These Are My “Kids”

While grading papers in my office one day, I became extremely discouraged, feeling that my students had not learned a single thing this semester and that I was completely ineffective as a teacher. I left my office to attend a student award ceremony, and it was there that I ran into “Jim.”

A couple of springs ago, Jim was a student of mine, though about five to ten years my senior. He was a very slow learner and struggled immensely in my Level 0 (developmental / pre-college-level) class, but he had this inspiring tenacity -- perfect attendance, regular tutoring at the learning center (he would come to class with pages and pages of work that he had done with this tutor), always asking questions in class, reworking his online assignments over and over until he scored 100% on every one of them, and so on. Still, it was clear he would not be able to pass the course. He gave the course a second try with me in the fall semester, working as hard as ever, and managed to pull through with a solid C. His progress was clear and he undoubtedly deserved to move on from this course, but when I saw some of the kinds of mistakes he was making, I had concerns about how he would pass the next course, Level 1, which was also developmental.

Not surprisingly to me, he did fail Level 1, though he worked just as hard for that instructor as he had worked for me. He came to me at the end of the school year and said, “I understand you are teaching this class during the summer. May I sit in on it?” And so he did. Despite that he was not enrolled and was therefore earning no credit for the summer course, he attended nearly every session -- two nights a week for three hours a night for six weeks -- taking notes, working in small groups with the other students, asking questions, doing the homework, etc. While I worked with him, I was thrilled to see the progress he had made since he left my Level 0 class. It was slow going, but I could see that he had the ability to pass Level 1…at least eventually. He gave Level 1 another try the following semester, and he made it through. He could finally enroll in a college level course.

So there I was at the student award ceremony when I heard Jim, “Professor, professor! I have tried to catch you in your office so that I could show you my mid-term grades. I’m getting an A in my college level course!” I felt myself tearing up a little as I congratulated him and told him that I knew he could do it. I thought, Students like Jim -- these are my kids -- these are the reason I do this job.

Related: True Confessions, #4