| Some Good Page 5 Nothing hit me. Everything had flown to my left. I was in pursuit of the girl at that point as she disappeared down the stairway at the end of the kitchen. I understood that I was probably going to have to restrain her. At the bottom of the stairs I closed in on Kanika, and moved quickly to her right, where a door with nine panes of glass was located. I was concerned that she would try to put her fist through one of them, but the girl turned to her left and moved quickly down the hallway toward the two classrooms there. Outside of the rooms was a single student-style desk and Kanika threw herself into it, buried her face in her arms and started crying. I was relieved. Kanika was a solid, strong girl and for a few moments I was the only person there. I did not want to have to put hands on, but I was prepared to do so. However, collapsed into the desk the girl was now no threat to anyone, and instantly a number of staff people appeared. Gina and Tanya and Andrew took over, and I went back upstairs. What I hadn�t realized as I pursued Kanika was how many injuries her tirade had caused. When I got back to the kitchen a couple of girls were down, having been hit with flying kitchenware. It reminded me of a battlefield. Tara, who had been washing dishes, was hit in the eye with something and was being readied for a trip to the hospital. Sandi was bleeding from her arm. Someone else was sitting on the couch in the hallway crying, though I wasn�t sure if she�d been hit with something or was just upset at the whole scene. What I found most interesting was how quickly all of this seemed to be forgotten. There had been lesser events and arguments that seemed to resonate throughout the house for longer periods. In this instance, though I�m sure Kanika received consequences for the outburst, everyone appeared to have forgotten it by the next day. Kanika was in better spirits and there was no mention of the affair, the only reminder being Tara�s bruised eye. From the beginning of September, Karen was my favorite student. At first, it was because her file was the only one I had read completely. I asked the head teacher if I could see one of the black binders, which were locked up on the top floor and had all of the forms and reports and comments about a student. He came back downstairs a bit later with one, and I sat alone in his room for almost an hour going through the binder and reading everything I could about Karen. I was stunned. In my interview for the job, in my training and in talks with staff people, the different issues that the girls who came into the program would be affected by were listed for me: parents with substance abuse problems; girls who were physically, verbally and sexually abused; girls who had run away from home, been involved with petty crime, been sexually active, used drugs and alcohol to excess; girls who were angry, violent, had tantrums, set fires, were constantly oppositional; girls who suffered from ADHD, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and other psychological disorders. When I read Karen�s file I realized that almost all of that was in there. Here was a 14-year-old who had virtually run the gamut of abuses, symptoms, syndromes and behaviors. The contents of her binder were in the back of my mind when I had Karen in English class for the next couple of days. I was angry at how the adults in her life had failed her, and I could clearly see the results of their failure. Karen didn�t stay still, didn�t pay attention to me, didn�t do the work I assigned, and often argued with her peers. She also confronted me at times in front of the class, getting very angry over little things and saying, �Listen here, BUDDY, I told you�I�m NOT going to do it.� When Karen did hand in the occasional quiz or assignment, the writing on the page was so ridiculously bad that there was no way to read it. I had previously had students whose handwriting was awful, but this was beyond that. It was a series of scribbles on the page that looked vaguely as if they�d begun as letters in the English alphabet, but quickly lost control of themselves. Karen also possessed, it must be noted, a wonderful personality. In the beginning I only saw this in tiny glimpses. Sometimes I would scowl back in response to her scowl and I�d get a laugh. Sometimes I�d overplay my shock at something she did or said. Sometimes I�d shake my head at her seemingly boundless energy. Slowly, Karen�s laughs became more frequent. A couple of months into the school year we found that both of us were fans of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. At the house it was usually impossible for Karen to watch the show. There were other things going on, or someone else was watching something, or her behavior was not worthy of television privileges. I had found my motivating tactic for her. I taped Buffy while I watched it every Tuesday evening and then brought it in and gave the tape to Karen, who would take it and watch it during her weekend visits with her dad, which had just begun. It worked like magic. Karen and I would discuss the show all the time, which led to us discussing other things. Sometimes when I wasn�t happy with her behavior I�d say, �Well, looks like I won�t be taping any TV shows this week��but I�d say it with a disappointed rather than angry demeanor, and this often worked. |