Call this student Belinda.
She first enrolled in the Salem, Inc., Educational Initiative at the beginning of the 2008-2009 academic year, when she was a Grade 10 student. Her grandmother (we'll designate her Berniece) came to me, as so many parents and guardians do seeking academic assistance for a young person in the family, by reference from an acquaintance. In this case, the acquaintance was the mother (Joanne)of a student (Martha) who at that time was in Grade 11 and had seen a dramatic rise in her academic skill level during her four years of participation in the Initaitive.
Berniece was relieved and grateful when I called her upon receiving contact information from Joanne. She told me that Belinda had just come back to her home again after another failed attempt by Belinda's mother (Nanette)to get clean from a chronic drug habit. Belinda was struggling in school, particularly in math. But Belinda, Berniece told me, was bright and through most of her school years had done well. She wanted her to have a different kind of life than Nanette had made for herself, and she was afraid that her mother's latest failed attempt to get straight would weigh heavily on her. And she new that the onset of the high school years represented a crucial period during which Belinda would either rise to her potential or sink into the academic and life doldrums that had characterized so many other people in the family.
This kind of story is familiar to me and of the sort in response to which I go on high alert. Grade 10 is perilously close to being too late for many students unless I can capture their full focus and go into high gear on the academic recovery effort that is often necessary. I told Berniece that I would be happy to have Belinda as a student in the Initiative, and we set up a regular time for the weekly two-hour session.
Belinda arrived for the first session grumpy and asking when the session would be over. She did not, she said, need tutoring. I told her that everyone needs tutoring, that we all need to improve our knowledge and skills. I told her that I had many students who had been studying with me for a number of years, who were functioning far above grade level, and were now clearly on a college preparatory track. And I told her that her grandmother had in any case told me that she was struggling, particularly in math. So, I said, "Let's just work on a few things and see what should most be our focus."
I pretested Belinda at the Grade 8 level to see if her pre-Algebra skills were where they needed to be. She got no questions right on this pretest composed of 10 questions. I then tested her at the Grade 10 level in reading, giving her selections from a practice Grade 10 Reading Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment (MCA), since that would be the skill for which high school students are tested at Grade 10 in Minnesota. This brought considerably better news. Although she got only six questions right and gave evidence of significant vocabulary deficits, the pretest score was high enough to provide confidence that I could get her ready to take the actual reading MCA in April 2009 while still giving her seriously lagging math skills the attention that they would need.
Our path to success in these two skill areas was very winding and featured occasional lateral movement because of missed sessions. I provide transportation to almost all of my students, and I would always tranport Belinda home after our session. But Belinda's session fell on a Sunday, and her grandmother wanted to transport Belinda to our session on her way home from church. She would, however, sometimes forget our meeting time, and on other Sundays some afternoon church event would supersede our session in importance according to Berniece's and Belinda's perception.
So I began to call Berniece on her cell phone just after I got out of services at New Salem Missionary Baptist Church, at a time I knew that other churches would also be wrapping up services. Many was the time that she would be very grateful because she was "about to forget," then increasingly I would get the response that, "Yep, thank you for calling, we're on our way." As far as the missed sessions for church events, I talked at some length to Berniece about the importance of regular attendance and expressed the hope that Belinda could stick to our session and return to church if she wanted to after our weekly session had concluded. And, as for the times that the Sunday session was missed, I would always find a make-up time. As time went on the missed Sunday sessions grew few and far between. Both Berniece and Belinda found the make-up sessions more inconvenient than the Sunday time, and the judgment became essentially that, "Dang, this guy doesn't give up. We might as well remember on Sunday."
Berniece and I began to forge a very strong bond in mutual support of Belinda's academic progress. From failing math grades Belinda went to a "C" and then a "B" in Algebra I. Berniece began to tell me whenever we would meet that she appreciated my tenacity and that she was so elated with Belinda's progress in math.
During our weekly session Belinda and I would indeed work on simultaneous equations, slope and y-intercept graphing, and the quadratic formula. But we would also work a great deal on explicit vocabulary instruction and grade 10 level reading comprehension exercises. Belinda achieved grade level performance on the April 2009Grade 10 Reading MCA, a test on which only about 33% of Minneapolis Public Schools students from impoverished families pass (by showing grade level comprehension).
Berniece in the meantime gained official custody of Belinda. Berniece and I talked continually and increasingly worked together when Belinda's performance in school suffered some setback. We would talk about other things, too--- things of note in the community, some unfortunate outbreak of violence, too many young lives being lost, what all of this said about the importance of the task at hand with Belinda. The bond that Berniece and I had forged grew stronger and stronger with each passing week, and eventually Belinda herself began to come around to the view that our task was indeed important. She was proud of the progress tha she had made.
As a Grade 11 student in academic year 2009-2010, Belinda entered the International Baccalaureate program at her high school and set her sights firmly on college. She began to drive herself to our Sunday sessions, occasionally forgot or got deterred, but most of the time she would respond by showing up upon receiving my call to her cell phone. She achieved a suitable enough score on her ACT to gain acceptance at the University of St. Catherine in St. Paul as she looks beyond high school graduation in June 2011 to matriculation at this university during academic year 2011-2012.
In Berniece I ultimately found an important partner in driving home to Belinda the importance of education as she sought a life different from those of her mother and a number of other family members who were traveling down roads to nowhere anyone would want to be. In a very few situations in which I can't really connect with a viable human support system, I just step in and perform the role entirely myself. I stress again that we cannot let family dysfunction be an excuse for not providing a high quality education to a student who needs that education all the more. But when a teacher's connection to a caring person such as Berniece becomes possible, the opportunity should be seized. One caring adult can make a huge difference. When two are on the same pages writing a script for a young person's success, and one of those caring adults is in the family, the realization of such success becomes all the more likely.
Berniece and Belinda have both asked if I will be available for academic instruction and mentoring as necessary next year when Belinda begins attendance at St. Kate's. I told them that I certainly would and reminded them of what I have told all of my students: "Remember that this relationship is permanent. This program never ends."
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