The Killer in my Classroom
Some nights sleep just won’t come.
I toss and turn, crumpling the blankets until I have to get up and read or pour myself a glass of water.
Sitting up in the pre-morning gloom, that’s when they come back to me.
A parade of faces. No names. Words are all lost in the haze of time.
But the faces remain.
Kids I’ve taught and wondered about.
What ever happened to Jason? Did Rayvin ever get into dance school? I wonder if the army took Tyler…
But there’s one face that always comes last.
A strong straight lip. Soft nose. Brooding eyes.
Terance… Terrell… TYRELL.
Yes. That’s his name.
One of my first students. One of my biggest failures.
And I don’t have to wonder what happened to him. I know with a dread of certainty.
He never got to play professional basketball like he wanted. He never even made it out of high school.
No, not dead – though I do have I gaggle of ghosts on my class roster.
He’s a murderer. Life in prison.
I was his 8th grade language arts teacher. It was my first year teaching in the district.
I had a reputation for being able to relate with hard to reach kids so they put me in the alternative education classroom.
I had a bunch of students from grades 6-8 who simply couldn’t make it in the regular school setting.
These were kids with undiagnosed learning disabilities, appalling home environments, and/or chips on their shoulders that could cut iron.
But I loved it.
I taught the Read 180 curriculum – a plan designed for students just like mine. We had three stations: silent reading, computer remediation and small group instruction.
The class was divided in three – students rotated through each group. Though I somehow monitored the whole thing, I spent most of my time meeting with kids in small group instruction.
I had an aide who helped the whole thing run smoothly, too. Lots of planning time, support and resources.
Everyday was exhausting. I could barely stay awake on the ride home. But it was worth it, because I felt like I was making a difference.
And there was Tyrell.
Few days went by without at least one of the children having to be disciplined. Sometimes it was just a simple redirection or even standing in close proximity to kids who seemed set to explode. Other times it was a brief one-on-one counseling session to find out why someone was misbehaving. And sometimes it was so bad kids had to be sent to the office. Once we even had a child escorted out of the building in handcuffs because he brought a weapon to class.
If you’d told me one of those children would end up killing someone, I wouldn’t have blinked. If you told me it would be Tyrell, I wouldn’t have believed you.
He was a gentle giant.
Almost always calm and in control. He was well above the others academically. When The Killer in my Classroom | gadflyonthewallblog:
