Sometimes the best lessons are the human ones

Teaching isn’t just reading, writing, arithmetic. Kids aren’t just numbers.   

Here’s what I mean. 

Early into this school year, a couple of students chose to fool around during the Pledge of Allegiance, which comes over the intercom most mornings, about fifteen minutes into the school day. The class stood, and most of the kids were quiet. They followed my lead when I put my hand over my heart. They mumbled along when I recited the Pledge along with our assistant principal a couple of floors away.

Then there was this small itch of a group that chose that quiet, solemn time to giggle, whisper, shove. 

Last time I checked, the Pledge and why it’s important wasn’t on any state test I’ve had to administer. I’m not teaching Social Studies this year, which focuses mainly on geography at my grade level anyhow, so technically, I wasn’t required or expected to spend any part of the school day talking with the kids about our flag and why we respect it. 

But I put my planned lesson on hold and spent a while talking about our flag. First I yelled a bit though, starting with a killer teacher eyeball and a deep and guttural “How dare you.”

Then I made my kids cry.

I told them about Anthony, a student I had one of my first years of teaching. Best. Kid. Ever.

Great smile. Sparkling eyes. Polite like you dream of.

Anthony had some big-time learning difficulties but he never gave up. He always smiled. He always tried the hardest. He was the kid I picked for errands, because he was more responsible than most adults I know. He never missed a day of school. He never once had to be directed to pay attention. I gave him some big award at our end-of-year recognition ceremony. Most Improved maybe? If there’d been a best kid ever award, he would have gotten it, hands down.

We kept in touch through his junior high years, then high school, where he wrestled and played varsity football, was elected a class officer, was adored by all his classmates and teachers, and further developed his immense talents in graphic design.

After he graduated high school, Anthony enlisted in the Army. He was sent to Iraq and went proudly. I don’t know how long he was stationed there before tragedy hit. I think it was several months, enough time for him to forge deep bonds with his fellow soldiers.  

One day, while acting as a landmine lookout on the lead tank in a long convoy, he was blown up. He woke up days later in a hospital in Germany. He’d been wedged under the tank for about a half a day. He learned that his best friend had died in the attack. Anthony will tell you even today that he wishes he’d died instead of his friend. He carries a lot of guilt on his broad, young shoulders.  

We’d lost touch in the years after Anthony graduated high school.  I only learned about his travails a few years ago, when he was driving through the neighborhood and on a whim stopped in at school to visit. He showed me where they’d had to graft skin over the burns on his arms, back, and stomach. He told me about the six months he spent stateside in a hospital outside Washington, where they told him he’d never walk again. He bragged about how he’d proved the doctors wrong. As soon as they told him he wouldn’t walk again, he was determined that he would.

His eyes clouded over a little when he talked about how there have been bumps in the road. There was anger, substance abuse. But now he’s doing better, so well in fact that he was honored by his rehab facility for overcoming the psychological and physical hurdles that had been thrust in his path. He even went to the White House once and got a medal from the President for being such an outstandingly positive role model for his fellow wounded warriors.  

Among other, many other things, I told my students I said that when they talked during the Pledge, it was like they were telling Anthony that what he’d gone through didn’t matter and that they didn’t care at all that our brave men and women all over the world, were putting themselves in dangerous situations so that they, these kids, could have a safe life.

Just so you know, when I told my students about Anthony, I held back on some of what I’ve just written. I have to be careful about boundaries and I have to align what I say to what is appropriate for their ages.

I told the kids whenever I say the Pledge, I always think of Anthony and thank him. I suggested that maybe they could think about Anthony too.   

When I was done, the kids asked some questions and started sharing about their own families. Turns out many have family members serving in military organizations, some with the US, some in countries in South America, Central America, Africa, Asia. As students spoke, their classmates sat tall, asked questions, responded appropriately. The room was alive with kindness, curiosity, shared passion.

Since then, you don’t hear a peep in my room during the Pledge. The kids enunciate as they say the words. Sometimes they search out my eyes and pat their heart area a little to show me that they understand.

This class I just wrote about? It’s every class I’ve had going on ten years. Anthony is in his 30s now, married with a couple of kids. I tell his story because I need to. It’s my way of thanking him for being so brave and willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for me and for our country.

Every single time I've told this story, the class responds the same way: hushed silence, sniffles, then a tentative question, then another, then sharing, lots of sharing. What we all get out of it is largely immeasurable but supremely important: clarity, respect, unity, appreciation, a sense of a bigger world than us out there.

Sometimes, the most important lessons don't come in expensively prepared curriculum guides. And there’s a lot about kids that you just can’t measure.