The Clam and the Butterfly: The Effect of a Little Interest

William, I’ll call him, wasn’t interested in anything.

–What do you want to be when you grow up?

–I don’t know…

–Any ideas?

–No.

–What about college. Any idea what you want to study?

–No.

–Where you want to go?

–No. 

Fascinating, huh? That’s how his teachers felt. Like trying to teach a clam.

I can’t recall a less motivated student. Bright, talented, but a C student and not interested in doing any better. No hobbies. Coordinated, but no real interest in sports. A reader, but no discernible passion. Other teachers and I shook our heads. Such possibilities going to waste. How to reach someone like this? Dismissive of most literature, dismissive of opinions different from his own, a bit of a know-it-all. A year. A year and a half.

He was on scholarship, and the chair of the board met with him to try to help him recognize the opportunity he was wasting. Not a lot of movement. The board questioned continuing his scholarship. Mom was tearing her hair out. Dad was done with him. Teachers rolled their eyes. 

And then he signed up for a photography elective. He could have taken it earlier, but, really, we gave other students priority because they were better students, they had earned it. 

He and another student spent one afternoon a week in our darkroom. At the same time, he was enrolled in a filmmaking class that we instituted this year, for the first time, because our school has grown so large that not every student can participate in the school play. William enjoyed photography. He loved filmmaking. We closed school early for a snowstorm, and William, for the first time, expressed an emotion. He was crestfallen. He would miss photography.

So far, so good. A student without apparent interest found an interest. But here’s where it gets interesting.

William started making eye contact, even smiling from time to time. He went out of his way to talk to the woman with whom he carpooled to school each morning—earlier, he sat in silence. His attitude improved, his effort improved, his work improved, his grades improved, his relationships with teachers and schoolmates improved. A tough, experienced teacher commented on his new life. He started to open, like a clam.

I remember a similar student—this one, Guy, I’ll call him, had a different personality. He wasn’t dismissive and apathetic, he was just goofy. His grades were terrible, his effort was lacking, his attitude—if he paid attention long enough to have an attitude—was, well, like the attitude of a stone skipping over a pond.

And then, who knows why, he started taking flying lessons. (Our school is a couple of miles from a rural airstrip for propeller planes.) He got a job to pay for them. He decided he wanted to be a pilot. He knew he’d have to improve his grades, to learn some math. And he did it, rapidly. It was like watching a butterfly emerge from a chrysalis in speeded-up nature documentary style. He applied to aeronautic colleges and was admitted to every one. And he’s now a commercial pilot.

It’s one thing to believe that we are whole beings. It’s another thing to see how one little movement toward interest gradually opens us like a chrysalis. Or like a clam.

Shoplifting, or, the Little Joys of Teaching Teens are Almost Without Number

“I heard the manager say he’s going to catch him tomorrow and have him arrested.”

One of our more Norman-Rockwell-looking students, I’ll call him Joe, had been shoplifting on his lunch hour from one of the Norman-Rockwell-looking shops in town, a small pharmacy that sold snack food, close to our school building. Another student overheard the manager after Joe left, and reported what she’d heard.

Now what? Stand back and let things take their course? We—the other teachers and I—talked about the pros and cons of this inaction and decided that wouldn’t be right.

We announced to the school that that shop was off-limits to our students until further notice. Eyebrows around the room made it clear that several students knew why. Was Joe alone? Probably not, but he was the one who got caught.

We met with Joe and his mom after school.

“The manager of the pharmacy knows you’ve been shoplifting. When you went in there tomorrow he was going to have you arrested. What should we do?”

I wasn’t going to pretend not to know what had happened. I’ve learned over the years not to compound trouble by asking someone, say, a thief, to become a liar. This wasn’t an inquisition. It wasn’t a court of law. It was an attempt to help a young man grow up. And, if somehow he was innocent and wrongly accused, his reaction would make that clear.

Joe, to his credit, didn’t try to lie. “I still have some of the stuff I stole. I could return it and pay for the rest.” His mom sat silent.

“And what about an apology?”

“I’ll write an apology,” he said.

“And deliver it to the manager by hand tomorrow,” we said.

He agreed, and walked into the shop alone the next afternoon with a fist full of gum and candy, some money, and his letter. We learned later that the manager was pretty gruff with him, as he had every right to be, and let Joe know he’d be keeping an eye on him if he came into the store again.

Incident concluded, we let the other students return to shopping there, but asked Joe not to—probably to his relief—for the rest of the year. We also put him on behavioral probation for the rest of the year, and, as far as we can tell, he lived up to our requirements.

You hear, sometimes, the kids are “asking” to be caught. I’m not cynical enough to doubt it. But, after our first meeting as we were leaving, before Joe wrote or delivered the apology, we shook hands. He looked each of us in the eye and what he said startled me. He said, “Thank you.”