{"id":18294,"date":"2017-05-30T22:25:41","date_gmt":"2017-05-31T02:25:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/?p=18294"},"modified":"2024-02-18T10:07:54","modified_gmt":"2024-02-18T16:07:54","slug":"educating-corey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/blog\/educating-corey\/","title":{"rendered":"Educating Corey"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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How a Troubled Student Impacted My Life\u2014and Changed His<\/h2>\n\n

This is Corey. Years ago, I was his 4th-grade teacher. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Corey struggled with an alcoholic mother and a dad who really wasn’t a part of his life. They had no money, no support, and he and his older brother had to take care of themselves, his older brother working while in school to try to provide for the family.<\/p>\n\n

When Corey stepped into my classroom every day, he was one big ball of smoke. Everything he wore smelled smoky, and to be honest, he could give two shits about school.<\/p>\n\n

He did everything he could to avoid learning and made it difficult for me to teach and others in the class to learn. I really struggled with him the first few weeks of school. But a simple classroom activity, unrelated to the lessons of the day, presented a chance to learn more about Corey\u2019s situation.<\/p>\n\n

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Each day, I held a twenty minute \u201ccircle time\u201d after lunch. The class would sit and\u00a0share either a gratitude, a compliment for someone, or a personal struggle.<\/strong>\u00a0It was through this circle time that a new story began to emerge about Corey’s struggles.<\/p>\n\n

He was merely trying to survive.<\/p>\n\n

I am so thankful that I took the time in my classroom to incorporate a\u00a0social curriculum<\/strong>, where we not only\u00a0focused on positives<\/strong>, like our gratitude but also shared our struggles. We spent valuable classroom time talking about real-life lessons\u2014and not one of my standards was covered during this time. (This is just one reason I believe so strongly in the\u00a0growth mindset curriculum<\/a>.) \u00a0<\/p>\n\n

If I had not taken the time to build relationships with my students and to teach them a curriculum of both the\u00a0heart and mind<\/strong>, perhaps I would have missed out on this story that\u00a0changed my entire teaching career<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n

I\u2019ve spoken a lot about the impact Corey has had on my teaching career, grab the tissues and watch the whole video now.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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I firmly believe that if we show kids their hearts matter just as much (and probably more) than their minds, they can and will accomplish great things.<\/p>\n

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I continued to follow and support Corey\u2019s progress after he left my classroom. Because it was in my classroom that he wrote these words on the last day:\u00a0<\/p>\n

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I could not let Corey go because we were his family. So, I found him a \u201cbig brother\u201d (really a grandma and grandpa figure) who became an important part of his life, and I, too, stayed in touch with him.<\/p>\n

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During Corey\u2019s 5th grade year, his mother passed away, and he was sent to the nearby city of Jasper to live with a father he had never really known. He was in a different situation, but it still wasn\u2019t a good one.<\/p>\n

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At the same time, I happened to become the curriculum director at Jasper. This allowed me to continue to check on his welfare and his academics. And I\u2019m so glad I was there, because\u00a0I got to see Corey persevere<\/strong>. I watched him conquer his challenges and become a\u00a0strong and determined student<\/strong>\u00a0of school and of life.\u00a0My heart is full of pride for this young man.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Corey graduated from Jasper High School this past weekend, and I’m so happy I was able to celebrate with him. He’s headed to the University of Southern Indiana this fall and will study to become a dental hygienist. He certainly embodies the quote,\u00a0“Nevertheless, he persisted.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

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If ever you, or one of your students, starts to believe there\u2019s no hope, that it\u2019s impossible to accomplish great things in difficult circumstances, I hope you\u2019ll think of Corey\u2019s story. It\u2019s so important that we show and tell our students that they\u00a0can<\/em>\u00a0overcome. And it\u2019s important for teachers to persevere, too, because you never know the impact you\u2019ll have on your students’ lives\u2014or the impact they\u2019ll have on yours.<\/p>\n

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This is just part of Corey\u2019s story. Watch him tell more about it\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How a Troubled Student Impacted My Life\u2014and Changed His This is Corey. Years ago, I was his 4th-grade teacher. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Corey struggled with an alcoholic mother and a dad who really wasn’t a part of his life. They had no money, no support, and he and his older brother had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19281,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-joy-drop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18294"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47473,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18294\/revisions\/47473"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}