showing it to everyone. The teachers are afraid that the other kids are wondering how he is getting A’s – everyone knows he can’t read.”
I responded, “But he can read. He works his tail off in here. He works as hard in here as any kid in the building.”
“Yes, and I think it’s great. You are doing a great job with Eddie. You are building him up and I can see that he is changing. But could you give him an “A” for his reading grade, but indicate a grade level that reflects his actual reading level instead of the grade that he is in?
“Do you think I should do that?”
“Yes, I think it would be a good compromise and it would reflect where he really is, and we can defend that.”
I said, “OK, if he keeps working as hard as he has been, and continues to make great progress, he’ll get the ‘A’ and I will emphasize that that is the important grade.”
Grades
Grades aren’t necessarily bad in and of themselves. It’s what we do with grades that can cause problems for children. A grade is simply a symbol on paper that is supposed to tell us how a child is doing in school. But we often don’t know what is in the teacher’s head, and how the grade was arrived at. Many teachers have elaborate systems fully mapped out and can tell you exactly how each grade was arrived at and they can defend their decision. That still doesn’t tell us much about what a child has control over, and what the child needs to see modeled, and whether or not someone is going to coach him to ensure success. Grades are one way to report student behaviors, responses, efforts, etc. They are part of the factory approach to schooling. They make it all look so simple, when in fact things are much more abstract and complicated in reality.
Eddie continued to bring in books in his areas of interest. I brought books to class that I thought would interest him and the other children. The kids appeared to enjoy coming to reading class. I treated them just like I treat my own friends. Some of the shy, reserved, “Do I belong here?” facial expressions began to disappear and were replaced with genuine smiles. They began to let their hair down and relax – and they started to love books and reading.
The only other thing the principal had to talk to me about was when we had a paper airplane flying contest. We were reading a book that had diagrams of some of the most creative paper airplanes that had been designed by engineers. The principal said, “Just make sure you have an objective.” The principal was on my side. He enabled me to continue to look for innovative ways to make the class interesting and productive. I knew that he was running interference for me, placating the old guard, while I tried to help Eddie and the others get a life, their life.
I was using a book by Herbert Kohl to guide my teaching of Eddie’s class. It was entitled, Reading, How to.
By the end of the year Eddie was reading the World Book Encyclopedia articles on reptiles and amphibians. I cannot describe the feeling I had about the progress he had made. The non-reader label had been hanging over his head for a long time and was humiliating for him. Reading was helping him gain back some of his self-respect. It was also helping him learn more about his first love: reptiles and amphibians. Eddie later found that his ability to read about reptiles and amphibians could be transferred to other topics and interests.
Eddie taught me a lot that year. I think the recipe to his success as a student and my success as a teacher was to:
• Construct a mutually-respectful relationship
• Be a listener and supporter
• Encourage children to follow their interests and help them develop more interests
• Bring in interesting books that mean something to the children you are working with
• Give children good grades; that is, evaluate them for a grade when they are ready to show mastery or increased proficiency
• Make time for students, especially if they are at-risk and are wanting to spend time with you
• Don’t let others discourage you from supporting a child in a way that we would want teachers to support our own child
• Interact with the children just like you interact with your own friends
• Read to the kids, or do their reading for them until they can take over
• Have fun, make the class one that kids can’t wait to get to
• Meet with the students’ parents and tell them (and show them) what their child can do and how far he/she has come; and lay out an optimistic plan for their continued progress. Some people might say it should be a “realistic plan” not an optimistic plan. I disagree. If you are relating to a child, helping him or her do things that connect to the goals he or she has for his own life, then it will work – and the parents of at-risk children have heard the “realistic plan” verbiage ad nauseam. The word “realistic” is sometimes a code word for having low expectations for a child.
A couple of years after Eddie graduated from our elementary school and was attending junior high, I was stranded on the side of the road in a freezing snow storm with a flat tire. A lot of people passed by, as I struggled to loosen the frozen lug nuts, to get the wheel off. Eddie came along. I didn’t recognize him at first. He had the hood to his winter coat up and pulled around his face, and his cheeks were bright red. He said, “Hey, you got a little problem there, don’t you?” I smiled and asked, “Do I know you?” He said, “Mr. Swimelar, it’s Eddie – don’t you recognize me?” He loosened up his hood so I could see his face.
We discussed my predicament and came up with a plan to work together to get the wheel off. It wasn’t easy, but we got the tire changed.
Several years after I had known Eddie, one evening, when a couple of my teaching friends and I were having a curriculum review session at a local working class bar, a man came up to me and said, “Are you Mr. Swimelar?” I said, “Yes, I am.” He said, “I’m Eddie’s father – I just want to thank you. School was a nightmare for Eddie until you came along.”
That was payday for me.
gregswimelar 