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How to have a slam-bang finish to the school year
By Riney Jordan

Listen carefully. I’m about to make a very important statement. Here it is: “Just because over half of this school year is gone, it doesn’t mean that you can’t still make this the best year ever — for yourself and your students. You might be thinking: “But you don’t know the kids I’ve got this year. It’s the worst group I’ve ever had!” I remember when I was a principal of an elementary school, I heard that line every year. Then I realized that it was the same teachers saying it year after year! So, here’s what we’re going to do to make these last few months the most productive, the most rewarding, the most enjoyable you’ve ever experienced in the classroom.

Promise me (and yourself) that you will look beyond the rough, unpolished exterior of each student and that you will look inside the heart of that child.

Now, I’m not going to tell you that it’s easy, but if we could just walk in their shoes for 24 hours, I know our attitude and perception of that child would change. Several years ago, I read a note that a student had left for his teacher on the last day of the school year. He simply said, “When you thought I wasn’t looking or listening, I saw that you cared about me and at that moment I wanted to be everything that I could be.”

One recent editorial I read stated that our nation “is living through the worst parenting in history.” Wow! As I often tell teachers and administrators when I lecture, “I’m so sorry that you have to be ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ to so many of your students, but the truth of the matter is this: If you don’t do it, then who will?”

Following one of my workshops, a teacher told me about one of her students who had been assigned to her class. His reputation had preceded him, and from the first day, he was disrupting class, failing to do assignments and causing major grief to the teacher and her students. She could see that this young man wanted to be accepted, but he was going about it the wrong way.

One day she asked the young man to stay after class for a few minutes. In the privacy of that classroom, she asked him about his home. Reluctantly, he began sharing what his life was like when he left the school. There was no father in his life. His mother had her own set of problems — drugs, alcohol and the things that followed. Because he was the oldest, he had assumed much of the responsibility normally taken by the “man of the house,” but it was reaching a point where he couldn’t handle it any longer. The more he shared, the more she realized that here was a young man who was being forced to grow up too quickly. He had lost the one thing that keeps us going: hope!

Before she knew it, the teacher’s attitude toward this student had “turned ompletely around.” And, in doing so, his attitude toward her also changed. “I promised him that I would do whatever it took to help him, and that together we would get through this.”

Sometimes, letting them know we care does more than anything to turn students in the right direction. Easy?  Not really. It takes time, commitment and strength — and a changed heart. But just remember: The Lord didn’t do it all in one day. So what makes us think that we can?

RINEY JORDAN, whose best-selling book, “All the Difference,” is now in its sixth printing, is an international speaker and humorist. He can be reached at riney@yahoo.com or by visiting www.rineyjordan.com.