Crossing paths with an Amber
By Sarah Leavenworth
Her name was Amber, and she was a miserable bully. Stringy brown hair stuck to her forehead and the other kids laughed at her well-worn clothes and the small, grubby hands she used as a defense mechanism. I invited Amber to my 10th birthday party, and the change in her demeanor — the spark generated from a seemingly insignificant act of kindness — was something I haven't forgotten.
Our peers, and even some teachers, avoided Amber like a plague, but I had a feeling none of us knew what the little bully was coping with when she left school each day. After my birthday party, Amber told me I was her best friend. We moved from Oregon and I never saw her again, but I always wondered what happened to her. She's a reminder of how lucky I've been and the opportunities I constantly take for granted.
I come from a loving, supportive family. Receiving my high school diploma and graduating from college were givens. Rarely do I consider what my life could have been like without education and an environment that allowed me to grow. Learning last week about what Polson High School is doing to help its at-risk students — students like Amber who have been handed few if any of the opportunities I have been — reiterated for me how far kindness and a second chance can go.
Mike Sitter, an Earth Science teacher at Polson High School, was invited to speak at the Superintendent's Community Council last Thursday about the Cohort Program — an innovating approach to educating the students who have perpetually failed their core courses and are on the road to becoming high school dropouts.
The program is the brainchild of high school assistant principal Dan Kimzey, who had seen first-hand the impact of similar curriculum in another school district.
Sitter was quick to admit his initial reluctance to undertake the Cohort Program; after all, some of the kids he would be working with would have significant academic, social and behavioral problems. The first year of the program was a success statistically, with all but a handful of the at-risk students not only surviving but thriving in Cohort's small, almost family-oriented English and science classes. The numbers, however, don't tell the whole story. The program, Sitter said, not only changed grades from failing to passing, but changed some of the students' outlooks on education and life.
Sitter, like many educators I've crossed paths with, seems disposed to downplay the work he's doing, but his face lit up when he talked about his students.
He's taken the group to news stations to learn about the weather, Glacier National Park to investigate glacial formations, and into the depths of a mine in Butte for a hands-on look at rock formations.
He carefully glued assignments to the pages of his students' notebooks so classroom work wouldn't get misplaced. He revamped all of his lesson plans to focus more on core concepts and "hands-on" learning. He's teaching his kids to take notes and study - skills, he said, they'll need in the future.
Most importantly, though, it seems Sitter, Kimzey and the other Cohort teachers and support staff had faith in these students, looking at them not as bullies, wallflowers and failures but as young people full of potential.
I thought I noticed Superintendent Sue McCormick's eyes welling up slightly as she thanked Sitter and Kimzey for their investment in some of Polson's neediest students. I could tell she's crossed paths with a few Ambers before.