Food For Thought
I don’t know why, but I’ve been thinking about this story a lot lately.
When I was attending graduate school, I became friendly with a young woman who had lived a very complex life.
She was given up by her birth parents and adopted as an infant. Her adoptive mother came from an orthodox family, and they refused to accept the adopted child because she had been born to someone from another religion. They wanted nothing to do with the child or with the mother from that point on.
Now, here’s where it gets like a Dickens’ novel:
Her adopted parents died in a car accident when she was around 17 years old. She was forced to live with her mother’s brother who despised her. He made it perfectly clear that he could not stomach her and took her in only because it looked bad for him if he didn’t. He treated her horribly.
Within a few months, she had had enough. She found herself a full-time job, rented an apartment and moved out. She was a senior in high school and left school each day to work 8 hours. Needless to say, she was exhausted by the time she got to school. She was often late or absent. She was a very good student and could keep up with the work, but her attendance was going to get her in trouble. Her homeroom teacher had known her throughout high school and asked her about what was going on. She explained the situation to her, and the homeroom teacher agreed to “cover” for her.
By “covering”, the homeroom teacher meant that she would mark my friend present even when she wasn’t there or when she was late. (Is the teacher in you cringing yet?)
My friend said that she owed everything to that teacher. If it hadn’t been for her, my friend would never have been able to finish her last year of high school.
When I met my friend, she was working in a local college and attending graduate school at night. She was applying to doctoral programs in education. She was engaged to a really lovely man, and was, by all accounts, a pretty successful person. She swore that she owed much of her success to that teacher’s help and kept in touch with her for many years after high school.
Now, as a teacher, I remember hearing that story and thinking; what would I have done if I had been her teacher? We all know how much trouble we would get in if we “covered” for a child who was not in school. Granted, this all happened over 20 years ago, so I’m thinking that things were not quite as severe as they are now, yet it still was a pretty risqué thing for the homeroom teacher to do.
If it were today we would be legally bound to report, not only her absences, but her living situation as well. Child Services would have to be contacted, and at 17, my friend would probably have ended up in foster care, completely complicating her already dysfunctional life. As things stood, she worked at night and graduated from high school. She continued to work and attended college to earn her Bachelors and then her Masters. She ended up pretty okay.
Still, it was a really big risk for that teacher to take. Would you have done the same?
I don’t think I would.
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Comments
I find the story a little suspect; in most schools, her absence would be noted by her first or second period teacher and would be reported. And I wouldn’t lie with official records, EVER- could cost a teacher his/her job.
Well, in my school, attendance is taken in every class, but only the attendance in the “official class” counts towards an absence for the day.
This is why so many students will show up for their “official class” and then go home.
A lot has changed in 20 years, but even then we taught that the end does not justify the means. Right?
I don’t think I would have risked it either.
DigiTims last blog post..Germ of an Idea
Good on for the teacher that covered her. It was the right thing to do. The risks back then were most likely lower than they are today.
I would like to say, yes, I would risk my job for it. But sadly, I am but a coward, and I’m not too sure that I would really do it.
I am thankful that there were teachers like that for your friend. I hope there are teachers like that now.
I believe I would have done the same thing because it was the right thing to do. I had a student who was falling asleep in class and I contacted his parents. Apparently he was working a third shift job at a factory to help pay for the pontoon boat he bought with his parents. They needed him to pay his share or they would lose the boat. His parents really didn’t even want him in high school but he stayed because I talked him into staying. They told me since I wanted him there, it was my problem not theirs. Since he was 18, social services wouldn’t touch him. I could have kept reporting him to administrator until he finally quit but I couldn’t do that to him. I finally worked out where he could nap for an hour before I woke him up to do his work. In return, he would get all of his work completed and do work at home if he needed to. He didn’t let me down and did graduate. Sadly, his parents never even showed up for graduation. He keeps in touch and constantly lets me know how much he appreciates all I did because he has a good paying job today which he wouldn’t have if he had not graduated.
Pats last blog post..The Welcoming Committee
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