Before I go any further, here’s a brief rundown of where I work:
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The Arkansas Juvenile Assessment and Treatment Center is a DYS-owned facility run by Rite of Passage, a company that oversees similar programs nation-wide. There are other ROP/DYS facilities in the state, but AJATC is the largest, central hub.

The student-athletes at ROP – student-athlete is their official title – come from all over Arkansas and are there because a judge said so. During intake, they receive medical, psychological, and educational evaluations before a treatment plan is decided. From there, they are assigned either to another facility or one of the 6 units on site. The kids wear uniforms that look like any other school uniform and participate in daily activities. As part of the programming, they have ways to earn different ranks, which have different responsibilities and privileges that come with them. They are not behind bars, but it is a secure facility. All units and rooms require a key and the students are under constant supervision.

Education is part of their treatment. It’s pretty much a given that they are behind, so the students go to school year round, M-Th, with enhancement activities on Friday morning. A few years ago, a state ruling decided the classes would be taught by Virtual Arkansas. The VA teachers do a really great job, but whether or not online school is the right format for these kids is debatable. In addition to the VA classes, we have Vo-Tech, GED, and World of Works, which helps graduates with college and career prep. Also built into the school day are treatment groups and one-on-one therapy sessions.

 When I began at ROP, they had not had a GED instructor for quite some time. I’d been told they really wanted a new teacher, yet it was also true they’d been left to study on their own all summer and that I’d be the outsider walking into their territory. So, it wasn’t much of a surprise that I didn’t get the warmest of welcomes. They didn’t trust me. To them, I was just another grown-up showing up “to help them.” Given that almost every kid in their position has been let down by many, many adults, I respected their skepticism.  

​Adding to their distrust was the fact that there was a hold on all GED testing. The previous spring, the person in my position and a few others were caught helping the kids cheat. This led to firings and a stop to all testing while the site went under severe scrutiny from GED Testing Services. The kids were understandably frustrated. They thought that having a teacher again would mean they could test again. When my arrival didn’t result in immediate changes, they became angry. Since I was there, they were angry with me. It wasn’t all bad, and most of the kids were pretty chill, but there was a stubborn few, who nearing release, cut their loses and saw no reason to try anything I suggested.

 During all this, I stayed neutral, and I stayed calmed. Mostly. My quiet nature confused them. At least I assume so because, one the day two of the angriest hotheads tried to get under my skin and convince me to quit. They said I was too quiet to handle tough, dangerous men like them. I listened to their rant, shrugged and told them, “Never underestimate the quiet ones.”

For my part, I hated this interaction, but I reminded myself they were thinking and feeling a lot of things that had nothing to do with me. While their logic was flawed, and many of their decisions were questionable, I felt the best thing I could do was keep coming back and be okay with it taking a long time to build morale. I saved my need to scream until I was in my car, and apologized to my family when I still had frustration left when I got home.

Eventually, gradually, the kids got the opportunity to start testing again. There are still ongoing restrictions, like having to take their final tests offsite. (The GED consists of 8 tests in 4 subjects. The kids can take the Ready, and mandatory pretest, onsite, but have to go elsewhere for the Officials). However, the mood improved once they could make visible progress. The most resistant guys being released also helped. They started to see that I actually can teach them things that make the tests obtainable. They also seem to like that I am frank about what I do and do not know, and what the actual possibilities are.

But honestly, what had the biggest impact on morale is that I had to miss a week in December. While I was gone, they realized they actually kind of liked having me around.

 A piece of advice often shared is “you’ve got the make sure the kids know you care about them.” That sounds good, but I would just say “care for them.” Genuinely care for them. While related to what I said Part 1 about finding ways to enjoy the kids, caring is not the same. You can care for someone and not enjoy them at all. That takes work. For me, it is often an intentional choice.

Making it harder is you also have to accept that the kids may never know that your care is sincere. Their brokenness is such that they are incapable of understanding what it looks like to have someone sincerely care about them. They can’t trust it or believe it. Other kids are master manipulators. They see affection from others as an opportunity for gains. A positive response from them can’t be the goal. Is it really care if contingent on their response?

One incident that illustrates some of this involves a kid I’m going to call FR (not his actual initials). FR was highly intelligent and heavily desired to be in control. If he couldn’t be in charge, he at least wanted to treated as an equal. As a result, he was very manipulative and prone to angry outbursts when he didn’t get his way.

FR struggled with math. He’d passed almost every other test, but after several attempts, still hadn’t gotten a passing score on the Math Ready. In his frustration, he wouldn’t work with me or study on his own. He had a lot of reasons his inability to pass was somebody else’s fault. He regularly cussed me out, saying I didn’t know how to teach. One day, when he was being particularly sulky, I flat out told him his excuses were bullshit. Referencing one of his more infamous cons, I told him I didn’t see why anyone who could successfully work all those angles couldn’t shift a couple of numbers around to find x. He clearly had the strategic thinking skills.

He passed the Ready a week later.

Later, he sought me out to thank me. Unfortunately, his thanks involved some highly inappropriate flirting. It took all my acquired experience to remind myself that FR likely grew up in a highly sexualized environment, where all appreciation for women involved suggestive language. I also recognized this was the first “positive” gesture he’d ever made towards me. As much as I was cringing, I knew it was important to accept intent of the compliment without deriding him for the language.
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I did not enjoy that interaction at all, and I am grateful I had the awareness to see his perspective. It gave me the ability to choose to care about him in that moment. I don’t remember what I said, but I do know the conversation ended well.

In short, I’m glad I chose to care about that turd.

Recently, I was asked to give a talk about my job working with “juvenile offenders” for a women’s group my mother is a part of. Even though it was longer than intended, I was well received. There has been some mention of me possibly doing something again, with a larger audience and shorter duration. One attendee even suggested that I submit for publication in a magazine. I don’t know about all that, but I did think it makes sense for me to post my thoughts here. The content has been edited to fit the different format.
Essentially, this is the story of what it’s been like for me, a middle class woman who grew up in a stable home with no major threats to my well-being, to enter into a community where that is far from the norm. This is some of the things I’ve noticed and learned while working with these kids and families. Most significantly, this tells some of the ways I’ve had to shift my thinking and my perception of those around me. I recently heard someone say, “You can’t change what’s around you without changing what’s within you.” I have definitely found that to be true.​

This story focuses on the broad trends. Delving into all of the nuance and exceptions would take years. Besides, the core problems are with the big trends and too much information can be a distraction. For example, everyone knows the Mississippi River runs north to south. That one guy who tries to argue against that by naming all the jogs and bends where the direction changes briefly is just a jerk who’s missing the point.

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I never wanted to be a teacher. When I got my undergraduate degree in biology, I had vague ambitions of studying tree frogs in the Amazon. After graduating, I had almost no interest in getting my Master’s – requirement for almost every career in biology – and took a job leading school groups through nature-based activities at a camp in Texas. I like kids and I liked the outdoors, so, sure, it would do.

Well, I loved it. The camp served schools from all over SE Texas and students from all kinds of backgrounds. While I did well with almost every group, I was surprised to find that I did best with middle school kids from rougher neighborhoods. Basically, the ones of the age and background I was most afraid of before I started. When I left the job two years later, I was motivated to continue working similar kids in non-traditional education settings. I had zero desire to work in a classroom setting and was very vocal about it.

However, I couldn’t find an alternative teaching job that wasn’t seasonal and could support me year round. I floundered for several years, until I accepted that I should become a classroom teacher. Long story short, everything I attempted that took me away from getting my certification failed, while everything that brought me closer fell into place almost miraculously.

When I started teaching Middle School Science for St. Louis Public Schools, I was not nearly as prepared as I thought I was. The biggest problem was that I was essentially alone. Yes I had amazing colleagues, but everyone was too busy to readily be available. Additionally, SLPS has a prevailing culture of “this is a tough place; either figure it out or leave.” My school was more collaborative than most, but that attitude was still present. Fortunately, there were countless good days, but it was still immensely stressful. To be honest, if it wasn’t for the uncanny way I’d been led into the job, I don’t think I would have stuck it out. That and knowing that after a few years, I could get help paying my student loans.

The hardest part was feeling constantly overwhelmed by everything that was wrong. Parents who were either too disinterested or too needy. Supervisors who, when I needed help, wouldn’t have a conversation with me but would instead stuff an article in my mailbox. Or send me, the hands-on and messy scientist, to observe a queenly colleague who possessed the ability to command her entire silent science class while never leaving her desk just by the strength of her personality. Things like this made me believe I was wrong. That I wasn’t doing enough. That I wasn’t enough.

I needed to figure it out or leave.

Fortunately, beginning late in my second year, I had a series revelations that really put the job into perspective and laid the groundwork for my current position at AJATC and my motivations in general.

The first is that I started finding ways to enjoy the kids as individuals. I’d gotten into a miserable funk and just wasn’t liking them. Yes, kids can be total turds, but that’s all I was seeing. It was awful. Once I realized where I was at and recognized the problem, it became easier to enjoy them as people. I cannot over emphasize how important this has been. Some kids require a more intentional choice to enjoy – or keep enjoying – but I have never regretted it.

The second was identifying and accepting what I can and cannot do. Like I said, I was overwhelmed and felt powerless. Slowly, I realized that I needed to just be where I was and be who I was. I couldn’t tackle the crime in my students’ neighborhoods, but I could teach a good science lesson. I couldn’t command silence with the strength of my personality, but I could keep them busy. I established routines that reduced my stress, instead of trying to uphold norms suggested by folks who’d never been in my class. I could support the kids as they navigated early adolescence. They didn’t need me to fix their problems. They needed me to be a teacher.

Lastly, I learned to no take the actions and attitudes of my kids – or colleagues – personally. Adolescents ignoring simple requests or losing their temper is par for the course. There are better and worse ways to respond to teenage emotions, and not taking even the most personal attack personally is high among the better. Anger is a secondary emotion; there’s always something else going on. Teens have a lot of something else going on. Like one of my wisest & kindest SLPS colleagues used to say, “If you’re never called a bitch, you’re not doing this right.”

I stayed at SLPS for 10 years because I came to love it. Ultimately, I left because I loved it. Tired and worn down by the never-ending demands, and I did not like the direction my internal dialog was taking. It was time to go.

I expected my education sabbatical to last maybe a year, but some unanticipated shakeups, compounded by the pandemic, had it lasting 4 times as long. My re-entry began slowly when I took a side-gig writing lessons for an online learning company. I was just looking for a little extra money, but getting connected with Cage Free Voices is one of the most fortunate things to ever happen to me. I will relate more about what’s happening at CFV later, but most relevant for now is that my interactions with the founder Bathsheba Smithen were exactly what I needed to grow in confidence and move forward after the emotional toll the previous 15 years had taken on me.

Last September I took a part-time job with Rite of Passage, the company that runs the local DYS-owned facility, teaching GED primarily because it was part-time. I already knew I do alright with messy kids, and when I learned about the small class sizes and additional support staff, I thought, “Well alright, let’s give this a go.”


To be continued...