One of my students

I was discussing with my reading class today how we as teachers can have a huge impact on our students. I shared the story of one of my experiences with a particular student. I had written a journal entry about Jered a year ago, but never posted it here on my blog. Jered and I are now friends on Facebook and he is a teacher himself. I thought it time that I posted that story. So, here it is...

When I first began my teaching career, I had little idea of the impact I might have on my students. During that first year of teaching, I was asked to help out with a particularly difficult 8th grade music class. Because I loved music, I eagerly accepted an assignment co-teaching with the band/chorus teacher. There were about twenty students in the class, so I thought to myself, "How difficult could this be?". I was eager to begin working with them and hoped to instill in them a love of music.

I was in for a rude awakening that first day of class. Most of the ninety-minute class period was spent on behavior management. We were simply trying to get students to perform the activities that met the objectives of the class lesson. The real difficulty was that there were several students who were very interested in learning about music and there were those who quite obviously were not remotely interested in learning anything. To say that class was a disaster would be kind. It made me doubt whether or not I wanted to return. So the other teacher and I began creating our master plan to engage the students and make them want to learn. We drafted a behavior management plan and with the blessings of our administrator, we were off.

For a few weeks, the plan worked. The students were singing, discussing dynamics and harmonies, and it seemed-ever so briefly-that they were learning. After each class, my colleague and I would discuss activities that were working and those that were not. We would adjust things and re-adjust. I felt like progress was being made. We even began to plan for the students’ participation in the county wide choral adjudication. And that’s when the explosion occurred.

It wasn’t really an explosion. It was more like a very dramatic mutiny. Behavior that week went ballistic. My colleague was labeled the good guy-he was responsible for their grading-and I was the wicked witch. Now mind you, I am a theater person and the Wicked Witch has always been one of my favorite roles, just not in this setting. The climate in the classroom by the end of the week was so bad that I walked out. I went directly to the principal’s office and told her I was resigning from the chorus position. She empathized with me and reiterated the difficult demands of the education profession. “Sometimes,” she told me, “we see the results of labors immediately. Sometimes it’s years down the road. And sometimes we never see them. But when we do see them, it makes all the difference.”

That next week, I received a bundle of letters from the students in that chorus class. They apologized for their behavior and asked for another chance. They said they were eager to give their best performance at the adjudication. So, I returned. They pulled off the adjudication and a spring concert with much success. They were very proud of their efforts, and so was I. I saw some of the students on occasion after that year, but those encounters faded off.

Some five or six years later, I was attending a Frederick Keys game and decided to leave early because it was getting cold and I hadn’t prepared for the weather. As I was leaving the stadium and heading to the parking lot, I heard someone call out, “Mrs. Jarman.” I turned around to find Jered, one of the students from that chorus class. “You don’t remember me,” he said. I told him of course I did-how could I forget his class! And then he thanked me. He thanked me for sticking with them, to help them do their best. He said it made a difference for him. In the fall, he would be entering his second year of college on a basketball scholarship. I gave him a big hug. As I walked towards my car, the words of my former administrator rang through my head, “sometimes it’s years down the road.” Yes, I had seen the results of my labors and they made me so happy that I cried the entire drive home.