During my second year in graduate school at The University of Kansas, I worked as a social worker in an elementary school in southeast Topeka, Kansas. The principal referred to me all of the boys in the fifth and sixth grades who were seen by their teachers as incorrigible behavioral problems, and headed toward becoming school dropouts. I was given complete freedom, under supervision from a faculty member at K.U., to do what I wanted with the boys.
Each week we did things together as a group, going places like the state capitol building. We put on a play for the school in honor of Abe Lincoln's birthday. The boy with the reputation as the worst behavior problem in the school played the part of President Lincoln. At the end of the year, our toughest and biggest group member, a black kid, beat out a little blonde girl to win the school spelling bee! Needless to say, I enjoyed this experience immensely, and we changed the way these boys were perceived by their teachers, parents, and classmates.
2 comments:
Thanks for sharing. I think we need more stories like this!
People like you make a difference, one kid at a time. Kids in those situations just need to know that someone really cares about them. Thank you for doing that for them. They won't forget.
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