I was one of the presenters at Career Day at my district's high school. I sat with an elementary school teacher and we talked about what you need to do to get to be a teacher, and what teaching was really like. There were 12 presentation periods of 10 minutes each.

FINALLY, the last one arrived. Don't get me wrong, I had had a really good time seeing some former students and talking about my avocation, but I was tired and knew that I still had to return to my own building and teach the second half of the day.

Then three boys sat down. I said "Hi" to two of them, one of whom had been my student. Then I looked at the third. He said, "Remember me?" I said "Yep."

Now "Ed" was one of my students. He wouldn't write. He wouldn't read. He was the bane of the ELA and Math teachers' existences. He was a solid C student.

Then one day we were talking about some social studies topic...and he and I had a conversation that I rarely can have even with my colleagues. He had similar conversations with the Science teacher. Another day he sat and talked with the two of us about a novel that the class was reading together in ELA. I mean he discussed it in depth, with insight and talked about foreshadowing and allusion to other works. The test on that book, though, he barely passed.

I was fortunate to have a resource teacher 'push-in' that year. She and I cajoled, threatened, and called in 'markers' to get "Ed" tested for disabilities. The school psychologist, ELA teacher and Math teacher insisted that he was a C student with average intelligence.

Uh, no. "Ed" scored a near genius on the WISC-R. He read far below grade level, had a physical disability in his arm, and qualified for every blasted accomodation on the IEP. He had taught himself strategies to learn. Within 3 months of resource with my friend, he was reading grade levels above where he had been.
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So what I said "Yeah" to 'Ed', I was lying. He is the one I won't forget. EVER. (There are others, also) He told the other teacher with me that he definitely wanted to be a teacher. When she later asked him what he wanted to teach, he looked straight and me and said, "History."


No, I didn't cry.


Okay, I didn't cry until I got to my car.