the eugene bean

My work is beginning to get to me.

JMC is a different kind of school. Some of this is obvious- the kids are residents, they don’t have parents, I can’t send homework home or have parent conferences, the kids don’t wear shoes, I hear the word fuck at least twice a day from the mouths of angry kids.

But I’m beginning to learn other ways that JMC is different, and those differences are the ones responsible for making me love my job. They are also the reasons responsible for making me very sad and angry.

I now have 2 roles at JMC; I work as a teacher during the week and as a member of the treatment team on Saturdays and holidays. I’m getting comfortable in my role as teacher, and I’m learning the ropes for the treatment team position. I’m finding that both jobs require me to put my whole heart into my work. Here’s a basic run down of the school day:

We start the morning off with a meeting with all the staff. We talk about how the kids did the night before at their residence, the Castle, and we discuss plans for the day. We have a leader, usually a man named Rob, who is wonderful. A place like JMC needs good leadership and Rob really knows how to motivate the team. Then we break up into our classrooms (there are only 4 of them, no one is far away!) and have a smaller meeting with the staff that will be in my classroom that day. I usually have my friend Kelly and a male staff because my middle schoolers are so big and they often need physical redirection. We talk about my lesson plans for the day, I give them roles, and then we brace ourselves for the arrival of the students.

The first thing they do is sit in a circle for Morning Meeting. We talk about our goals for the day (behavioral things like “I will be respectful to my peers” or “I will have calm energy and handle my excitement.”) and we talk about how successful we were the previous day. Everyone needs to be accountable for their behaviors and they generally are. I might hear, “I don’t deserve a sticker for yesterday because I didn’t meet my goal. I was rude to Sandra when she asked me to pass the ketchup.” Or I might hear, “I didn’t meet my goal because I was sent to the porch for kicking the chair and then I had to be held because I was throwing rocks at the windows and at staff.”

I think I do fun stuff with the kids. We are reading novels in reading class and they love the ones I picked for them. In writing, they are writing diary entries for characters they made up so that they can get to know the character better before they use him or her in a story. We made diaries with my scrapbook supplies and they really got into it. In social studies we are studying the biographies of the founding fathers, and they are interested in the projects I have planned. We are learning about Mardi Gras, I ordered a King Cake for them for next week, and we’ll make masks and shoebox floats. Math is math, but I’m trying to make it fun with games and real life application.

At the end of the day, we sit in another circle on the floor. During Closing Circle, we talk about the day, share any opinions or ideas, just talk for a few minutes. Then we go around the circle and thank people that showed us kindness during the day. The kids who are called upon for their kind acts get extra stickers. The stickers act as money during our end of term auction, so they can bid on prizes.

After the school day is over, the entire staff meets again for debriefing. We discuss all aspects of the day; lessons, behaviors, lunch, staff issues. I am totally comfortable voicing my concerns and sharing ideas. I feel respected and appreciated because they know that my concerns are valid and directly related to the children. Everyone is respected and appreciated because we are all there for the kids. One mission, one goal. Solidarity and all that.

So that’s the school day. Here’s a rundown of a typical Saturday:

I get to the Castle at 7:30. We have a meeting with the staff; there are 6 of us altogether. We talk about any child info necessary and then plan the day. We begin waking up the 21 children that live in the Castle. 2 staff wake up the girls and 2 staff wake up the boys. The kids get up, change their own sheets (even the 4 year old!) and go down to breakfast. Here are some examples of the redirections and discipline I might encounter:
Joe and Bob, you shouldn’t be discussing another child’s treatment issues, be silent for the rest of breakfast.
Joe, I asked you to be silent and you are talking, please sit out. (think mini time-out)
Joe, you can stop kicking the wall and sit out correctly or you can go out to the porch. (a place to vent without disrupting the others.)
Joe, you are still kicking the wall. You can stand up and walk with me to the porch or I can help you. (hands on = not good, the child knows there will be consequences if this occurs. Normally, Joe would get up and walk himself to the porch.)
If Joe decides not to walk himself to vent appropriately, I grab his upper arm and guide him. At this point he can either walk with me or refuse to walk and let his body go limp so I have to carry him. Or, he could attempt to physically hurt me. Last week I had to chase a very young child who decided to run out the front door. Interesting.

Anyway, if Joe goes to the porch the right way, he stays out until his is in control of his emotions and then returns to the sit out that I had given him in the first place. If he sits out appropriately, he returns to breakfast when I call him back and the day goes on. If Joe doesn’t make responsible choices, he will face consequences such as no free play or no sitting with the group and lower points (each child earns points for appropriate behavior) which reflect upon all aspects of his day.

After breakfast, the kids get dressed, brush teeth and hair and then go into the great room for quiet play. We break up into groups for Work Project, an opportunity for the kids to make money while doing Castle and property upkeep. They may clean bathrooms, feed the horses and lamas, clean out the animal’s stalls, sweep the porches… This gives the kids the opportunity to be more responsible and work together, something that often leads to more blow outs and behavioral issues.

Next comes lunch and then afternoon play. We watch movies, play video games, bingo, puzzles. They can get physical play in the great room; it’s set up with a basketball goal and a trampoline. They roller blade in there, walk on stilts, and ride little cars. Last week I took a group and we made paper bag scrapbook albums, yesterday I learned a new game, Mah Jongg, and played that with a group of kids.

After play time, we do a meditation. It’s usually led by a member of the team that will replace our shift and we go to our debriefing at this time. Again, we regroup and discuss the children. We write in the log book so that everyone can know what happened and we make sure that we finished our own logs (each staff picks 3 or so kids and writes about their day).

Holy crap this is a long blog. And I haven’t even gotten to my point. Bet you didn’t know what you were getting yourself into, huh?

I’m supposed to be telling you how my job is beginning to get to me. Maybe you can tell my level of involvement through the stuff I’ve already written? I hope so.

The bottom line is: I’m falling in love with the children. In the course of a day I get to listen to a pre-teens troubles, I get to braid a little girl’s hair, I get to play one-on-one basketball, I get to wipe away tears, I get to hug a sad child, I get to fix owies with a band-aid and a hug, I read a book to a child while he sits on my lap, I get giant bear hugs. I have an awesome job. It is a perfect fit.

But, it’s heartbreaking.

In the middle of the night on Friday, the staff got a phone call from Billy’s dad. He told staff that Billy’s mom had died in the night, choked on her own vomit.

Billy is a 12 year old boy that I love. I spend 6 days a week with Billy, he is in my class at school and we play together on Saturdays. He had just gone to court to see if he could move back in with his mom (a former drug abuser) and the judge said no. Billy was devastated for a week, and then his therapist (the therapists work with the kids often, they are always accessible at JMC) arranged on-site family visits so that Billy could be with his mom. For the past 2 Wednesdays, Billy has left my room at noon so he could have lunch with his mom. He has been in wonderful spirits, happy and sweet and working hard. Billy is a true product of JMC, he went from a physically violent and always angry kid to a beautiful child who is empathetic and kind.

His whole world is about to be turned upside down.

I had to be with Billy all day yesterday, knowing this horrible situation and unable to say anything. We need Billy’s therapist to tell him about his mom, and we needed more information for that to happen.

I can’t begin to tell you how screwed up this is. It would be awful for any child to lose a parent, but this is going to set Billy back, it’s going to alter his progress, it’s going to change everything. He has been let down countless times, hurt by the people who are supposed to take care of him. He was allowing himself to trust again, allowing himself to love and be loved. It breaks my heart to think of this pain he will feel, and the hurt he will experience.

I want to take Billy home and be his mom. I want to get a bed and set up my scrap room and take Billy home. I can’t express how much I want to do this, how much I want to make things better for that child.

And so my job is getting to me. I can’t take Billy home, I can’t make his hurts go away. There will be so many more Billys that I will want to fix, that I will get emotionally attached to. It’s the nature of the job.

I’m beginning to realize that I either need to harden my heart or have it broken countless times. What a choice to have to make.