I rarely sit still. I don't relax like most people think of relaxation. When my house is clean and organized, I feel less anxious. When the grass is cut and clear, I enjoy sitting outside more. I love pulling weeds. It gives me such satisfaction taking the junk out of the ground and manicuring flower beds, by yanking them out and getting dirty. I don't typically sit and just watch television. I'm either on my phone scrolling or working on something on my computer. I'm a veracious reader of non-fiction, historical fiction or stories that involve warrior women overcoming societal norms. Never just fluff reading. Reaction being part of my nature, its been a growth challenge for me to PAUSE. As a leader I've always believed that I needed to have all the answers, that I needed to have immediate solutions or that everything was urgent. This led me to burnout, making too many mistakes and going back on initial decisions. Being so reactive also caused me not think about ...
In high school, I wasn't make the best choices. I was hanging out with kids that did drugs, drank, and were causing trouble around school and in the community. During my off campus lunch, I went to an area that we called Barker Lake. It was really just a pond across the street from the school, that us burn out would smoke and socialize.
On this particular day a senior, I was a freshman at the time, gave me something to smoke. Not wanting to seem "uncool" I smoked it. I have no idea what was in in, but then several of the senior boys started laughing and asking me how I felt. "I'm cool man, its not like I've never done this before" when really I had no idea what I could have ingested in my body. That was somewhat of the theme of my freshman year. There were several drugs that I smoked and snorted. I thought I needed to do this to make friends.
After lunch, I go back to class, into Dr. Lane Gurley-Dilger's freshman biology class. Of course there was a test. I typically was a decent student. I got my work done, was respectful to my teachers, talkative at times, but generally a C/B student. Well during this test is when the reaction to whatever I smoked started.
I became hot all over my body, starting in my belly and moving throughout my arms, down into my legs and it felt like the tip of my tongue was on fire. Then I remember getting dizzy and looking up at my teacher. I locked eyes with her and I remember her coming towards me, she was close to my desk when I shot up out of my seat, ran to the nearest lab sink and threw up. I'm so glad that I made it to the sink and no all over the floor in the classroom. The next thing I remember is laying down, or passing out on the floor, my face on the tiles. They felt so cool on my skin. That was the last thing I remember until I woke up in the nurses office.
The nurse asked what happened and I said that I must have eating something bad at lunch. But I think she knew better, I looked in the mirror and my eyes were blood shot, my skin was pale and I was still having cold sweats. In the era before cell phones they couldn't get a hold of my parents, so my aunt picked me up from school to take me home. This was not the first time that I got the talk from my aunt about making better choices and ruining my life. No one seemed to understand that I didn't really know how to make any other friends. I wasn't a popular kid, we were poor, I didn't have the latest clothes. Our house looked like a storage yard with tractors, dump trucks, boats and trucks all over, since my dad had to work three jobs just to keep us a float, it wasn't the cool place to hang out. I went where I was accepted, I was accepted by the trouble makers. They were the ones that talked to me and let me hang out with them.
Needless to say, I also got in trouble at school. I got two months of Saturday detentions where I had to meet with the counselor and talk about my feelings. My feelings were that I wanted to be left alone. Eventually, they gave up and I would just read my book or bring a magazine to detention and read for 8 hours. I loved that. It was quiet, calming and I didn't have to be in my turbulent home.
I continued ditching class, and getting into more trouble with fights and doing more drugs. My grades were 100% going down and no one really seemed to care. Except Dr. Lane Gurley-Dilger!!! As I was sitting at the lunch detention table for the millionth time because I ditched some class, she came up to me and asked the detention supervisor (I didn't even know there name, because they didn't even talk to me) if I could help her with a project in her class. The supervisor gestured towards me and I shrugged my shoulders to comply.
Dr. Lane Gurley-Dilger didn't lecture me about my bad choices, or tell me that I have so much potential to do better, she just put me to work. That month she was in charge of the science department bulletin boards. She didn't have time to get it done, so she was wondering if I could do it. "Sure, it can't be that hard". She layed out posters, boarders and cut out letters to develop a bulletin board about the the parts of a plant. She showed me where to get butcher paper, in the science work room area, she gave me a stapler and told me to "be creative". I started organizing the posters, and letters, making sure they were center and added the boarder around the board. I stood back and it looked really nice. Better than some of the other months that teachers put up earlier. I went and got Dr. Lane Gurley-Dilger to see my finished project. She loved it!!! She praised me for my choices and precision of work. I felt good about myself, like I really helped her out.
The next day I had a few other teachers come up to me and tell me that they liked my work and if when its there month if I can do their bulletin board for them. Of course I agreed. No one has shown any interest in me before, no one has given me praise like this before. I was recognized for something I did well, not just for being a screw up. So that started my gig as bulletin board girl for the science department at Rolling Meadows High School.
The following year, I was asked by Mr. Shay to be his lab assistant and during my study hall set up his labs and clean his tables for the classes. I felt so honored to be chosen to do this important work. By this time, at lunch I was making copies in the workroom for all the science teachers, doing all the bulletin boards each month, giving suggestions for new ideas and making new posters. I was entrusted with the laminator, the die cut machine and even given the key to the enclosed board that had student testing information. I was given responsibilities and trusted in a way that I never was before. And since I was doing these tasks for the teachers at lunch and study hall, I wasn't hanging with the wrong crowd.
I got teased slightly at first, but I told them this was my punishment for ditching and instead of sitting at the "fuck up" table at lunch, I was doing this instead. But eventually, with the subtle conversations and encouragement from the teachers, I began to see that hanging out with those other kids was not the path that I wanted to be on. I kept getting Saturday detentions though, I think I was reinforced by the quiet and didn't seem to mind not being at home for the weekend.
Eventually another teacher, Mrs. Donovan, who was in charge of Future Teachers of America asked if I would be interested in tutoring at Willow Bend Elementary School, which was next to my high school. She said that they needed more tutors and that some of my detentions would be wiped out of the system if I started tutoring. I wasn't a scholar student, but I could help little kids with their math and reading, no problem. I LOVED IT!!!!
The students I worked with were just like me, they were a little bit of trouble makers, they didn't really want to do their work, but they had so much knowledge about other things. I used their interests and got books from my library to read with them, I drew pictures of what they liked to count and do addition and subtraction. They were learning!!! I was making a difference!!!
I started breaking away more and more from the other group of kids and started hanging out with the other tutors, they were super smart, kind and interesting. I still didn't like being at home, so I started looking for a job. Dr. Lane Gurley-Dilger and Mrs. Donovan wrote me reference letters and I got a job at Super Crown Books. I still got to read most of the day, but then I also got to read to kids on Saturdays. I was given responsibilities and trusted. Into my junior and senior years of high school, I continued to work in the science department at a TA, officially that was written onto my transcript. I eventually started a second tutoring location at Kimball Hill Elementary School and was the lead tutor and got other RMHS students to tutor there and became the Vice President of Future Teachers of America.
I was given a chance!!! I had that one adult that took an extra step to help out a struggling student, even though I overdosed in her classroom. Dr. Lang Guley-Dilger saved my life with bulletin boards. So now as an Elementary Principal every bulletin board that I do, I think about her and the difference that she made in my life. And I believe that it is my responsibility and the responsibility of every teacher to do the same in one of their students lives.
I'm proud of the educator & person that I've become. It may have gone a different was if not for the teachers that I had in my life. I'm mentioning three here, there were many that didn't believe in me and told it to my face each day. But I chose to listen to these three teachers, and I'm so glad that I did!!!
PS. I love bulletin boards and get so super excited to do them. These are a few pictures from the ones I did this summer that goes with my school's theme this year - SHINE BRIGHT
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