Kids in the Hall

“Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.” 

Alexander Pope, Epistle to Cobham, 1734



“I guess we’re all gonna be what we’re gonna be.” 

Don Williams, Good Ole Boys Like Me, 1980



I tried to make it a habit, in my days as a school psychologist, to observe children in the halls during passing times whenever I could.  This was especially entertaining when the youngest students—kindergarten through second—came by, bringing with them smile-provoking scenes of cuteness and mischievousness. 

Some dutifully followed like ducklings in a row close behind their teacher.  Others dawdled and allowed gaps to open up between themselves and those ahead.  A few engaged in horseplay and failed to maintain a straight line.  A surprising number of the children, always boys, trudged or shuffled with untied shoelaces flopping on the ground, and yet somehow never fell on their faces.  Often girls and boys whom I did not know would smile at me or wave and I would respond in kind.

Here, I thought, in this parade of innocence and hope, go future doctors, workers, homemakers, teachers—the stone and mortar of a strong and good society.  But here among them also march another cohort of a darker tomorrow, those who will bring pain and loss to others and to themselves.  We like to think that we can guide all children into the first trajectory and away from the second, but, for some of them, something like destiny may be at work.

That possibility, fraught with meaning for parents even more than for educators, comes easily to mind when I think of Jason.  I met him as a second grader, a vigorous, sturdy boy with alert brown eyes.  Upon seeing me in the halls, he would greet me with delight and come to me with a big smile and an affectionate hug.  Perhaps he was drawn to me because I was one of the few males in the building, a surrogate for his missing father who was doing time in an out-of-state prison.  Jason and his father had little contact with each other, but I noticed that he mentioned his father’s life in prison with a tone of approval, as if it were a desirable career path in Jason’s eyes. 

Perhaps it should be no surprise, then, that students and aides complained of Jason’s bullying and mind games on the playground, and that in the classroom he drew teachers into contests for control, engagements that he often won and appeared to enjoy.  Punishments and rewards had little effect on his relentless rule-breaking and intimidation.

His testing of the rules and quest for dominance did not apply to me, however, perhaps because I was a male and yet not a disciplinary figure.  I suspect that in Jason’s eyes my maleness made me a symbol of power, something that he would want to be associated with.  As we met in my office one day, he noticed that a teacher’s car sat in my usual parking spot outside my window.  Incensed at this apparent infringement of my prerogatives, Jason immediately set to making a poster that he taped to my office window.  With underlining, exclamation points, and blunt language, the poster proclaimed that this was Mr. Harp’s parking space, and that teachers were to stay away.

I watched Jason’s progress through the following years, and had direct involvement with him off and on.  He became less open to influence from adults, more of a problem, more uncontrollable with each year.  Even the junior high principal, a former Marine captain with impressive skills at intimidation, failed to subdue his disrespect for authority.

         His mother demanded that the school send him to the county-wide behavior disorder program, and he himself repeatedly expressed a desire to go there.  Finally, in junior high school, he got his wish.  After that, I saw little of Jason until the end of his senior year, when the behavior disorder program conducted his final annual review meeting.  He was involved with the legal system and the odds were that he would be sent to the state prison for juveniles. 

         When it was my turn to speak, I looked at Jason and, aiming to avoid ineffectual pleading, made a stab at understatement.  “I know the path you’re on, and I don’t agree with it,” I said dryly, and then described the dead end that awaited him.  Others joined in, but our words fell on barren soil.  Jason smiled in a self-satisfied way and didn’t bother to argue.  It was clear that he was looking forward to prison, perhaps seeing it as a rite of passage, like boot camp for a Marine recruit.

         I often wish that I could somehow have turned our early relationship toward something better for Jason, but it is, I think, not a realistic sentiment.  Even when Jason was a second grader hugging me in the halls, I sensed that the twig had been bent and would not be straightened.

          Just as a twig grows in the quest for light, so it was that another student in Jason’s school reached for a different sun.  I met her when she was in the special education preschool program, and watched as she progressed through the following years.  Nancy was a little elf, short, thin and frail-looking, with pale skin, reddish hair, and a thready voice.  She followed the rules and worked hard in spite of her lack of aptitude.  I rarely saw her smile.

Her mother, Brenda, could have passed for a hippie from the long-ago ‘60s, with her long reddish hair, often braided into pigtails, and accessories like boots and headbands—an attractive young woman with a cheerful, carefree air.  Optimistic to a fault, she had no doubt made some mistakes along the way.  Her mostly absent second husband supported her in poverty until the end of their marriage, when even she could no longer overlook his infidelity and irresponsibility.  Meanwhile, she was experiencing health problems that would inexorably advance through the coming years. 

Brenda faithfully attended Nancy’s special education conferences, as well as those of her younger brother and older sister, and affably acknowledged their teachers’ concerns.  But as charming as she was, Brenda had little aptitude or inclination for imposing the structure needed for academic success for her children, a structure that was indeed missing from her own life.  Her small, run down old house was a monument to clutter.  I would weave through obstacles and move things in order to find a place to sit during home visits.  Nancy’s little corner of their home, on the other hand, was an island of orderliness amidst the surrounding chaos. 

Nancy’s brother and sister reflected their mother’s ethos at school in that they routinely failed to complete assignments, and occasionally their impulsivity got them into trouble.  Even as she admitted their shortcomings, Brenda spoke warmly about them.  She sometimes complained, though, about her youngest daughter.  Nancy, it seemed, was rebelling against her mother’s easygoing ways, and they often clashed. 

As Brenda’s health worsened through the years, she aged and weakened prematurely, and her complexion took on an ominous pallor.  Her speech became slow and effortful, and lost its customary exuberance.  Eventually, she stopped attending school conferences.  She died when Nancy was in middle school. 

Her mother’s illness and death did not change Nancy, at least in terms of her attitudes and behavior at school.  She worked her way out of the special education program and plowed on to graduation on her own.  Recently, I saw her at a restaurant, working in her characteristically serious and diligent manner, and I reflected that, although her future may not always be easy, she will meet her challenges as they come, and do her best.

Nancy was one of the kids I had watched in the halls years before, trying to imagine their futures.  Jason was another.  Perhaps I’m wrong to think that their pathways were already marked and cut at such an early age.  Perhaps I’m too pessimistic about Jason, too optimistic about Nancy—after all, children often surprise us on their way to tomorrow.  But I do know that they are not blank sheets of paper for scripts written by well-meaning adults.

We make many mistakes as parents and as teachers.  Anyone who has given him- or herself over to nurturing the minds and bodies of children has plenty to regret, even when there is also much to rejoice about.  It was part of my job as a school psychologist to listen to parents who were in despair and to watch their tears as they described their feelings of frustration and failure.  I was able to tell them from my own experiences as a parent that they should hold on to hope, that if they didn’t give up, things could get better for them and for their children, that children who are full of problems can grow into good, caring, responsible adults. 

It seems to me that many of the mistakes and much of the pain that often surrounds parenting comes when we see our children as reflections of our worth, and believe that we can and should mold their hearts and minds.  As a result, we may try too hard, often in the process causing the thing we most fear.  At times I entertain the not altogether fanciful proposition that we might best treat our children as if they had been left on the doorstep, as if they were not extensions of ourselves in any way.  Our job, then, would be to nurture and love these precious creatures, and to try not to hurt them.  An old country song says, “I guess we’re all gonna be what we’re gonna be.”  The outcome, then, is up to them, to all the kids in the hall who are every day marching into the future.