And we are worrying about words per minute?

At the beginning of this school year our head custodian was test driving a co workers motorcyle in the school parking lot. The bike was a new powerful kind of vehicle, somthing went wrong and this fie gentleman died.

Any teacher who has more than two brain cells knows the value of the custodial staff. A large part of what we do, and a huge part of my personal philosophy revolves around the concept of environment. I spend a lot of time working on lettig the students know they are in a safe place when they are in my classroom both emotionally and physically. If a student isn't willing to risk being wrong, then tat student can never make a leap and form a new connection. If a student is worried about feeling stupid, that student wont ask question they need answers to. If the mind is soaked in defense strategies, there is little room left to worry about pesky learning.

My point is, that a huge part of that rests on those who spend their time maintaing the facilities and creating the physical safe environment that makes teaching possible. On top of doing an amazing job with the building, the lead custodian was a champion for the students. He was always present, making friends with the students and letting them know how important their education was to him. When the different teaching departments implemented a vocabulary program that involved posting different large posters around the school of vocab words for their subject matter, he includd his custodial department and made a list of vocab words as well.

This last week we played a tribute video in memory of him and his life. We then sat and had talks with the students in our advisory classes (home rooms) to help them through any emotions that the video may have triggered. We wanted them to know that it was ok to show emotion and it was ok to admit to sadness. One of my students left a party. Shortly after she left, a friend got shot in a driveby at that party. She talked about feeling guilty and powerless. I not only teach those thirtykids in myadvisory class, I work with almost three hundred students, this semester alone. One of my students has a drug addict father who died from an OD two months ago. I have so many students with so many stories, I only get a glimpse of what they are going through every now and then. It is humbling.