Teaching Beyond Risk Adolescents

Why be concerned about at-risk youth? " The problem is not simply that some students are doing poorly in school. The problems relate to all youth who are in danger of not just failing and dropping out of school, but of entering adulthood illiterate, dependent on drugs and alcohol, unemployed or underemployed, as a teenage parent, dependent upon public support or adjudicated by the criiminal justice system.".Hope Fulfilled for AT-Risk and Violent Youth K-12 Programs that Work". Second Edition. Robert Barr and William H. Parrett Boise State University
Copyright 2001-Allyn & Bacon.

The above statement tells it all. A father in an inner city school once spoke up at a PTA meeting attended by the usual four parents, and two new teachers, "Don't be afraid of our children who are educated. Be very fearful of our children who are not educated."

As a literacy teacher of adolescent boys and girls in a psychiatric hospital, one of my hardest tasks is finding or designing lesson plans that would encourage active involvement. Even so, the students are battling their own inner turmoil and expressing it by ignoring, talking over me, challenging my every word, using sexual or other inappropriate language as they communicated loudly to peers, or tucking their heads inside their hoodies and laying across the desk.

These kids reside for a time period in our locked up facility until they are deemed mentally stable and no longer a threat to themselves or others. they are deemed a danger to themselves or others. Many don't leave the building for weeks or months, except for the outdoor play areas, legal or medical appointments, at which they are accompanied by two staff. 

Unlike other at-risk children, ours do not go home after school each day. Even if the family is highly dysfunctional, most miss their families, their beds and familiar surroundings. There might be little structure and supervision, but, here their lives are strictly supervised and dictated by the hospital's schedule. 

Our patients' diagnoses included bi-polar disease, borderline personality disorder, depression, conduct disorder, psychosis, schizophrenia, post traumatic stress disorder, aggression and ADHD. Their experiences with formal schooling have been sporadic due to truancy, suspension, expulsion, multiple hospitalizations and other temporary therapeutic placements. Too many failed within the system: for once a child falls significantly behind academically, even with excellent intervention, it is difficult and improbable that they will catch up to their peers, especially, those who hadn't even grasped the fundamentals of reading. Thus, as they grow older,  even if they have educational mentors, they still be living with dysfunction. They didn't want to be in the hospital and their ability to focus is dependent upon their psychiatric issues, often disappointed by an anticipated a visit from from family member that doesn't show-up.

Too many of their prior experiences in school have been poor. Truancy, suspension, expulsion and frequent hospitalization mean that these kids have had bits of time in a public school. How can one assume that they can possible perform in any academic area on grade level? The child who is struggling in school does not want to be known as a "retard" by his classmates, so he or she might become the class clown and get the teacher's negative attention for that, he/she might gain in popularity by his peers, or get kicked out of class for so the academic problems are less noticeable to the kids.
We have boys and girls with language processing problems and a few whose intellectual functioning is lower than their cognitive age.. We may think they are acting inappropriately and not following instructions, when they don't have the ability to understand our messages in the way we give them.

It is not uncommon during our school day to hear furniture being thrown, pounding on walls, cursing either at or with peers with sexual overtones, to see kids walking out of class or fighting or even assaulting staff. The staff who they punch, kick, or spit at might be their favorite temporary caregiver. It is the frustration and anger and emptiness that they are really attacking. I say "temporary" because either staff, nurses and other hospital employees leave these jobs or the kids move on to placements, foster homes with different temporary caregivers, or even back to their own family. Quite often, they acclimate well for a time and then stop taking meds and cease counseling, and resume truancy, using alcohol and drugs to self- soothe, get into brawls at school, steal, become aggressive to parents or siblings and eventually return to a psychiatric hospital.

Keeping all of this in mind, then, how can teachers working in an institution be expected to formulate lessons with the State Standards in the forefront? The goal of our day quite often is just to get the children to stay in a seat for even twenty minutes, If we want more, we have to dig deeply and either locate or formulate using our most creative minds, lessons and activities that will not only give them a reprieve from their unpleasant thoughts, but also to have fun learning.
That learning must be relevant to their own lives if we hope to achieve that goal.
There are no books or articles that can offer educators the miracle we need to guarantee the depth of success, though I keep searching..