JOSEPH'S STORY

According to his personal file the new student’s name was Joseph Weinberg. My first thought was that that was an awfully grown up name for such a little boy. I couldn’t help but picture a paunchy, middle-aged Jewish man. Old Mr. Weinberg. Joseph. Or should I call him Joey? His personal file probably weighed more than he did. That’s not a good sign.

The day Joseph’s records arrived I asked Ms. Miller, the teacher who provides services to the students with special needs, to read over the files and give me the Cliff’s Notes version of Joseph’s story. From there I conveniently forgot about the two manila folders that bore the boy’s name. But this afternoon when I returned to my classroom after dismissing the students there were the folders again along with a note from Ms. Miller neatly folded on top. I ignored it. I washed my chalkboards. I rearranged desks. I actually attended to some minor record keeping tasks that I would have otherwise avoided like the plague. Desperate to avoid delving into Joseph’s life I even went so far as to call another teacher in from the hall. “Have you ever seen a personal file so big?” She hadn’t. “Just think of all the paper wasted simply to build a file that no one will ever read.” She concurred. We made comments about the needless bureaucracy in schools, and how poorly the files actually reflect the lives of the students they represent, but I was stalling. It wasn’t the size of the files that had me concerned. What concerned me was what was inside.

My instincts were right. Joseph was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Remember that movie “The Perfect Storm” with George Clooney? Remember how all the weather phenomena converged at the same time to create the mother of all storms? Well, take George Clooney out of the picture because there haven’t been any heroes in this story. Include a gale force blast of family dysfunction, foster care and state intervention. Throw in partial blindness, a speech impediment, a learning disability and at least four different schools in four years and you have “The Perfect Shit Storm.” That’s been this kid’s life so far.

Where do you even begin to unravel the mess that this child has been born into? My name is now added to the small army of people who have had the chance to make a difference in Joseph’s life. Greater minds than mine have devoted their time to saving him, but now it’s my turn. What do I think? I think he’s grown up too quickly. That little boy with the old man’s name has seen more of this world’s underside than most adults ever will. He’s carried the burden of his own upbringing on his own slender shoulders for too long. That’s no childhood. So what do I do? Well, tomorrow we’ll do what we can to meet little Mr. Joseph Weinberg at his level and accept him for who he is and where he’s at. We don’t teach desks or chairs; we teach children, and this one needs me now. I think I’ll start by calling him Joey.