Country Teacher in an Alt-Urban School

I grew up in a small town, in an even smaller part of said town. My days consisted of reading, teaching myself to use the computer, and watching Jeopardy with my family at dinner. My school was predominantly white, lower-middle class, "rednecks" with the occasional goth or rich kid thrown in for fun. The minority of my school population was less than my graduating class of 150 out of 600. I grew up around white people, I hung out with white people, and I was forbidden to date anyone other than a white male. Then came college.

I went to college to major in Special Education with the idea that I would teach elementary school (ha!) and that I would return to a setting similar to the one I grew up in. The college I attended was a liberal arts college set in a very urban part of a large city, meaning I went from a bag of rice with a few specks of pepper to a vegetable stew with new veggies to experience. I loved college; I loved meeting new people and learning about different places and cultures. Even with my new experiences (gunshots from the gas station across the street and a manhunt on campus my first week of college to different flavors and preparation of food), I stayed in my comfort zone of my little world and I planned to never leave.

My senior year of college, I attended a career fair and was offered a job in a town about an hour away from my home town: small, historical, and what I thought at the time was just like home. I hit the jackpot: still close to my parents, still in a familiar setting, no issues to be seen! However, that wasn't how it was going to work out.

My first year of teaching, I began work in a high school classroom (I figured out the bigger they were, the easier I could teach them) for students with emotional disabilities. I had seven students: two were white. I began to listen and learn to what was going on around me. I had a young man whose father was nowhere to be seen and his mom was taking care of him, but his behavioral issues were keeping him from getting an education. I had another student whose father had died and left him money, but his mother was squandering it away to the point where the kid continued to get in trouble for sagging his pants when in reality he sagged them so they weren't high waters on his thin legs. I learned that the neighborhood by the school was "the ghetto," and most kids walked the streets to keep from getting in the crossfires of the mess going around. My first year was an eye opener to things I had never seen but I was still feeling safe. However, that would soon change with a phone call.

Driving to town one day, I got an email from the director of my department in the district that says "Call me." I was a little nervous; I just finished my first year teaching with a population that wasn't easy for most and I stirred the pot more than once, and now I am getting an email with the worst phrase ever. I take a deep breath and I call him. I get news of what I think is the worst thing ever: I am being moved from my classroom in a school much like the one I grew up in to the alternative school with a bad reputation. I feel demoted, replaced, punished even. I feel like I have been given the nudge out the door. My director assures me that that isn't the case and that they need someone who is strong in tough love in this new position. The new position is for a special education teacher to teach resource to middle and high school students who are on the brink of expulsion, who cannot handle a typical school environment, as well as an after school program for students with disabilities who HAVE been expelled. I cry. I literally cry. What I don't know at this time is how this one phone call is about to change my life.

After I cry and complain and pack and unpack, I prepare to meet my students. I have had first aid training, crisis prevention training, and done a lot of reading on how to handle students with emotional disabilities; I was prepared! Or, so I thought. I go from a population where less than 25 percent is part of a minority, to being the minority. I stepped foot into a school whose population is flipped statistics: out of 50 students, ten were white and the rest were African American. I went from "rednecks" and "Daddy bought me a brand new car" to "I was kept awake from the shots by my house" and "Momma forgot to pay the light bill." I went from thinking I could use blues and reds whenever I wanted to making sure I didn't mix those two up. I was scared; not of the students, because kids are kids, but that I wasn't going to cut it. Here I was, this short White woman with a thick accent and no knowledge of the lives I was about to come in contact with. I knew nothing and I was about to teach kids who knew I knew nothing. Luckily for me, I was a quick learner.

My students soon became my kids. I have a knowledge of drugs, gangs, and weapons that is greater than it should be. I can tell when a student is discussing drugs or when there is about to be a fight. I can talk a kid down from a fight and boost them up when they know to step back. I have taught a ninth grader to read and watched an eleventh grader cry because he failed. I have watched children become young adults. I have worked with a student with almost no high school credits and was then able to watch him graduate with his high school diploma.

I learned drug names and gang signs, I learned lyrics and dance moves, but what I learned the most? I learned that love fixes it all. Love won't keep a kid from selling pot, it won't keep him warm at night, but it will keep him coming to school. Love can't buy them new clothes, but it can make a foster student feel safe.

The population of my school has nothing to do with what I know, but rather what I learnt. I came from a small town with small ideas, to a small town with a culture I never knew existed outside of television. My kids have taught me that regardless of your skin color, love is the same. My kids have taught me that even against all odds, against everyone telling you no, you can do it if someone is in your corner, even if that someone is you.

I went from a small country teacher who thought books were what students needed to survive to a teacher who knows that sometimes, they just need a nap.

Alt-school isn't for the faint of heart, and it won't make the heart faint.

Oh, and those students from my first year of teaching? One is on his way to job corp, and the other dropped out because he was carrying on a full-time job and doing well for himself. They got out even when no one said they could.