I'd like to talk about disability in the classroom. This won't be a discussion of learning issues or ADHD. This diary is about educating (or trying to educate) a student who is severely depressed. This diary is about the heartbreak and sadness of being unable to help a child as much as he needs to be helped.
I don't have answers. I'm not even sure what the questions should be, at this point. My colleagues and I are doing our best, but our best isn't enough.
Before we continue:
KosAbility is a community diary series that is posted at 5 PM ET every Sunday and 8 PM ET every Wednesday by volunteer diarists. This is a gathering place for people who are living with disabilities, who love someone with a disability, or who want to know more about the issues surrounding this topic. There are two parts to each diary. First, a volunteer diarist will offer their specific knowledge and insight about a topic they know intimately. Then, readers are invited to comment on what they've read and or ask general questions about disabilities, share something they've learned, tell bad jokes, post photos, or rage about the unfairness of their situation. Our only rule is to be kind; trolls will be spayed or neutered.
I've been working on this diary since the very first Kosability diary. I didn't know how it would end when I started writing. It's probably just therapy for me. By the time this is published, I'll know how it ends. I've decided not to edit it so, other than this paragraph, every sentence is chronological to the school year. Indulge me, please.
I am a foreign language teacher in a wonderful public school district in New York. I have almost all the resources I could wish for and, frankly, the most wonderful students a teacher could hope for. They are bright, energetic, inquisative and they will help change the country and the world for the better. I am lucky to teach them.
Due to the nature of what I teach (Latin), I often have the same students year after year. The student I want to discuss tonight, Jack (all names have been changed) has been in my class for 5 of the last 6 years (we are a 7-12 school). He's one of the highest achieving students in the school and may be the most intellectually gifted, currently enrolled student. He has a philosopher's soul. He thinks deeply and differently about all sorts of issues. His ability to write critically and analyticaly is unsurpassed. As his guidance counselor told me, "he wrote a rough draft college essay in an hour and a half that was better than any finished essay written by the other seniors." He was accepted to an Ivy League school this past December. Clearly, Jack is gifted, yet, I'm not sure he will graduate or go to college next year.
Jack has been fighting severe depression for over half a decade. I'm not a doctor, but he is probably bi-polar. Mental illness runs in his family and one parent suffers from depression as well. The other parent is trying to hold the family (there's a second, younger sibling) together.
As a school community, we have been working with Jack to help him through his emotional and educational issues. His teachers and especially his guidance counselor have busted their butts to help him. Now, as the year winds down, I'm not sure we will be successful.
Jack's issues really manifested themselves during his 9th grade year. At first, there was just a missed day here, a missed day there. Papers and quizzes were completed on time and always with top grades. Every once in a while, we might get a phone call or an e-mail from Jack's mom, letting us know that he was 'stressed' or tired and slept in one morning or another. It didn't bother us as teachers - we're used to this sort of thing from high achievers - and Jack's grades stayed in the high A range. Nothing to worry about, right?
In tenth grade, things started to go down hill, but not obviously so. He would miss a few days at a time, but always come back with his work. He's a brilliant student so we never really caught the warning signs. He was still active in class, had lots of friends, had a girlfriend and his grades were straight A's. He showed signs of stress and missed a test here or there, but it was always a legal absence and he took the test the moment he came back to school. As long as his parents called in and said he was sick, we couldn't penalize him.
I'm not really sure when in 11th grade I realized that Jack was seriously sick. He has a great friend, David, who probably was the first to tell me that Jack was really suffering. David is, by far, the most incredible student I have ever taught. This kid has a truly adult intellect and wordly nature, and the only way you can tell that he isn't an adult is to look at him, all 130 pounds. David confided in me that he didn't know what to do for his friend. He understood that Jack was sick and didn't know to whom he should turn. Thanks to David's intervention, the school was able to start taking a much more active role in helping Jack.
Jack made it through junior year. He finished all of his assignments and did excellent jobs on his finals and final papers/projects. His summer, apparently, was generally good, although I later learned that he had broken up with his girlfriend. Senior year would turn out to be the only year of high school in which Jack didn't have a significant other.
Early on, this year, it was apparent that Jack was suffering from his depression much worse than in previous years. He missed school or at least came in late with increasing frequency. His home life was apparently not so good with his mother at wits end, a father who was also suffering from depression and a 9th grade sister who was beginning to show the same signs of anxiety that Jack had at that age.
Within a few weeks of school's start, Jack was behind in his work. He was missing school, especially on days when he had tests. His mother would call him in sick, which was true, but not true, if you catch my meaning. All the while, Jack was also working on the college application process. He decided to apply early to Ivy type schools and he picked one for early admission. He held his school work together, to a certain degree, earning As and Bs instead of straight As. By December, Jack had earned admission to one of the best schools in the country. It's been down hill since then.
December was a mess for Jack. He missed a tremendous amount of school and basically dropped out of his leadership role in a school activity that I run. Finally, during the last 3 weeks of January, the school, Jack and his mother decided that he needed to be given home instruction for the rest of the month. He wasn't coming to school and he wasn't doing his work. During this time, Jack tried to catch up on his work. I waived a number of assessments, but I needed to get a paper from him. I didn't care how much time he put into it. If he gave it an hour, it would be great. He's that smart. All he needed to do was sit down and write the paper. If he got it to me, he would probably get an A for the quarter. I never got it. He received a C for the quarter.
At this point, Jack's academic life was crumbling. His guidance counselor (who deserves a medal AND a monument for all the hard work she has done for Jack) told me that Jack would likely have his early admission to college revoked. She told me that there were times when she would just close her door and cry for a little bit. I don't blame her. She has been doing everything she can to help Jack and he's not taken that help.
During January, Jack came to see me about the activity that I mentioned above. I took him aside and I told him that he needed to make a decision about what he wanted to do. Either he came to school and led the group as was his responsibility, or he had to drop it. He said he would think about it and that if he showed up to the next meeting, it meant that he was back. He never showed. During our meeting, we had a long conversation about his life. He knew that I knew much of what was going on in his life. During the conversation, it became apparent to me that Jack was playing his psychologist like a fiddle. I openly said to him, "you don't want to be hospitalized, but you know you need it." He said yes. I then said, "you're telling your psychologist just enough to make him think that you don't quite need to be hospitalized." Again, he said yes. I asked him when was the last time he was truly happy and, with tears in his eyes, he said he didn't remember. I asked him if he wanted to be happy again and he said yes, but that he didn't have the energy or the strength to help himself. He wants to be better, but the fear of what that entails keeps him from getting the help he needs. His mother knows he needs help, but every time she has resolved to hospitalize him, she gets cold feet. She's scared of what will happen if she doesn't help him, but she's too afraid of what helping him entails to actually do anything. We're all paralyzed.
I'm useless to Jack, at this point. His best friend, David, can't help anymore. David told me about a phone call he had had with Jack. Jack was almost emotionless, while David said he was crying his eyes out. David doesn't have anything left to give to his friend. Now he's wrestling with the guilt of failing a friend, even though he hasn't failed him at all. I can't fully comprehend how sick Jack is. How is a 17 year old supposed to be able to?
I barely see Jack, now. It's April and he has been officially dropped from my class. This was done, not as a punishment, but as a way to clear out all non necessary courses for him. He has to pass 3 classes to graduate - English, Social Studies and Gym. The school has even gotten him a waiver from the physical part of physical education. All Jack has to do is write a few papers for the gym teacher.
Jack is a total train wreck at this point. Maybe we should have let him fail much earlier in his academic career. Maybe, in trying to help him through, we actually hurt him more by delaying the inevitable (although we had no idea it was).
It's mid April and I saw Jack during the last period of the day. I told him to stop by my classroom after school. I had a bunch of 7th graders there for extra help. Jack came by and waited almost an hour for the little kids to finish asking their questions. His 9th grade sister was there too. I haven't taught her in 2 years and it was nice to see her. I spoke with Jack and his sister for about 30 minutes. He's doing a bit better, but he's still just hanging on. He keeps saying that he doesn't have the fire that he used to have. His sister agreed. During the conversation, it was apparent that her brother's illness has really made her grow up quickly. It's hard to explain, but she seemed a lot older than 14. We all talked for a good while and I told Jack, straight out, that he needed to get out of his house and live with some of his friends for the remainder of the year. His sister heartily agreed and even said that their mother liked that idea, but could never quite pull the trigger and set it up.
They both talked openly about their father's mental illness as well. It was clear to me that the sister understood that the illness that her father and brother suffer from is likely genetic. She's scared that it will visit her next. I told her, flat out, that if she felt that she was beginning to head down the same path as her brother, she needed to talk to someone as soon as possible. It was a good talk, but I'm not sure that it did anything.
As a teacher, you have a professional responsibility to create a safe environment for learning. I do that in my classroom as best I can and I honestly believe that my fellow faculty members do the same. But, I can't control the outside world. I can't control a child's home life and I certainly can't control a child's mind. For 11 years, I've felt that the control I had in class was enough to help my kids learn. Obviously, sometimes it isn't.
It's a week and a half after my last entry. Jack hasn't been in school for the last 6 school days. His guidance counselor has e-mailed him repeatedly and always cc's the mom. Now the mother isn't writing back, either. I've learned that Jack has not had his college acceptance revoked, but he has been told that he needs to request a year deferral. I think the school is now aware of his illness. After Virginia Tech, colleges are very wary of mental illness, but I think they are also afraid of being sued if they revoke Jack's admission. Oy.
It's now the second week of May. If you're not in the education biz, you likely don't know that it is also the 2nd week of Advanced Placement Exams, courtesy of the College Board. Jack had a panic attack before his first one and missed it. He'll get to make it up next week since he has a medical excuse. We'll see if he makes it to the make-up or to his other exams. This diary is getting long so I'l try not to update again until the Friday before publication.
It's Friday, June 11 and I just heard from his guidance counselor: Jack will graduate. I think that is a good thing.