Hadn’t really thought about it until my wife mentioned this was the first opening of the school year that I hadn’t been a part of since 1996. Thought this piece should finally come out of the shadow.
Work
I hesitate to talk about my work life for several reasons, the primary one being to honor the privacy of the people who have allowed me to be a part of their story. But I offer this “Work” piece because it speaks to several relevant issues in one volatile event. The episode occurred decades ago, but I remember the significant moments like yesterday.
The event began with a distressed announcement over the school PA that I was needed in a particular class “immediately!” Evident that this was a crisis, I ran down to the kindergarten class (no running in the hall, please!) and only needed a second to understand the situation. Just outside the classroom door, the teacher was attempting to keep a woman from taking a child from her class. The child screamed and cried while the woman screamed at the teacher that she was “taking her child.” The mother had recently been released from prison and was high as a kite, barely coherent. The child screamed and reached for the teacher while the mother pulled on the child’s arm.
When the mother saw me, she corralled the child and started moving quickly to the door. The teacher, visibly shaken and in tears, looked at me and I told her to tell the office to call the police. The mother had made it to the door and as I followed her, I calmly said, “Ma’am, I can’t let you take her.” She turned my way, and I could see her eyes were glassy and incoherent. She coherently told me what I could do to myself and headed for the parking lot. The child continued to scream, and I looked into her eyes and calmly told her I was not going to let her go.
In my head, I had calculated that all I needed to do was to keep the child as safe as possible until the police arrived. A few minutes at most. But this wasn’t to be the case on this day. As we moved through the parking lot another car arrived. It turned out to be the father who had full custody of the child. With the child still crying and screaming, the mother noticed the father approaching. With the child in her arms, she headed towards him and screamed at him at length. The father remained calm, and the child reached for him. Each time she did, the mother yanked her back. It seemed obvious that this scene played as a variation on a theme. As I watched, I continued to sneak a peek at the entrance wondering when the police would arrive.
The mother turned away from the father and ran to the passenger side of the car. She shoved the child in the seat like laundry and came around the front of the car to the other side. I blocked the driver’s side door and continued to calmly say, “Ma’am, I can’t let you take her.” For some reason I turned to the father who looked at me as if to say, this is crazy. Then he dropped to the pavement and laid on his back directly in front of the car. I stepped toward him to confirm he was, in fact, lying in front of the car, poised as a human speed bump. As I did the mother opened the car door and got in the driver’s seat. Without thinking I placed myself between the door and the seat so she couldn’t close it.
She fumbled in her purse for her keys and very briefly the moment hit me: the surrealness of this chaotic family triangle and me saying over and over like some mantra, “Ma’am, I can’t let you take her.” I focused on the child, still in distress and very frightened at this point. Still no police.
The mother found her keys and I instinctively placed my hand over the ignition. This did not deter her efforts as she stabbed my hand with the key repeatedly. In the moment, I didn’t feel any pain and kept repeating calmly, “Ma’am, I can’t let you take her.”
I have no idea how long this went on: the key, her slapping my hand out of the way, me putting it back over the ignition, her stabbing my hand. But out of the corner of my eye, I saw the father stand up. He looked to the entrance and a moment later a Police car pulled in front of us. Twenty minutes had passed.
I don’t remember anything after that.
Nobody talked about it. Back inside, we went about the rest of our school day as usual. No debriefing. No chance to catch your breath. I pretended to be unaffected and went through the day’s schedule. And went home.
I’ve thought about that scene over the years, but never really talked about it. Interestingly, the incident was recalled at this teacher’s retirement. I was not there, but someone told me that the incident had come up during the celebration. Why? In 30 years of a stellar career, why that moment in time some 20 years later?
Obviously, we remember the singular events, especially ones that threaten safety. Or threaten to distort our lens of human nature. But I think something else is going on. To be so exposed, to have such responsibility, to put others before your own well-being. To have to walk back in still raw from the crisis and give your all while you are still putting the pieces back together. To have done this on some level so many times over three decades.
And after thirty years, leaving a profession while at the peak of your ability yet over a decade from true retirement age. So much left to give. And thirty years of watching the profession diluted, disrespected, and flipped every few years when new policymakers are elected—and to have no true voice in the process. And thirty years of watching a once-valued career turn into an entry-level job in North Carolina. I’m sure there are a few flashbulb incidents that highlight the paradox in reciprocity between giving your soul and systematic neglect that gives rise to such foolish bumper sticker-like ideas, “We don’t teach for the money.”
On these streets in my hometown, almost every day you will cross paths with at least one work crew, one town crew, and a cluster of DOT employees. I do not diminish, devalue, or begrudge their work or livelihood, but when four grown men surround a hole in the ground in the name of “safety” I wonder how we can justify one school counselor per hundreds of children. Sometimes only one per school. And one teacher per dozens of students expected to be their teacher, and on some unspoken level along a continuum, therapist, crisis interventionist, personal assistant, nutritionist, and coach. Apparently, we have forgotten that no learning takes place without a secure base regardless of age. This forgetfulness is felt as the chasm between the safe haven of the policymaker’s compartmentalized environment and the wide-open trenches where professionals practice each day.
Five lives came together on that day in a way never to be repeated. In some way, all five were changed by the intensity of the moment, though we don’t truly know each other’s story. Once in a great while, I think about that little girl who is now a young woman. But in my mind, she is always five. And since she is forever five, she is always wondering what the adults are doing and why it feels so bad. And why we talk about “stranger danger” when the “data” is clear that those closest to us are far more likely to inflict the greatest damage.
When I see her eyes in my mind, I recall that in some way I saw her the way fathers see their children. Once you are blessed with a child the “Protector” archetype in our psychological DNA begins to express in some fashion. You stop seeing children as hindrances to your needs, like young adults who avoid sitting near families in restaurants and roll their eyes at them as they pass. When I see her, she reminds me of the value and responsibility of parents and teachers and others who touch these young minds even before they can make their memories in story form. This space is sacred, and, for what it’s worth, the work is priceless.
photo credit: Element5-digital unsplash.com
