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...

 For the past few days, a friend I talk to regularly has been less responsive. A lot less. I know enough about the current circumstances in their life that this makes sense. They are busy. At the same time, the suddenness stirs up many doubts and worries. Are they okay? Why are they retreating? Am I what they’re avoiding?

Our friendship is such that I know all will get straightened out. The process has already begun. Even so, it hurts. Deeply. And it hurts all the more because I know it will happen again.

I believe I’ve mentioned in other posts that it took me until my late 30’s to learn and accept that my experiences matter. That it’s more than okay to feel hurt by someone else, even when you 100% what they are going through. My programmed response to all slights, snubs, and disappointments (regardless the degree of intentionality) was “Whatever. It’s stupid to let this make you feel sad. Shake it off and roll with it, Dorothy.”

The truth is that ignoring all those smalls things (and some larger ones, too) led to some pretty hefty insecurities. The kind that persist, requiring deeper and deeper looks every time they are poked.

I’m getting there though. As much as my friend’s withdrawal stings, the struggle relates more to the reality that addressing this will require further vulnerability on my part, as opposed to being indignant that the hurt feelings had the audacity to exist in the first place. This is a good thing.

The reason I bring all this up is because of my job. The kids I work with have gone through some things. Being sentenced to our treatment center alone is a hefty thing for a teen to face, not to mention the varied situations that led to their sentencing. It’s intense.

Yes, all the kids receive counseling and therapy. That’s why it’s called a treatment center and not a correctional facility. The majority of the staff understand that these are kids healing from trauma and respond to their outbursts accordingly.

That said, there is an undercurrent of “these kids need to just suck it up and roll with it.” There’s an impatience with kids becoming angry over delayed phone calls or “excessively” upset over bad news. A kid punching a wall over a postponed court date could potentially lead to their release being pushed back even further.

In my GED classroom, the biggest source of frustration is having the opportunity to test. For many reasons (mostly tied to too much bureaucracy and not enough staff), the testing schedule is very irregular and hard to predict. On more than one occasion, kids who only have two or three tests remaining have waited weeks to take their tests, only to have it canceled last minute. Other times, kids are taken to test without warning. Some do alright with this. But others...talk about test anxiety! The negative impact the inconsistency has on morale is significant.

Everyone who interacts directly with the kids sees and understands the problem. The real root of the issue is that many decisions, including scheduling, are made by people too far removed from the day-to-day reality of these kids. The prevailing attitude is that the kids should be prepared to test at all times. The when doesn’t really matter. They need to just roll with it.

I would love to look these people in the eye and ask, “How do you handle prolonged delays when scheduling an appointment? A much-anticipated event being canceled? Being caught behind a slow-moving truck when running late?”

These things are frustrating! Even emotionally mature adults need to scream into a pillow sometimes. The expectation that teens of any background should be able to “just roll with it” is unreasonable and unkind. They are learning and growing. We are all learning and growing. Life is too big and diverse to not allow anger. That limitation causes nothing but harm.
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So, yeah, I’m fully grown and I spent the past 48 hours feeling very low because an old insecurity was pressed and I already understand how to move forward. These are the kinds of things I think about.

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 Here are my three, sure-fire tips guaranteed to help any runner place high at races:

1. Practice, taking intentional steps to improve. For me, given my neuro concerns, this is primarily looking at ways to strengthen my form and grow in endurance. For some, the focus is on maintaining joint health. Still others pursue strategies for increasing speed. Whatever your intent, seek advice from solid sources.

2. Choose your race wisely. The distance doesn’t matter; everyone has a preferred distance. Big community events can be a lot of fun, but there's more competition. I recommend smaller races because there’s fewer people jockeying for position.

3. Get old. As people start aging out of their 30’s, the number of competitors becomes fewer and fewer. Get old enough and Age Group Winner is pretty much a guarantee. In smaller races, odds of that prize are even higher.

The above talks only about running. However, the principles of Practice – Choose Small – Get Old apply to almost any other competition. Using these proven steps, I received first place in my gender’s age group for every race I’ve run since June 2022.
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(It was three. Three races. I’ve only run in three races, all of them tiny. The tiny-ness was a huge factor in my winning success. There was no one else to beat).

I don’t talk a lot about what I do for a living. Not just here, anywhere. It’s not a secret – I teach GED prep classes to kids in a juvenile facility. They are goofy messes, almost indistinguishable from any other group of teenagers. Regrettably, their goofiness often gets lost in the larger conversations about these kids.

The job is also frustrating. Deeply so. All teaching jobs are, and most of the time, the frustrating stories are the ones that get told. They’re also the stories people want to hear. At least, they’re the ones that get the most attention. Add the additional bureaucracy and the inherent stigma people carry towards a facility like mine, and the frustrating stories often get blown out of proportion.

I don’t talk a lot about where I work because it is a way to protect the kids. Sure, a certain amount of anonymity is necessary, but I often find that even the goofy stories get misconstrued. This goes back to my St. Louis Public Schools days. I would laughingly share a tale about the absolutely normal chaos, and my listeners would fixate on some inconsequential detail that showed they viewed my kids through a negative lens. Not willing to put up with that, I became more selective about who got to hear my stories, especially on the rough days.

​On a more personal note, I don’t talk about what I do because I love it. Sincerely love it. Even on the days I’m questioning my sanity for ever showing up to begin with, I love it. I have no idea why teaching hot messes is a good fit for me, but it is. I never had – and still don’t – any driving ambition to “make a difference” like many other people who begin work with struggling populations, whatever the field. I obliviously stumbled into it. I wonder if that’s part of my longevity. I entered with no preconceived notions. I learned the people as I learned the job.

So, what does loving something have to do with no talking? The truth is, the more deeply I care about something, the less I talk about it. This goes back to my own experiences of as a messy adolescent. I was teased about so many things I cared about that the most important ones remained unshared. So, I’m protecting myself, too.

I’ve known this about myself for ages. It’s a hard habit to break; I regularly catch myself holding back unnecessarily. This post is one of many intentional steps I’m attempting to take.

I’m also looking for ways to be more proactive and intentional in the way I talk about work. Of course this includes casual conversations, but I also want to be able to talk to people interested in doing things. For example, this summer I’ll be giving a brief talk to an organization my mom is a part of. I’ve been wanting to speak in this way and hope this is the first of many opportunities.

Additionally, I’m getting a better idea about what I want to do long-term career wise. Last week, a few things clicked regarding how my current work and Cage Free Voices could work together. (Yes, CFV is still here and kicking!) It’s early days and the possibilities are quite pliable. However, I’m ready to begin having the needed conversations.

I’m not just taking steps at work, a how this plays out in my life at large will likely appear in future posts. I’ve mentally outlined a couple already.
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We’ll see what happens!

​...but the direction is good!

One reason I think I should write these posts more often is I tend to only write when I have heavy thoughts. It makes sense. Writing is a way that I process. Heavy thoughts require more heavy lifting.

It is also crazy to me how crazy the past several years have been. I don't think of myself as someone who lives a dramatic life. I am quiet and go with the flow. This is true of me. I am happiest when I am "in the flow," as my friend, Sage, describes it.

(Sidenote: calling everyone Friend and other vague titles was getting confusing. I''m going to start using pseudonyms. They may or may not be used consistently).

The biggest turmoils of my life is when I've wrestled with my circumstances and tried to avoid the things I very much needed to face. After decades of stubborness, I've finally come to accept that if there's something I very much want to ignore, the fastest and best way to move forward is to deal with it. Ignoring does nothing.

I am tempted to go on with the flow analogy (or cars sliding on ice, or running down a rocky hill, or many other examples from the physical world), but the point is that learning to accept situations as they are are has absolutely made my life better. Not easier - this is VERY important - but better.

Hard and heartbreaking things happen. Facing them and taking steps to understand is hard hard hard. However, it doesn't have the added shame and anxiety that comes with feeling inadaquate, or like I made a mistake, or that I need to fix it, or that it was some sort of punishment. Letting go of the poisonous "should've, could've, would've" dialogue is amazing. Highly recommend.

It looks like once a month had become my natural blog-posting pace. I like it. Seems to work for me. Of course, I'll likely not stick to it with strictness.

I want to follow-up on my last post, since it was left very open, especially with its broad vagueness.

Circumstances with my friend have been...resolved? Clarified? What is the right word for things-between-us-are-solid-but-there-are-on-going-consequenses? At any rate, the place may not be the greatest, but the direction is sound.

After a few days of many tears and knowing only the broadest circumstances, Friend and I were able to talk. I learned what all happened in the days before, the reasons for not replying, and the events of that night. My deepest fears and biggest concerns were addressed (like my angry text contributing to whatever had happened). 

After hearing the details of what took place, I felt relieved, and mentioned how scared I'd been. Friend reassured me that's not what took place, and also saw my fears as valid. They confirmed, given what I knew, my questions made sense.  They didn't apologize either. In a good way.

So, my friend confirmed their awesomeness, even while having a shitty, shitty time. With that at a rest, life continued to be tumultuous in other ways...

*sigh*

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Starting sometime in my teens, I began to believe that my purpose was to support and help the people around me. For way too long, I pushed down my own feelings and interests in favor of what others seemed to need of me. I’ve talked previous about my fear of not being worth remembering. This trait came out of wanting to have some sort of value. It was reinforced by what I like to call Too-Much-Church. The result was often feeling rundown and ashamed for not being able to do more.

In the first few years of my teaching career, I would get so frustrated that the kids wouldn’t cooperate the way I wanted. Yes, there were skills I need to refine, and had a noticeable lack of support. However, I took many things personally. Every incident and outburst embarrassed me. Derailed lesson plans brought up feelings of inadequacy. Asking for help made me cringe. Thoughts of “If only...if only...if only…” swirled through my head.

During my third or fourth year, a few things clicked into place. I realized the majority of my frustrations were a result of trying to fix their whole lives. Their families, their communities, their attitudes. An impossible task.

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

Yesterday, as I was writing the above, I got a message that, coincidentally, ties into the current “fix” situation I wanted to talk about. The nature of it doesn’t leave me the head space to finish what I was writing at the time. There may be another opportunity. The essential part is that once I shifted my focus to things I could do (ie teach good science lessons), I had better relationships with the students and was more content overall.

Relevant to the present situation was the much harder lesson of learning how to help and support people in healthy ways. I have distinct memories throughout my 20s and early 30s of believing if I could figure out how to care for some the right way, their problems would be fixed. This put a lot of pressure on me and the other person. Thoughts like “If they would just…” or “If I could just…” were prevalent, especially at bedtime.

Even as I realized that “fixing” people was no way to live, I continued to prioritize other people’s problems over my own. I wouldn’t talk about the things that really, really bothered me unless I’d been able to rationalize it to some extent and I could sure that it wouldn’t make my confidant’s burdens worse. And if my hard time was the result of another’s personal issues? No way I’d bring that up. My hurt feelings were my own fault because I wasn’t doing enough to understand their perspective.

This, of course, was not sustainable. Gradually, eventually, all my efforts to be strong, supportive, and untouchable collapsed upon itself. I know now that these habits were rooted in my inability to believe I had any intrinsic worth. Accepting that I had value was hard. Hard hard. I spent the first 7 months of 2017 in tears almost daily as I faced all the hurts – big and small – I’d been ignoring for a lifetime. Even now, here on the other side, I still struggle with many of the same habits. However, now I’m able to recognize what’s going on and can respond differently. I vastly prefer this way of living.

Back to yesterday. It’s necessary that I be vague because this involves another person’s story, but a close friend of mine is going through a very rough time. Over the course of the week, Friend stopped replying to me. I wasn’t too concerned. Given the nature of their personality and the stuff on their plate, stepping back made sense to me.
However, as the days progressed, I began to wonder if I was being avoided. This was confirmed Thursday evening, after not acknowledging me or my messages in any way, I learned I’d been effectively cut out of a regular event.

This hurt. The majority of my self-protective habits were developed to prevent this exact thing. This person knows this about me. I do not believe Friend was in the frame of mind to even consider the impact. At the same time, the more a person is trusted, the greater their ability to hurt.

I stewed about what to do for a while. Even though it wasn’t my favorite, I was okay with Friend wanting a bit of space from me. A chance to connect better with other friends. This method, however? No. Just no. In the end, I composed a text saying as much. I tried to be kind while also being clear that this sucked. I originally intended to send it late Friday morning. After all, I knew they were in a low place after a hard week. But as the minutes passed and sleep did not come, I realized that delaying was another instance of me making allowances for how another person has treated me.

So, I sent it. No response, no surprise.

Late Friday morning, about 12 hours after sending the text, I got a message from another person close to Friend. They were worried because Friend was acting out of character. I got them in touch with someone better able to address the situation, and...that’s it.

I don’t know what happened. I do know that the biggest concern was quickly resolved. Anything else would be speculation. I can say that in the moments between receiving the message and learning of the resolution, I felt the full force of why I’m afraid to tell people about how their actions affect me,

As heartbroken as I am, and as much as I hate all of this, I don’t feel the text was a mistake. I’d have done differently if I’d known differently, but I don’t feel ashamed or guilty. There are things going on that are bigger than me, things I can’t fix. Friend has my full support, more than I think they understand. And I’m starting to understand what it looks like to be a good friend while being honest about myself.

Friend will reach out eventually. Hopefully. Life takes time.