make up your mind

Have you ever entered a situation thinking that you had your mind set on an issue, or a person, or a possibility?

This has happened twice for me lately. One situation I don't think I can write about here, but the other I will share.

So, I now work as a site director for the YMCA's before-and-after-school programming at a school in Aurora. I basically keep the kids in my program, ages K-5, out of trouble and occupied in the morning and the afternoon until their parents can come get them. Most of my kids are tolerable, but I have one who I was warned about before school even started in August.

His name is Torian. He has a condition called Oppositional Defiant Disorder (yes, ODD), which basically means he cannot control his temper. So he goes to a special school for kids with behavior disorders and gets sent to my school in the afternoon.

I immediately did not like Torian. He is angry, and rude, and disrespectful, and a downright bully to the other kids in my program. I made up my mind about him the first week of school and was convinced it would not change.

Torian is in third grade at his school. I have come to the conclusion that third grade at a BD school is not equivalent to third grade in a regular school, because I also have Torian's younger brother Tahj in my program. Tahj is in kindergarten and is one of the cutest little boys I have ever seen. Tahj can write the alphabet, and sentences, and when he asks me to spell words he can sound them out and usually come really close to being right. Last week we sounded out the word absolutely...aside from the silent E in the middle he did all right.

So Tahj is a pretty sharp little guy. Torian, though, brought homework out for the first time last week, and it looked like the homework my kindergarteners work on--writing the letters A and B, and then short sentences using those letters. He can barely write his own name and can't read a lick, and he gets mad at me that I "won't help him" read.

So I'm a pretty big fan of reading, we all know that, and this not only breaks my heart, it infuriates me. That a child could be in third grade and not know how to read is preposterous and outrageous. A good day at his school means he got to play video games and get a soda. There is a serious breakdown in the educational system somewhere.

So after two and a half months of spending time with Torian, I am finding myself changing my mind about him...slowly. He still gets under my skin like no other child I have ever met, especially when he throws chairs and pushes the smaller kids and gets in fights and swears at me. But in the long run, if this path continues, I don't think he even has a chance at life.

And it's hard to see the world give up on someone before he really has a chance to start, no matter how oppositional he is.

I have been wondering for the last few months why I am at this particular job (since I don't particularly enjoy it), and Lucas suggested that maybe I should help Torian learn to read. Maybe there is a point to being at this particular school after all.

I'll let you know if I make up my mind.