Calvin
Calvin made a profound impression on me. He didn’t know it and certainly never will. In fact, right now, he couldn’t care less. There’s a good chance he’s already erased me from his memory. But I don’t think I’ll forget Calvin any time soon. He’s not the kind of person you would expect to alter your outlook on your future. Calvin is five years old. He has a speech impediment where he drops the first consonant of each word. And he’s a constant trouble-maker.
It was my second day as a substitute teacher and I had taken a job that I immediately regretted: pre-K. The very thought was terrifying. I want to teach high schoolers; juniors and seniors, student I can address as though they are almost-peers. What am I supposed to do with four- and five-year-olds? I can connect with my nieces and nephews, sure, but a whole group of these kids that I’ve never met before? I honestly had no idea of what to expect. My only reassurance was that I was subbing for a special education teacher who worked alongside the regular teacher, so at least I would have a little help and guidance throughout the day.
Special education pre-K, you ask? Yeah, I asked too. While a couple of the students did have some degree of learning disabilities, most of the students I was responsible for had behavior problems. Before the students arrived, the teacher filled me in on which students I would be working with and what their needs were. Calvin was labeled as the worst of the worst, a constant trouble-maker and nearly uncontrollable. He frequently ignores instruction, flaunts the rules, disrupts the class, and refuses to participate in activities. But Calvin was in the afternoon class. In the morning, there was Brian.
Brian got labeled about the same as Calvin. He didn’t have a speech impediment, but he lived in a Spanish-speaking home and could speak hardly any English. I was told that he could rarely stay focused or behave in a group. As if I wasn’t anxious enough about the day ahead of me, the pre-K teacher (Ms. Funmaker; and no, I’m not making that up) had made me even more apprehensive about what I was getting into.
When we went to go meet the kids as they arrived on the busses, the teacher told me that maybe we’d be lucky and Brian wouldn’t show up today. But Brian showed. My first impression was him swinging his backpack and smashing it into one of the doors as he came in. The first hour of the day, Brian lived up to his reputation. He was hyper, unable to focus, and seemed to be looking for trouble. When the class sat down to learn some words and read a story, Brian couldn’t handle it. Instead, he sat with me at a table doing some coloring, which he loved. He was good at it, too. By now I realized that he was starting to show an interest in me. He was consulting me on his choice of crayons for various parts of his Scooby Doo spaceship. I finally realized I had really connected with him when we were walking in the hall to the gym and he insisted on holding my hand. By the end of the day, he wanted my attention and approval for everything he did, showing off, almost. I was pretty amused. Brian had been really good that day, according to Ms. Funmaker. But even still, I got the impression that Brian wasn’t all that bad of a kid, just a little hyperactive and probably feeling a little isolated due to the language barrier. But while basking in the glow of my self-satisfaction for having connected to this “problem” student as they left for the day, Ms. Funmaker warned me about Calvin. Calvin was going to be far worse than Brian.
When Calvin showed up, I could tell she was right: Calvin was aggressive, belligerent, and entirely unable to focus. After my apparent easy success with Brian, I was determined to connect with Calvin and see to it that he managed to learn something that day. Or failing that, to at least be his buddy for the day. When Ms. Funmaker tried to sit the class down to learn, there were a number of troublesome students, but my time was given to another student with severe ADHD, whom the teacher wasn’t even going to try and include in the group. Instead I sat with this student and tried to get him to focus on coloring, like Brian did. But all he could do was draw boxes and scribble over the pictures. As I struggled to get him to actually color something, Calvin quickly became more problematic. Finally Ms. Funmaker asked me to take him to the time-out chair.
By this point I had learned that the regular teachers dealt with these perpetually problematic students by yelling and chastising them. Which is probably necessary when you’re dealing with them on a daily basis. But I wasn’t comfortable with doing that, mostly because I had only a delicate grasp on my sense of authority as a teacher. As I walked Calvin to the time-out chair, he refused to sit, perhaps out of pure belligerence or perhaps because of the sense of defeat or shame that came with it. I knew the regular teachers wouldn’t have the patience for it, but I decided right then that I was going to crack this nut. So I just started talking, coaxing. Calvin wasn’t fully convinced, trying to negotiate alternatives, to sit in a different chair, to do something else. But finally he sat. I grabbed a book and asked if he wanted me to read it to him. He did. I started reading, but before we could finish, he speech therapist arrived. While he was eager to see her, he seemed a little bummed about not finishing the book.
Towards the end of the day, the class was arrayed on the floor watching a Dr. Seuss video. Calvin tried sitting on the floor, but trouble seemed to follow him wherever he sat; either he or another of the problematic students would pick a fight or disrupt the class. Finally Calvin decided he wanted to sit on a chair by me, but the teacher insisted he sit on the floor with the rest of the students. Calvin was not interested. Finally I asked Calvin if he would sit on the floor if I sat next to him. He promptly agreed. So we sat on the floor watching Dr. Seuss and by the end, Calvin was leaning on me and grabbing my arm. I was blown away. I thought this kid was going to run circles around me when he first showed up, but now here we were, best buds.
Certainly I don’t write any of this to tell you how wonderful I am at reaching out to needy kids or stroke my own ego in anyway. This wasn’t a proud moment, but it was a humbling moment. I had made the assumption that Calvin was going to be impossible to deal with, that all I would be able to do is just bear with him and try to keep him from distracting other students. I don’t know what Calvin’s home situation is other than that he has an older brother. I don’t know if he has a dad or not. But I do know that I made a pretty unfair assumption about Calvin. Sure, it was a formed assumption given to me by people who work with him every day, but I feel like I managed to see a side of Calvin that he doesn’t show very often. I don’t know that Calvin really likes being a trouble-maker. He seemed to take a lot of comfort in a person reaching out to him and trying to be his friend. I noticed that he had this same relationship with his speech therapist, who worked frequently with him one-on-one. Like Brian, Calvin responded positively when I tried to connect with him on a very personal level.
I’m fairly confident that I don’t have the patience or stamina to deal with these kinds of students on a day-to-day basis, but the chance to do it once in a while is incredibly rewarding. It’s unfortunate that Calvin is in the situation he is because it strikes me as a big hurdle to his education and social development, being surrounded by other students who are only fanning the flames of his behavioral tendencies. It could be that Brian and Calvin both were amused by the novelty of a male adult in their classroom, pacifying their behavior, but I’d like to think it was a bit deeper than that. It seems to me that these kids have some inherent good in them. They aren’t considering peer opinions or social expectations, but are acting in a very personal manner. One moment it can be belligerence, another moment it can be pure joy. Perhaps that’s the greatest appeal to working with kids of such a young age: regardless of their neediness and misbehavior, they are just so completely honest in everything they say and do. There’s a lot of pleasure in that. And maybe a little lesson, too.
