A Story From My Teaching Days

I taught school for 32 years and I loved my job most of the time. I was a tough teacher who had really high expectations for myself and for my students. Students started out being a little afraid of me because they knew I didn't put up with any disrespect toward me or other students. They knew I wasn't going to tolerate bad behavior in my classroom. They knew I wouldn't compromise on this. Every year, it seems, we all worked hard, learned a lot, had fun, and ended up really liking each other. Though I don't know where it came from, I had a knack for connecting to the "problem" kids. One of those kids was Raymond.
Raymond was in my 5th grade class. He spent most of the year with his desk pushed up against mine so I could keep an eye on him and so the other students would be safe. He was not allowed to have scissors, even the round-tipped ones, unless I was standing right next to him. He was constantly getting into trouble on the playground for playing too rough and sometimes fighting. He struggled with his school work and was in a remedial reading class which had a specially trained teacher to help with reading issues. Raymond was really full of energy...all the time...and when I could tell that he just couldn't possibly stay in his seat for one more second, I would create an errand for him to run, like taking a note to another teacher in the building, just so he could spend some of that energy. He and I had an understanding that if he ever got into trouble while running those errands (we called it being my special helper), he'd never get to do it again. Guess what? He stayed my helper through the whole year. At some point in the year I learned that on most days, Raymond left school at the end of the day and walked up to the VFW Hall. That's where his dad was sitting at the bar drinking. Raymond stayed up there until the place closed each night, unsupervised, undisciplined, and certainly not practicing his reading, math facts, or doing any kind of homework assignments. Sigh.
Anyway, back to the good part of my story. Each year I read Where the Red Fern Grows to my 5th grade classes. It's the story of a boy, who lived in the Ozark mountains, who struggled and saved for years to finally get two hunting dogs, their adventures of hunting raccoons, dealing with the local bullies, winning a hunting contest, and loving those dogs as much as he loved his family. I liked reading this book to my 5th graders because it was about "stuff" in which the boys in my class would be interested and could identify with, and the girls liked it as well. Finding books that 10 year old boys liked was not always easy. I read a little of it every day right after recess, and the kids loved it. Well, near the end of the book, there is a really really sad part. As I was getting to that part, I began to tear up and my voice cracked, and the students could tell that I was starting to cry. Just then, Raymond, the kid with reading and behavior issues, jumped up, took the book right out of my hands, and said, "Don't worry, Mrs. Westhoff (that was my name back then), I'll read it for you." So, I gave him my reading chair, sat at his desk, and he started to read to the class. He finished the chapter for me...I helped him with a few of the words he couldn't read, but HE READ TO THE CLASS in spite of his struggle with reading, in spite of the possibility that he might be embarrassed reading in front of his peers, and in spite of the fact that he was the class bully and tough guy...all because he felt badly for me because I had started to cry.
Wow, that happened probably 30 years ago, and just thinking about Raymond and that day never fails to make me start crying all over again. I can't count how many students I had in those 32 years of teaching, and I loved so many of them, but there were always some special ones, the ones who found their way into my heart, and taught me how to be a good teacher.