A Teacher’s Tale

There was a Men’s meeting that I attended yesterday that turned out to be memorable. It wasn’t so much the speaker…although he was awesome. It was the encounter I had with a first time visitor to the group. He was sitting at a table with a buddy of his when I asked if I could join them. They said, “Of course.”

We engaged in the typical small talk like men do. One of the first questions out of man’s mouth is, “So what do you do?” When I told this one fellow that I was a teacher he just opened up to me about his daughter and what she was going through as a teacher.

Megan, his daughter is teaching 7th Grade English. She has this one gifted student that just won’t participate and in fact is disruptive. When she asked the kid about his behavior one day, he said something strange. “I don’t like you. Stay away from me!” She tried to get him to open up as to why but all he said was, “Stay away from me and don’t read my journal!”

Well, this is an English class and the writing journal is something that has to be read, so she read it. She found that he had written twelve times in the book that he wanted to kill her! That would send chills down the spine of anyone. She immediately took the book to her Principal and asked for help and advice on what to do.

In the interim, she had called her Dad who lived in another city and told him the story. He immediately called the police in that town and they dispatched a couple of officers to the school. When the Mother was summoned to the school, she immediately began cursing the staff and the police and asked, “Why did I have to come down here?” When they handed her the book, she read it then turned and punched her kid in the face!

Is it any wonder this kid has issues with female authority? CPS stepped in and took the kid and the school suspended the boy, but three days later he was BACK at school. By this time my jaw must have been on the floor as this father was wondering what to do. He called the police again, but they said that the kid was in another class now (like that is a viable solution). The Dad pleaded with them to post someone there outside her class, but that was not going to happen.

I suggested that they take the story to a news reporter and let them run with it, but Megan did not want to do that for fear of losing her job and being blackballed as a troublemaker. After all, this is her first year of teaching.

I told the Dad that I was at this meeting apparently for him and his daughter. I reached in my pocket and pulled out a magnet that I had made called “The Teacher’s Prayer.” I told him to just read it to her and it would bless her. Tears welled up in the eyes of this hulk of a man and he thanked me. We marveled at how God puts people in our lives when we least expect it to encourage us and remind us that He is with us.

I did encourage him to have her quit that school district. No teaching job is worth losing your life. They apparently are more worried about what the parent thinks than the safety of their staff. He told me that Megan still loved the boy and wanted to help him, and I told him that I would be praying for them through the days to come.

The tragic part of this story is that this is played out daily in schools all around our country; then we wonder why bad things happen at our schools. I believe we are at a tipping point. We either need to change our education system radically or it is going to literally explode on us. More than that, we need to get grounded spiritually. We have so many kids raised in dysfunctional homes. It is no wonder they act out their hostility at school.

Pray for our country, our families, and for Megan. Her story needs to be told. I just hope I don’t read about it after a kid goes crazy on her and the school. Pray that we as a country find the way to rectify this collision course we are on before it is too late.

Shalom!

Dan Skognes

One Response to “A Teacher’s Tale”

  1. Rich (sounds like sights)Seitz says:

    Dan,
    Please send me a mailing address that I can safely send you a package of the Pax Game training manual and supplies. It is worth $300 and I will give it to you free, no strings attached other than to read it and use what you can. I understand your position as an aide, and how even teachers do NOT have power to implement many things, but I assure you that you will find things in there that you and the teacher can do without having to seek approval from a higher authority. This is not a curriculum; it is not a behavior modification program, point system, level system or any of that garbage. these are things teachers have invented over the years that have been put to a rigorous scientific evaluation using gold-standard research trials. Do you already have a quiet sign for the class? Pax allows you to keep it and add something that makes it even better. Pax fits inside and around anything you are doing by demand. Just take a look at what I send you, please. You have so much knowledge and talent and wisdom.