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Describe a recent time when you’ve been discouraged with a student’s progress. Have you witnessed a change in the student’s life, or are you still waiting for that change to occur?
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We had a family transfer to us from a bordering state because of Covid-19 restrictions at their school. Their oldest son was in 11th grade. He came with this attitude of “you can’t get me to do anything”. By the end of the 1st semester, he knew that we cared, and that we wanted him to succeed. He started to push himself to go above and beyond the requirements to pass his courses. His heart not only changed at school but at home as well. I am not sure about his relationship with Christ, but I am sure that he is allowing God to clean his heart.
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Last school year I had a student who frustrated me almost daily with his behavior. He struggled with ADD and distracted others consistently. God helped me realize that because this student struggled academically, he was trying to make himself feel valuable in other ways. This included making others laugh and picking on others in order to provoke negative behavior and get them in trouble. This realization helped me approach how I managed the student’s behavior. I tried to encourage him more and instill confidence with the words I spoke to him. I started asking him more questions instead of lecturing to make him realize that he had the power of choices to determine the outcome of a situation. We discussed many times as a course how we can choose right or wrong and the impact of our choices, including accepting Christ as our Savior and walking in obedience to Him.
Although I don’t believe this student has accepted Christ, seeds have been planted. I pray he will remember he has a choice and make that decision one day. -
I had a student in the spring who was really lost because of some horrible events that were happening in his life. I had tried to support him and be a place of calm and understanding in his life, but I will have to see if he is able to realize that his actions are hurting himself. I still pray for him and his family.
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This past year, we offered in-person learning. Students could select to be remote if they had medical conditions or family situations which required reduced risk. One of my students was in person at the beginning of the year but then chose remote learning. They struggled as a remote learner in many ways. I worked with the parents to try to improve communication but little progress was made. It was a challenging time and I prayed many times that God would use me to help the student through this time even though my initial reaction was to get frustrated and start passing around blame.
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During this school year, I had one student in particular who I began to be concerned about. She is a rather quiet student to begin with, but I noticed her grades were slipping, she seemed more distant, and needed lots of redirection to focus. There were math concepts that I had gone over with her in private sessions, group lessons, and as I walked the room helping students during our math hour that she just could not grasp. I felt there had to be something more going on and the time had come to reach out to her mom. Her mother was appreciative and after talking with her daughter we both came to the realization there had been something quite significant in her life going on. Without divulging too much, this began a court proceeding to restrict interaction with the girl’s father. When we helped relieve this child of her burden and walk alongside of her I began to see a dramatic turn around in her demeanor and her grades. It was an opportunity to show the child how much I loved her, to pray for her, and to speak truth about how much Christ cares for her as well. Her mother and I were able to point her back to Jesus at so many moments and show her the evidence of him working in her life.