Today was my last day of being a Summer School Tutor, at a local High School.
I did this paid work through the Drop Out Prevention Program of a local nonprofit, which pairs Mentors with Youth-at-risk, called Chatham County Together!
I have a particular feeling in me, and am am not sure what it is made of, or how to describe it, without going into too much detail...
Today was a challenging day!
Today was graduation day...
We had several seniors who were struggling (some harder than others), to fulfill their requirments in Summer School, so that they could go ahead and graduate with their class. Two of these Seniors I had worked with before, in the after-school program, during the semester.
Only yesterday, the deadline to hand everything in was pushed up a day, to today! Harsh thing to do to students who have poor time management skills already. To top it off, the Guidance Counselor who normally oversees summer school had a preexisting plan to deliver her son to the airport that could not be altered. This left me and the Ag Teacher-substitute to help usher these guys through the pearly gates of graduation. Yikes! So we ushered the seniors down the polished lenoleum floors, to the other Guidance Counselors office, to size up the situation.
One kid bailed, walked out the door, said he was going to community college...
Well, I hope he doesn't think that college is easier than High School....because he will need to apply himself a good deal more than he was demonstrating in Summer School. He might also run into some trouble finding a job that allows him to work with his pants down to his knees (which is the way he rolls). I'll leave it at that. (But what is up with that anyways?). There wasn't any stopping him, or so he claimed, defiantly, as he walked out the door, so I didn't really waste any more time trying.
I had more important things to worry about.
For one, R, who had been working pretty steadily all along, and who was on the cusp of meeting the requirements for graduation, was getting serious Cold Feet, in the face of her impending presentation at noon, and the English 4 tests she had to finnish and submit. Though R and I had worked together during the school year, and we had gotten on well, she had actually been acting a little snobby in the previous weeks, often declining my offers to help with her English, wanting, I think, to appear cool, with the other Seniors, who largely seemed to regard themselves as the chosen few..... But now, in contrast to her previous cool, the poor gal was shaking in her shoes.
She said that she had already resigned herself to coming back to finnish next semester... I tested the waters- after working so hard, did she mean that? She seemed mired in the unfairness of her percieved situation, and defeat. Taking a different approach, I played out the scenario for her "OK, so what if you don't graduate....", and in a glance, I could see the disappointment wash across her face, drawing it down, leaving it empty; she thought I was giving up on her, and she didn't want me to! So clearly, what she needed from someone was a push, some encouragement. And that, Ladies and Gents, is what CCT! pays me to be there to do.
So I said, come on, Lets, give it a shot. There's no point in us standing around worrying about this anymore, time is slipping away, and we've got a lot of work to do!, and we made our way back down the hallways back to class.
Before we turned the corner to enter the classroom, I asked her to take a few deep breaths. She said she needed to take ALOT of deep breaths!
When she entered the classroom, she sat down in her chair, and got straight to business; she smacked that stuff out!
One of the last things she had to do was write a ballad for English 4. We threw together one about her graduating, whose refrain was "And so she pushed further!" I wish I had a copy...
When the time came, she grabbed her stuff, and went to make her presentation. I tried to pump her up, reminding her how prepared she was, with her business shoes etc.
Several minutes later, after my farewells to the other students, I passed her in the hall, on her way into her presentation, and my way out the door, and she thanked me for my help.
Well, you are welcome R. I hope that it is working out for you! I really do!
However, at the end of the day, who I think we both really need to thank is Chatham County Together! for putting their tutor in the right place at the right time. So that a hard working young lady was not defeated by the particular pressures of the day, and instead persevered, and pushed through, further!
