kidfreelance

My mom is the quintessential first grade teacher—smart, quick, patient, firm but affectionate, with eyes in the back of her head that can spot emotional storms brewing 15 minutes into the future. She officially retired from the full-time gig a few years ago, but she still often answers that late afternoon/early morning phone call to sub somewhere K-8. And she loves it, no matter the assignment.

For long-term subbings, she has this practice. She’ll consciously ID a kid or two that needs a little extra attention—or a lot—and she’ll make her or him a special undertaking. These kids might have short-attention spans, talents for class disruption, or awkward social skills. She or he might be the kid too shy to speak up, or the little, fierce one who is just a flashpoint from lashing out, or the big one hiding shame behind a push on the playground. And she makes sure those kids get a few extra kind words during the course of a day, a little more encouragement, and calm if unwavering direction when they lose their grip or test her grit.

I think of these kids as belonging to an unnamed, unrecognized, often unvalued “Underdogs’ Club.” These are the children and teens that are either easy to dismiss, or even dislike. And for many Underdoggers in the early years of grade school, they are just beginning to know it—and beginning to fear that they may never be one of those that get a chance to sip from that silver cup of accomplishment and popularity. Some are beginning to recognize that they are invisible, or even worse—targets for callousness and cruelty from classmates, and even teachers. Love at home can soothe life’s stings, of course, but not every kid gets that, either.

We can see and name the Underdoggers from our own pasts, can’t we? Off the top of my head, I can picture Kenny, Mary, Daryl, Jay, Jim, Greg, Greg, Christine, Bobby, Timmy, Chuckie, Lenny, (I grew up in Wisconsin—lots of diminutives there), and Danny, the classmate who killed himself with a shotgun in 8th grade. They drooled, stuttered, limped, wore floodwater pants, and came to school smelling like a barn because, well, they had been helping with the milking since 5 AM. They were boys who acted “too femmy,” and girls who developed too early, too late, or who were “too fat.” They were the kids who struggled while others shined, so they got labeled stupid, and the label stuck.

We had many good teachers in my schools, some even brave: Barb Hirsch, Bob Grim, Mary Jo Dahlquist, Vic Passante, my dad, Don McCollum ... They prevented the worst abuses, I expect, and even came to the rescue when they knew there was cruelty and fear afoot. And there were the kids—I tried to be one of them—who befriended some of the vulnerable, the outcasts, the “losers,” members of this unofficial Underdogs’ Club, from within our own messy process of growing up. But it still weighs heavy on me to more fully realize now what they must have been going through then; and it weighs heavy on me to know that those same kids with different names in different bodies are in every school this morning—or pretending to be sick so they don’t have to go.

We just celebrated my mom’s 75th birthday, and she was back in a classroom the next week making that small, daily difference every good teacher can make in kids’ lives. She comes home exhausted, but never dispirited. She goes beyond tolerance. She joins the Underdogs’ Club every morning when she walks into a school building, and shares her love with her kids, including the kids who need it most.

I'm blessed to be one of her kids. Would all the Underdogs of this world could say the same.