When too much is enough

Nothing boils my blood faster than being across the meeting table from a woman who sits there with a perpetual frown. The lines are etched in her face. She has perfected the scowl. She flicks papers in an important way and clutches the pen she is holding, as though about to take note of something that irritates her. Her eyes are narrow, suspicious. She seems offended.

I hope I never become her.

She was a teacher. I don't know how she came to be the person that sits across from me now. The person who grimaces at the thought of a new student in her class. The person who whines, argues, complains....

Did she start out this way? Did she become a teacher knowing that she didn't really care about kids at all? Or was all of the passion bled from her in the continual fight to do her job ethically with no money, no supplies and no support to speak of? Did years of testing students who could barely read, on grade-level standards that held no meaning, grind the joy out of her? Did the continual complaints of parents, administrators, legislators and community members blind her to the sight of a child in need?

I can't help it. My blood is still boiling and it's not because I'm mad at whatever it is that has brought her to this. I'm mad at her. She's complaining about having a child in her class! He doesn't fit in, he's a nuisance, a disruption...unwelcome. Before he has even started working with her, he has been written off in such a way that he will never be able to learn from her. She doesn't want him there. He will know, even if she never actually says the words. And what will he learn from that? Where will he go, when this safe haven of education teaches him that being different means being unwelcome?

No, he doesn't really fit in my classroom, either. I'm happy to say that he's much too high-functioning for a program such as mine. He has a label that seems to fit. The Team has decided that he should be with me to learn some of the skills that he lacks. Perhaps they hope that there is something I can help him with. Perhaps they are looking for a place to dump him. It's not a perfect fit, and not by far the best that we can do for him.

But come Monday, he'll meet a smile at my door, or I don't deserve to be standing there.