| Some Good (July 2002) By Jim Correale On my first day at work a teenage girl was held by two adults and forced facedown to the floor. I was called in to assist in the restraint�I had just finished a week of training for such maneuvers�but, thankfully, my assistance was not required. I watched, trying to appear ready to step in should I be asked to do so, while on the inside feeling horrified at what I was observing�and at what I had become a part of with my new job. The girl, around 15 years old, had arrived at my new place of employment, Prescott Academy, just that morning and she had been attempting to head back out the front door, becoming agitated and loud when told that she could not. Her name was Elaine and when she rose from one of the worn blue couches that ringed the living room, a staff person named Nate stood in the doorway, making clear that this would not be a viable option. Elaine moved to squeeze by him and that is when Paula and Gina, two other staff members, stepped in and put �hands on.� Moments later Elaine was down, wailing and crying, her nose running onto her cheek. �I don�t wanna be here. I wanna go,� she repeated in muffled, mucus filled sobs. Each exhortation, however, was a bit quieter, and soon someone had tissues and knelt down next to the girl, wiping tears and snot from her face. The pair of women who were restraining Elaine spoke calmly and softly to her and soon, when the girl was still and silent, told her that they would be letting go and that she could sit up, but not stand just yet. Someone nodded to me, as if to say, �We�re all set here�you can get back to whatever you were doing.� I went down to the basement classroom that I had been given to teach English in, and I sat down and replayed what I had just witnessed in my head. The students, all teenaged girls, all judged by someone to have emotional and behavioral difficulties, all wrapped up in the initialized bureaucracy of the state�DSS, DYS, DMH, DOE�had landed at Prescott Academy in the hope that some time spent here, generally six months to a year, would help untangle their issues. For some this program was a step up from being in a lockdown facility, for a few it was an unimaginably cruel separation from their family, and sadly, for many of the girls, Prescott was just another stop on a journey to a dozen or more places just like it, different in some ways, but more the same than not. For these girls, sometimes without any family at all�or at least any willing to claim them�it really was, in the words that were printed on a t-shirt that one of them wore, a �hard knock life.� On school days the girls were awakened at six. I was never there that early, but I can imagine that 24 girls hitting the showers at once can be quite a chaotic experience. The log, a large notebook that was kept in the main office and records everything that happens in the house, is filled with notes about girls refusing to get out of bed, girls running the water but not showering, girls coming down late for breakfast. Before eating in the morning, the residents had to make their beds and clean their rooms. After breakfast they had to clean the kitchen and dining room and then be ready at 8:45 for classes to begin. I arrived at the house at 8:30 or just after that, and the girls were usually finishing with breakfast clean up, after which they would sit down in the living room, the big room that had several stained blue sofas and served as the center of the household. The building, a large neoclassical-style brick edifice, was located on a quiet road in one of the wealthiest of Boston�s suburbs. It had been donated to the agency that operated the school about six years earlier. Classes always began a few minutes late and that was fine with me because my first period was the most challenging of my day, mostly because of Kayla, a stuck-up 15-year-old who looked at everyone, but especially me, as if she were royalty and the rest of us peons. Kayla was cute, but apparently she thought herself a stunning beauty and was sure that those looks would have her taken care of for the rest of her life. I�m not sure how such thoughts entered her head, but it was certainly hard to get any other thoughts to penetrate that fortress. Every time I tried I was immediately and viciously shot down. Her tongue took no prisoners. Kayla had the first word, the last word, and most of those in between. She also unleashed murderous gazes, her eyes slightly constricted as if leveling a curse onto the recipient�s soul. I was often the recipient. Kayla was the first student to challenge my authority, and she wasted no time in doing so. During the first week of class, while the others were still trying to read me, Kayla would breathe fire at me, and follow up with that look of death. �That�s it; I�m done,� she�d say with a sneer after doing a worksheet or an exercise from the grammar book, �I�m not doin� any more.� She�d close the book or put her pen down with authority. The other four girls in the class looked over. One or two chuckled. �Kayla,� I�d say, �I�d like you to do this other exercise here.� �Well, I�m not,� she responded and then leaned back in her seat, as if waiting to see what I�d do about her insubordination. One of the things that had been emphasized during the week of training that the agency put everyone through was to avoid �power struggles.� That meant not engaging in back and forth arguments with students that went: �Do this.� �No.� �Yes.� �No.� I immediately could see the wisdom in such a rule of thumb and attempted to always keep the idea in the front of my brain. When I had taught high school before, teachers�myself included�would often go to great lengths to win such power struggles, invariably feeling that to give in, especially when other students were watching, was to give away our authority. So a �yes/no� argument became detention and sometimes suspension; the vice principal was called in and, no matter how small the original action, the student was made to see that he or she could not win. |