By the end of February, Grandma told me her son was really sick, and she was going to leave for a few weeks to take care of him. I was by myself again, just like the fall when everything fell apart. But this was going to be good for me; I was leaning too heavily on her anyway. I relied upon her to do all things that could mess up a well-planned lesson, like handing out pencils, giving out bathroom passes, and even chatting it up with a student when something seemed wrong. When she left, I had to do everything she was doing and teach, and it left me exhausted, but I was also impressed that I could even do it by myself. She did come back after a month, but it was with bad news. Her son had passed. I felt it was her right to be done with volunteering in my class, but she cared too much about me and those kids to leave; she was there to stay. “You got to keep on living, Mr. Slaughter.” Amen to that.
When the class was behaving better in March, she told me about the conversations she had in the teacher’s lounge; I never knew what went on in the teacher’s lounge because I always stayed out. “Mr. Slaughter, I keep on telling everybody how great the class is doing, but nobody believes me. Then, when they do believe me, they don’t give you any credit. They think I’m the one who deserves all credit.” I’d smile slightly, “It doesn’t matter what they think, remember?”
Even though I tried hard not to think about it, it was strange that no one mentioned the turn around that happened in my class. Well, there was one person, the nurse, “Mr. Slaughter, I just have to tell you; your class has really turned around, and I know you have been working hard to get them back on track. You are doing great.” If the nurse noticed it, then you would have to guess that at least the teachers in my hall noticed it, but nothing was said, at least not to me. It all became clear when I spoke again with Principal Franklin.
No comments:
Post a Comment