A Place Among Misfits
January 17, 2020

     My first teaching job was technically not a teaching job at all.  Toward the end of my English-only semester at Missouri Southern, I learned – I don‛t recall how – that a "counseling" position had come open at an ‟alternative school‟ in a neighboring town.  I can‛t remember if I reached out to the principal about it, or if he reached out to me, but in any case, I explained that I wouldn't be available until after I finished my final exams.  Not a problem, he assured me.  We also discussed how I would complete the requirements for non-traditional teacher certification over the ensuing months so that, if I continued with the school the following academic year, I could do so as a certified teacher (with the attendant increase in pay over the "counseling" position).

     I started in December of 2001, a week after finals and a week before this alternative school was set to begin winter break.  It was just enough time to meet the students and get my feet wet.

    The school was Attucks Alternative Academy in Vinita, Oklahoma.  It was one of a network of "alternative" school programs that school districts around the state had been developing over the preceding decade to assist junior high and high school age kids who, for a variety of reasons (mostly socio-economic), were not faring well in traditional school settings.  Much of the impetus behind these schools was to address and curb drop-out rates.  Attucks served all the districts in the county, taking students who were deemed at highest risk of dropping out of school altogether.  At any given time, approximately 45 students were enrolled in the program.

     So we were all misfits, these kids and me.  They didn't fit in at their schools of origin, and  I did not fit the Oklahoma Department of Education's idea of a teacher.  And, frankly, I had not fit in particularly well in high school either.  Although my academic experience had been very different from theirs, I deeply empathized with their discomfort in the traditional public school setting.  I too had tried to get out as quickly as I could.  My "alternative" school had been the local community college in my hometown, where I started taking concurrent classes as a junior in high school.  Of course, my path had been marked, at least outwardly, by social acceptability (even praise), while theirs carried stains of reprobation.  Yet I sensed some kinship in the inward struggle of not fitting in.

     I tried to make something of that.  I don't recall what my official title was that school year, but my primary duty was to lead the twice-a-day group therapy sessions that the school required.  Now, if I was not qualified to teach, I was far less qualified  – and perhaps distinctly unqualified – to conduct group therapy.  But I did my best, focusing on fostering stimulating conversation about healthy ways to grapple with the challenges the kids were facing.

     It was an education for all of us.