THAT was motivating

     Persistence: To climb steep hills requires slow pace at first

    Stay positive : Work hard : Make it happen

    Such are the typical motivational posters found plastering the walls of junior high schools. Fading into the background-a week after they are tacked up, they disappear into your subconscious never to be seen again. 

    The best of intentions-inspire the student body. But rarely is there an impact where the rubber meets the road.

    Until this year-when our brilliant yearbook sponsor brainstormed a new wrinkle-to rip down the generic "hang in there" dangling kitten posters

and replace them with quotes and photos of current students. There has been a lot more interest in the hallways since real people saying real words started making their appearance. 

    Student engagement-check

    Entertainment value-check

    **************************************************

    ....enter Tomas. He entered our school as a squirrely 6th grader with a penchant for elopement. In the world of educational jargon, elopement does not mean "escape to Las Vegas to be wed by an Elvis impersonator in a neon chapel." Instead, it refers to a student that leaves class without permission. Absconds. Escapes, even.

    In other words, Tomas was a runner. When the going got tough--well, he got going. That first couple of months was a huge adjustment for him and the staff alike. He was assigned a pass to a cooling-down room that he could use instead of taking to the sidewalk. We learned to read his moods and to de-escalate tension to keep him in the classroom. Meanwhile, we focused on accelerated instruction in English to bring him up to his academic capacity.

    He was a bit resistant to learning. By that, I mean "almost totally uninterested in anything beyond Marvel comic books and Naruto anime." Dinosaurs, maybe. But math-science-social studies? Oh, not at all. He dug in his metaphorical heels and sat in class like a man of stone. All that 6th grade year.

    Seventh grade saw small improvements. Strategized bribery worked pretty well-given a list of what to accomplish at the beginning of each class, he would get it done to earn five or ten minutes of free time. But he rarely ventured into learning more than the absolute required minimum. Especially if it did not fall into his specialized fields of interest.

     And then, sometime over the summer between seventh and eight grade, his maturity switch flipped on. Along with growing a couple of inches taller, he developed an appetite for completing all of his work. For staying caught up in all classes. In answering questions posed by teachers in group work. In fearlessly taking on new projects even if unsure of how to begin.

     It was downright inspiring to everyone to see how a couple of years of hard work turned him into a success story. His 6-grade social studies teacher, who was also his 8th-grade technology teacher (and the aforementioned yearbook sponsor) was so amazed at his academic about-face that she awarded him her student-of-the year honor. 

    And featured him on one of the motivational student displays in the hallways.

    "Be Brave" proclaims the header, over a photo of Tomas cheekily typing on a keyboard "step outside your comfort zone."

    In smaller script below:

    "Take the leap, try something new

    and discover what you're capable of becoming"

    Tomas was grinning like a Cheshire cat both in the photo...

     ...and when he saw the poster for the first time in the 6th grade main hallway. The one across from the counselor's offices, next to the clinic and the teacher's lounge. The high-traffic area of the school where EVERYBODY passes every day.

    So of course I snapped a photo of it for him and sent it to his mom and dad. You'd want to see that if it was your kid, right? 

    Of course.

    And of course mom and dad were overjoyed to see him celebrated before the entire student and faculty population.

    Still-sometimes a hurried snapshot does not do true justice to the real McCoy.

    Which is why on this year's awards night, I snuck Mom and Dad into the school proper, past the double doors that separate the cafeteria/event stage. Down into the main hallway. To see their son splashed in glorious Technicolor on a 3 feet by 6 feet glossy poster, a testament to hard work and family support and triumphant redemption. 

    Must have been overwhelming to them--there were tears in evidence. The requisite shot was framed of him standing in front of his poster gesturing possessively towards it. 

    This is the glory of teaching-to watch struggle turn into jubilance.

    I wish every kid I teach could be like Tomas. 

    But the fact that they are not makes him all the more memorable.

       "Take the leap, try something new

    and discover what you're capable of becoming"

What's for lunch?

     Third day in.

    New school.

    New language.

    New country.

   

    Of all the uncomfortable and novel situations that I witness students engulfed in, the Late Arrival seems to carry a heavy burden. Junior high is such a transitional phase that it's inherently chaotic. Human bumper cars in crowded hallways. Navigating six or seven classes a day. Mastering locker combinations, changing into and out of PE uniforms in just a jot of time. Deciding which tribe is yours, and fitting into it. Already a dog's breakfast of anxiety and isolation.

    What if it is worse? What if you are new to the school, without even a group of friends to ease you in?

    What if you are new to Texas? To America?

     To speaking English?

    

    So, about a month before the end of school, we enrolled another Newcomer. Meaning Katya tested on beginning levels for speech, for listening, for reading, and for writing. Since the Newcomers are marked by a need for accelerated English instruction, they are grouped in the same class regardless of grade level.

     Originally from Kazakhstan, the last constituent piece of the USSR to break away as the Soviet Union crumbled. Speaking Russian. 

    Katya came in to a class with no common ground for her. No other Russian speakers.

     No other 6th graders.

     No other girls.

    

    So we assigned her a buddy for the first couple of weeks, a girl in the same grade, a native-born Texan whose family speaks Russian and who could thus bridge the gap for her. Show her where her classes are, how to open her locker, and how to get through the lunch line. Host Katya at her lunch table and involve her in the lunch community, hopefully sponsor some friendships in the group.

    What's that Robbie Burns said about the best-laid schemes of mice and men? Yup, third day in, the buddy got sick. Like out with a fever for a whole week sick.

    What was the most critical part of the day that Katya and her buddy shared? Not getting to class, she already knew her way around by the end of the second day.

    Not opening her locker.

    Not remembering which binder to use for each class.

  

    Rather--what to do about lunch? Where to sit? How to be accepted somewhere?

    We decided to ask the buddy's group of lunch friends to let Katya sit with them It would mean reaching out to several students and asking them to welcome our stranger to lunch. With her dozen or so words of English.    

   

     Only to find my efforts were not needed.

    

    Only to have my thunder stolen by a delegation, no less. 

    

    Between classes, I was visited by a solid half-dozen 6th grade girls who told me they would be coming by at the end of the next class to gather Katya so she would know where to sit for lunch.

    

    I am sure somewhere there is a motivational poster with those girls on it. Right between the one of the cat dangling from a branch that say "Hang on" and the one of impossibly neon lemons that instructs you to make lemons from lemonade. 

   

    Because there is little that is more "motivational" than a group of youngsters actively setting out to make the world a better place.

      

    One good deed at a time.

    Have I mentioned before that I am constrantly gobsmacked by the prosocial behavior of youngsters? I seem to have a perpetual lump in my throat, awash in inchoate epiphany. 

    

    Who better than a bunch of junior-high kids to understand how important it is that everyone has a place? 

    

    A place for lunch.

    A place to belong.