Success

by Jen King

            Learning is my greatest love and sharing that with students is why I am a teacher.  I believe that reading is at the core of what it means to be successful.  I have seen the power of reading and have seen the void in a life without it.  I believe every student can learn and every student can learn to read.  This is why I have chosen, after many years of indecision, to become a principal. To become a principal means I can inspire and support not just my students, but all students, in becoming successful.   I have come realize that I don’t give up my love of learning or of teaching, I simply have a larger group of students day to day.

            I am still intrigued as to why those statements on that day became my turning point.  “We have always believed it was more important for a kid to get a diploma than be able to read.”  The sound of thirteen people eating was suddenly the only sound.  “I mean, I think it is more of a handicap in life for a student to fail to get a high school diploma than if they are a poor reader...”   It was my room, my department, my colleagues.  Those simple statements, put so bluntly and presented so unabashedly,  are the antithesis of every belief I hold a a teacher.  Yet, here was a master teacher who held beliefs diametrically opposed to my own.  Beliefs that needed to change. 

            I went into teaching by default really.  In college I majored in everything. I liked it all.  When there were too many courses on my transcript not to graduate, my  mother stepped in.  “You’re the child of three generations of educators,” she said, “and you have worked with kids for the last eleven years.  Why don’t you go into teaching?” So I did.  What I didn’t realize was what being a teacher in public education could mean;  a definition of success rooted in statistics, not children. 

            I knew I was still a teacher for a reason that had names.  Nathan was the first of those names.

            Nathan was a small, scrawny second grader.  The middle child of a total of five but living with the closest three, all brothers, in a foster home.  He rarely spoke, often hung his head, and had some difficulty relating to the other children on the playground or in centers.  That his reading and writing were poor was not surprising given that this was his first real home; a home where pain, hunger, and abuse were replaced by love, kindness, and plenty.   Nathan also had a  learning disability in reading.  I worked with Nathan every day. 

            I taught phonics and Nathan learned phonics.   I taught writing and Nathan learned writing.  It wasn’t always easy for either of us, but we persevered.  However frustrating it was, no matter the success or failure, Nathan always knew, at the core of my being, I knew Nathan could learn.  And if Nathan could learn, Nathan could learn to read.  And he did.  Nathan learned to read and he opened a door inside himself that only he could find.  Nathan began to believe in Nathan.  

             Reading has been a part of me for as long as I can remember.  Having taken a foreign language more than once and having experienced, in some small way, the considerable difficulty learning  to read can be,  I can only imagine what feelings and emotions are experienced by a student who is supposed to be able to read, but can’t. In my many experiences in teaching, I have yet to find a curriculum that teaches you to believe in yourself.  For Nathan, reading was the key to open that door deep inside, the door behind which self-esteem lies.  Beside him as his guide and mentor, he opened that door and he stepped through.  Nathan was successful because he knew he was.

            Nathan, and all those after him, were why I was a teacher.        

            It was at the most recent graduation that, for those students I knew, I found myself keeping a tally.  Matt can read.  Amber can read.  Jonathan’s finally learning to read but we’re out of time.  What will happen for him now?  For those students, on that night, a decision had already been made that something, anything, was more important than reading.  One of those things was a diploma.  Freshman understand that the diploma is the goal.  Seniors understand, even when they understand little else, that the diploma is the goal.  They may not be able to read their diploma but they know that if they walk across the stage and leave with one, they are a success!  As they walked, I thought of Nathan.  It had been many years since I was Nathan’s teacher.  However, it was never with the goal of a diploma in mind that I struggled with Nathan while he learned to read. 

            They are out there, our graduates; former, current, and future.  Can they read or are they like round pegs in square holes.  Have you ever looked at a round peg in a square hole?  How do you fill up all that empty space?  Do you put ambivalence in there?  What about anger?  Perhaps longing for self-respect?  What were we asking kids to do? 

            Why were we asking them to be successful failures?    

            This road my colleague was traveling was the road to hell.  My hell.  The students hell.  What could have been Nathan’s hell. What may still be Jonathan’s hell.  It is a road so well paved with good intentions, good programs, research based curriculum, and standards of excellence that good teachers have forgotten where they are going and why. 

            Teachers are inspired and know, deep down within themselves, the innate and undeniable importance of reading.  They may not know how to teach it.  They can learn.  They may have forgotten why to teach it.  They can remember.  They may have made, for an infinite number of reasons, a different choice for the students they teach.  They can change.

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