Lucas Henry, a High School social studies teacher, has taught at schools on either sides of the railroad tracks and, interested in his perspective, I talked to him about the different approaches required in each of the two scenarios. I witnessed a very different world to the upper-middle class high school which I attended.
He once broke up a fight between two girls in the parking lot across the street. One of them got her shirt and bra torn off, so she was naked. "She was in my 5th period geography class and I saw her naked; embarrassing!"
Also after breaking up a fight between two girls one time he got injured in the process. Once the police came and tried to scare the girls about jail Henry said "no offense, but these are the girls that make jail a scary place, not the girls that are scared to be there."
Lucas Henry now teaches at McKinney High School; your average middle class suburban public High School but once taught at Richard Milburn Academy a school that helps kids when other schools tell them it can't be done. It is a charter school, not public not private, where most of the students that chose to enroll were at the margins of the public school system; they were either behind in a credit, over age 18, had kids of their own (an estimated 20% of students had kids), or had some circumstances that prevented them from attending a "regular" public school. Most had been told they were not welcome at the public school they should be in so there were quite a few kids with severe discipline problems, drug problems, and really bad home lives. No one questioned that this was a school for kids that didn't quite fit in elsewhere.
Because classes were small, less than 20 usually, Lucas Henry said he concentrated on giving them life skills in addition to content. Most of them were never going to need to know most of the social studies curriculum so he focused on teaching them how to be polite, responsible, good parents, good citizens, etc. He teaches some of that now; for example he greets each student at the door with a handshake every morning, but most of his time is now spent on content.
When asked if he had a different relationship with the kids at The classes were much more intimate and there was a definite family feel to it. "I loved those kids; It broke my heart when they would make bad decisions, but the successes were just that much more rewarding."
For example; two of his students who most likely wouldn't have graduated from High School anywhere else went on to college to become teachers. There was one student who couldn't pass any TAKS test but after working so hard together, he finally passed. Though this is not a big accomplishment for most, it was big for him.
Another of Lucas' Students was really bad; he had a drug problem and stole lots of stuff to support it, he was terrible in school and never tried. One day he got arrested in class and was taken to TYC for about 4 months. When he returned he was a completely different person. He cut off all of his long hair and donated it to Locks of Love, and he showed up on time ready to learn everyday. His problem, according to Henry, was that no one ever told him what to do before jail. He didn't know people were supposed to get up and have a routine everyday. When he came back to school they helped him graduate on time and he joined the army.
Though the turnover rate was high, more kids graduated that not and graduation day was always special because you knew you were looking at a bunch of kids that wouldn't be there without you, "at MHS, most of the students would be fine without me."
It does seem like quite a different feel to the High School many of us experience; their prom queen was eight months pregnant and lots of kids wore ankle bracelets because they were on probation so prom dresses looked silly. But yet I can only imagine how much more rewarding and essential a school like Richard Milburn is.
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