I have a ghost!

For those who have been in the classroom for any length of time, I wonder if you have a ghost of a former student that haunts you?

I do.

His name is Kevin.

I had Kevin when I taught seventh grade World History in 1999.  I had Kevin in my Advisory class and first hour.  Kevin not only struggled to complete his assignments and pass the tests, but he also had a difficult time staying awake.

 When the team of teachers met with his parents about his grades, I brought up the fact that Kevin was very tired in Advisory and first hour.  To which Dad replied that he struggled to get Kevin to bed on time, and he left it at that.  And, so did I. 

Kevin continued to struggle throughout the year, but squeaked by with a D in my class and in all his other seventh grade classes.  The next year, when his eighth grade teachers asked about the issues with Kevin, I explained what I saw in my classroom.  And the teachers replied that he continued to struggle with the same issues of grades and being tired.

Years later, I heard from one teacher at the high school about Kevin and the story was the same; being very tired and low grades.

To which I developed my the Kevin Doctrine.  The Kevin Doctrine is that if a student could not master the basic skills at middle school, one may not master the skills needed for high school, and later life.  After all, at the middle school level, a student has a building FULL of adults willing to help you succeed; how then could you succeed in the "real world" when you have few people willing to help you?

Many years had past and I never heard from or about Kevin, until about five or six years ago.  The local news report flashed his name and said he committed suicide while at a shooting range.  It was reported the shooting range video cameras captured the act on tape. The reporter also stated, this while Kevin was inside the shooting range, his baby child was left in his car.

Could this story have ended differently if I would have intervene more with Kevin?  What if I had gone out of my way and mentored Kevin?  What if I showed him those skills which his parents did or were not willing to teach him?  Might Kevin's story have ended differently?

You see, Kevin haunts me because I did nothing.  I did not go out of my way to mentor him about the importance of going to bed early.  I did not go out of my way to show him how to study for tests.  I did not draw the line in the sand and take a stand for this seventh grade boy.

Being a teacher is more than knowing and teaching the facts about the French Revolution.  It is about helping young people finding and developing the skills to survive.

Don't get me wrong, I have success stories too.  But my success stories do not haunt me like Kevin's ghost haunts me. 

But since then I have changed the Kevin Doctrine to the following:

PART 1: What have I done to help a student to master the basic skills that are needed for their entire life?

PART 2: What extend am I willing to help this student to master these basic skills?

Do you have ghosts that haunt you?