Campbell

One of my more difficult kids was a boy named Campbell. In the beginning of the year, he was one of my favorites. He always came in with the same untucked uniform shirt with patches of dirt all over it. His old shoelaces were frequently untied, and it became clear to me that he had no idea how to tie them. But, he usually had a smile on his face, and he was a good reader. He had “my little project” written all over him. He always brought in action figures to play with after school. He didn’t have a backpack so he had to fit them in his pockets. Their heads usually peaked out of his pockets when he sat down, which was just too tempting. Whenever I caught him hopping them across his desk, he just handed them to me, right away, with an embarrassed smile on his face. One day, I forgot to return them to him, and when I found him in aftercare, he yelled out, “Mr. Slaughter!! You have my toy! I knew you wouldn’t forget. You are the best!” He wrapped his arms around me, and the aftercare teacher told me how much he talked about “the greatest teacher ever, Mr. Slaughter.”

By now, things had changed dramatically. Campbell still didn’t have any friends, and he was picked on everyday. After he learned that there wasn’t much I could do to protect him, he defended himself and turned bad. He was tiny, but he scrapped when he needed to, and he spent too much of his class time crawling on the floor, hopelessly trying to entertain his classmates and aggravating me. I spent the first two months telling his mom how great he was, and now I was telling her just the opposite. By December, he was out of the class and running the halls. He had found a few 3rd graders that always ran the halls; none other than my friends from my first year, Sean and Colin. And he joined them, like a stray cat joining a pack. Today, he ran out in the halls only to return a few minutes later to peek in through a crack in the door. I welcomed him back to class with a wave and a faked smile because I knew that there was little chance of him getting to work. He sensed my hesitancy, and he just scattered down the halls again, looking for another adventure or even another teacher, someone to give him the attention he deserved.