Starfish Moments

Sometimes in teaching you have 'starfish' moments.

Many years ago I attended a course on 'Protective Behaviours' which is about teaching children to recognise 'unsafe' behaviour in adults and thus prevent abuse, particularly sexual abuse. It was a weekend residential and probably one of the most profound and confronting courses I have undertaken.

During the last day, there was much discussion about the statistics and how effective education is etc etc etc. The lecturer told a story.

Once a man was walking along the beach at low tide, picking up the stranded starfish on the beach and throwing them back into the waves. A small boy approached him and began mocking him.
"What are you doing old man? You know the sea will continue to retreat and those starfish will be stranded again in no time. You're wasting your time!!"
"Ah", said the old man," But if I save one starfish."

This story has stayed with me.

When I worked exclusively with Special Needs students I was constantly asked why I 'bothered' by other teachers. They had seen these kids, they knew what we were up against and they also knew with the Govt funding and levels of support, we only scratched at the iceberg. I always told them about the starfish.

The thing about Special Ed is that you often don't get to see the full grown starfish. They move on and leave your care and enter new systems ........
Once, years later, in the UK a lad I had spent a LOT of time on came to a school function and loked at me with an air of recognition.
"I remember you", he said,"You taught me to read."

For him it had been a lifetime ago. For me it was a mere three years.

Now that I am struggling with mainstream teaching and teenagers to boot (OK Lord, you've made your point) I get less and less of the 'starfish' moments. Rather than 1 to 1 I have 26 kids to deal with- and they are mostly out to get me :-D

Last term I took over a Year 9 English class from a teacher they loved who had given up her time due to family pressures. Naturally this was my fault and the class punished me accordingly.

As a class we eventually came to some working arrangement but as always there were a few 'hard nuts'. One was a tall, striking girl named G with an irreverent attitude and an inability(?) to complete or at least hand up work. When she wasn't being sent out for talking (or being given a massage by the boy behind her) she actually made rather perceptive contributions to class discussion. But still, no work.

Towards the end of the term I sensed a change. She was still disinterested in class (mainly) but she approached me about getting a 'late' assignment in and true to her word she managed it. She accompanied it with a letter.

I'm really sorry for taking so long to hand this in to you. I keep on forgetting to either bring it to school or sticking the quotes on, but finally, here it is! Thanks for being patient. I hope you can still mark it so I don't completely fail English.
Also, I'm heaps sorry for being such a handfull (sic) so far this year. It's just that you rmind me so much of a woman that I haven't had a great experience with a few years back and it's really hard for me to look at you without being reminded of her which really sucks because I know that you're a really good teacher and I honestly do want to learn so I'm going to try and be better I promise.... I'm not really that bad of a student :-D (I hoped you liked that run-on sentence and my heaps bad grammar!!) haha
Anyway I'll see you next term. Have some great holidays and some really long sleep-ins.
heart Georgia

Today we had our first lesson back. We have to do Shakespeare. We watched a bit of 'Much Ado About Nothing' and afterwards she came up to me and said "Mrs A, can we please do sonnets? I LOVE sonnets. They are so romantic. I don't understand them much but they sound great! I particularly love no 119"

I do not know sonnet 119. (who am I kidding. I don't know sonnets 1-118 either!!)

Some days I really love teaching.