“Do you believe in 6-second chances?” he asked me. I sat across from the principal dumbfounded on how best to answer. I had never been asked a question like that before in an interview. I wondered what the question was getting at. I debated my response. I knew that in my life I’ve needed several second chances. Heck, my whole adolescence and beginning of my college experience required a second chance. But six? Isn’t that excessive. I finally responded with “yes, of course”. That seemed safe and the humane response.
Well, my response was either the right answer or I checked off enough of their requirements, as I got the job. I was officially a high school Spanish teacher about to begin my first full time job with a real pay check. I began decorating my room and setting up lessons. What I was unaware of, was that, I would begin an experience learning the beauty and struggle of six-second chances.
It was my third year of teaching when I finally meet him. I don’t remember first meeting him, or even the first few months with him. I had so many new kids and he was just one of the pack. However, his personality began to really rise above the rest, and not for the best reasons. He was stubborn, sarcastic and focused more on those around him than his education. He drove me nuts. He wouldn’t follow my instructions, was disruptive and argumentative. He was also part of a program I taught where we were together an extra 2.5 hours four days a week, he was in my Spanish class and my advisory. We saw a lot of each other.
As time went on, my nerves were getting to the breaking point. I went to my administrator asking for the student to be out of the program, and left instead with ideas on how to help him. This continued for two years. I would ask for him to be out and my admin would find a way to convince me to keep him in. I simply was compliant. I didn’t hate the student or believe ill will of him, I was just tired of trying.
What I didn’t expect was that things would change. This student, upon entering his junior year, began to shift his focus from making his peers laugh and defying me, to academics. He would sit for longer periods of time working on his homework, he began asking his peers for support and talking about colleges. Eventually he became the one his peers would go to for support and even began tutoring students in an after school chemistry study hall. He also began to open up to me more and more about his life, his struggles and his dreams. He shared about how his father was in jail, his family was homeless and sleeping on the living floor of his grandmother’s house and how the SWAT team recently busted into their home and arrested his younger brother. He saw his life as a split path with two different destinations, the gang life or education as his salvation from the other. I was heartbroken. Here was this child who was drowning from the world around him and I, the person who was there to help him, had wanted to give up on him. I cared for him and his future but had begun to believe he would never change. However, his will was stronger and was able to break past the cycle of gang-related poverty and was on a path to the better of the two paths. I had witnessed the process of him drowning, to treading water and finally swimming in the race to college. He even began taking the city bus at 5:30am to arrive to school at 6am to work on his art projects because his teacher had lost his assignments and couldn’t imagine his art grade dropping his GPA and eliminating the possibility of being accepted to his dream school.
This student taught me what six-second chances truly means and is my muse for every one of the students I feel at a loss with and at a point of wanting to give up. I think about him and the potential that lies in every one of my students, even if it entails multiple re-starts. Sadly, we live in a world where the choices, and mistakes, many black students make are more often viewed as their fault, their parents fault and logical consequences to the cycle they life in. This causes the belief that they won’t change so just discipline them or kick them out of a program. This is what I believed. I’m grateful to an inspiring administrative and teaching staff that helped me see the value in second changes, how privilege means some have a different starting point than others and why we can never give up on our students.
This student was accepted to his dream college and is now pre-law. When he recently visited me, I asked him what type of law he wanted to practice, and he said the kind that helps people who need it the most even though he knew it wouldn’t be a lucrative career. When I first met him, he dreamed of big houses, tons of cars and endless money. How six-second chances can change a life, and not just his, but mine.