Yesterday as I sat in the park in my little city, I noticed a little bird hopping toward me. At first I thought it was a regular bird that hadn’t seen me because the creature was getting much closer to me that birds normally do. Upon closer inspection, I realized that it was a young bird who’s feathers had not fully formed and that it’s hopping was by necessity. I carefully approached the bird and quickly it’s mother darted at me and lighted on the ground very nearby. This parent was risking life and wing to protect the bird that had somehow fallen out of the nest. I worried about this bird as it and it’s mother hopped away toward some trees. How would it get back into the nest long enough to fully mature? Would neighborhood cats have it for dinner in the interim?
As a child I encountered many such birds and set out to correct the accident of circumstance that stranded them on dangerous ground, only to see them hop right back out of the nest immediately. It was as if once they’d left the nest, they could ever settle for settling in and waiting to mature. It was heart breaking knowing that these birds were likely doomed.
Yesterday as I relived those past frustrations with trying to save unsaveable birds, I began to think about the many at-risk learners I’d worked with in my teaching career. They were like the lost birds in many ways. Hopping toward danger without a clue, unwilling to return to safe places in which they could safely mature. Many without a parent willing to light on the ground near them and protect them from dangers they’d find. I wondered what we as teachers could do to buy these kids time to safely grow up.
The digital world moves so fast that kids can go farther, faster than ever before. This can be an amazing truth for motivated learners and a scary one when it comes to kids with low self esteem, bent on self destruction.
As I watch the mother blue jay dart at the neighbor’s cat or the robin land between her over-curious baby and the child with a stick, I think of the advocates of my troubled past. These teachers, librarians, lunch ladies and janitors who offered un-asked-for advice. They seemed ever-present as if waiting to swoop down and save me from my own behavior. I know that every kids needs an advocate. The ones who are hardest to help need it the most and that helping these kids is not without danger.
Every school school should have plans for these kids who’ve fallen or been pushed out of the nest too soon. Good teachers have always been nest-builders but the shape of the nest is ever-changing and there are many ways to jump out if we aren’t aware of them. Facebook, Myspace, cell phones and video games are just a few new ways kids can jump but they are also ways kids can launch and fly. The determining factor in my mind is a teacher/mentor who knows enough about today’s choices and tools to help kids know the difference.
Teachers are beautiful people who go out of their way and take risks to protect and develop youngsters who are often hard to love while their feathers are short. I admire the ones who can see these kids fully developed and flying when most of the world sees them as ugly things, hopping around, looking for trouble.