When I shared this story with my Principal and Vice Principal colleagues this morning, I joked that I’d blogged about it previously. However, while I was able to find a couple references to the story, I realized after a search of my blogs that I have not shared the full story before.

This morning was our final face-to-face meeting of the year, and our assistant superintendents shared a few words about retirees before each retiree got a chance to say something. I shared this story.

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It was early on in my teaching career, long before I knew if I’d ever get into administration, and so I didn’t know the impact this conversation would have on me.

I was teaching a class about 10-15 minutes after lunch when a good student, Garrett, showed up at my door. He didn’t show up after lunch and I just assumed he signed out, this is not a kid who would skip a class. I looked up at him as if to ask ‘Where were you?’ And his face sunk as he said, “I got in trouble.”

We had the attention of the whole class and I didn’t want him to have to share what happened in front of everyone. “Have a seat,” I said, “We’ll talk about it later,” and then I caught him up on what he missed. The day ended and I totally forgot to follow up with him, so around 4pm I headed down to the office to learn about what Garrett had done.

When I got down to the office our Vice Principal, Gary Kern, was just finishing up with a student. I didn’t teach this student, but I knew of him. In fact, just a couple months before this, I saw this student being arrested with a man, who I think was his dad, outside of a neighbourhood grocery store. As this student walked out of the office, Gary trailed behind him, shaking his head with a bit of an exasperated expression on his face.

I asked what Garrett got in trouble for? Gary said it wasn’t a big deal, he and a friend were horsing around at lunch and Garrett pushed his friend, who fell back and hit his head on a tree. It was witnessed by a noon-hour supervisor who brought the kids to the office, and the only follow up was an apology. Then Gary said something and I carried this ‘lesson’ with me for my entire career.

Gary said, “This job has taught me a new respect for the kid I’d never want to be.”

He continued, ‘Your kid, Garrett, I’d trade lives with him… Good family, respectful, plays hockey, good friends.’

‘…This other kid? No way I’d want his life. This job teaches you to provide a kid, who you’d never switch lives with, with forgiveness, understanding, and respect, because if you wouldn’t want to be them, they deserve a break.’

I know my colleagues understood this when I shared it with them. I went on to share how this impacted me. And I thanked all of my colleagues for their understanding of this idea. I thanked them for not treating kids like life is baseball and knowing when a kid deserves more than 3 strikes. I thanked them for being a student’s advocate and for treating a kid with dignity and respect, even when the kid’s parent didn’t treat them the same way. I thanked them for all they do to support the needs of the students in their community, and thus making our entire community better.

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I can’t tell you how many times I thought of this conversation with Gary in my career, but I will say that this was a frame of reference that I held with me, and reminded myself of time and again. It gave me strength when I felt frustrated. It allowed me deal with angry people, and to not take a kid’s attitude personally.

Now, at the end of my career, I can say that Gary was absolutely correct, “This job has taught me a new respect for the kid I’d never want to be.” Because that’s the kid that needs us to be their advocate.