Doctor Zest's Traveling Medicine Show

Shadow Children — Education's #1 Issue: At‑Risk Youth

I want educators to feel like the champions they can be. I want them to feel like angels or warriors (or both). They need to feel that pride in themselves, and feel as special as the surgeon everyone sits in theatre over and oohs and ahhhs at a clever diagnosis and treatment. I want these educators (I include everyone in the building*) to be seen by others (and themselves) as audaciously competent and caring. If an educator is not that way, they can be. Educators need to understand that kids live from the heart out. If they know that children "live from within" and if the educator is to be powerfully and positively influential, they must get a key to that internal kingdom so they can understand and communicate effectively on the way to providing students a worthwhile curriculum of success. It is my profession, as D^r. Zest, to create and foster that willingness, to give them a chance to feel pride in their role — eager to learn more to keep that feeling, to KNOW they are the best thing that ever happened to their kids.

D^r. Zest has a prescription for you! D^r. Zest will walk with you through an enthusiastic presentation/seminar about the "creation of a Shadow Child" — how dysfunctional families create a shortage of skills in their Toolbox for Life — and what the school must do to compensate, knowing the children cannot do all the work themselves because they are — well — children. Children by definition are vulnerable and in need of structure and instruction that will help them succeed, not only in the classroom, but also in life.

Results: With appropriate humor and lightness of being a very heavy and critically necessary seminar/speech explains the making of a SHADOW CHILD. What happens in an abusive and neglectful home? Do we want to know? What we need to know is that there are eight common characteristics of Shadow Children and they can be productively handled in a school, often by an informed teacher. At-risk students (Shadow Children) attempt to act out their unfinished business in schools and all too often we misdiagnose them as a "discipline problem" and seek punishment, when we should be seeking expertise in seeing through the symptoms and addressing the cause while being in an educational setting. It is being the professional we educators are supposed to be. Right Understanding first. Intervention while teaching content is not only possible, but in some cases, the best way to help a student heal while learning.

Educators will leave this seminar understanding at-risk youth: causes and effects. They will also learn how to intervene without disrupting class. Most of all they will learn to teach more effectively while accommodating Shadow Children without a special program. Most special teachers do not need a special program — they are the special program.

* Including Joe the One-Armed Janitor...

The following account in no way denigrates all my "junior high" teachers. The most memorable and influential educator that I personally knew was a janitor with one arm: Joe. There were 100 boys in my junior high and he knew us all by name. (How the heck did he do that? Well, he obviously thought we were worth getting to know and went to the trouble.) Some of us, particularly the troubled youth from abusive homes were or particular interest to Joe. I now realize that my teachers were in on this! He would come to our classes and ask for a volunteer to help him with at task. The teacher would nominate me and I would go help him move some desks. I thought it was because he had one arm and needed help. The work took like five seconds, then he would say, "You deserve a reward, Tony." He would take us into the boiler room where he had his desk and lunchbox AND an old Coke Machine. Joe would put a coin in the Coke machine and get me a coke, flip over a 5 gallon bucket and he would smoke a cigarette and I would drink my delicious ice cold cola. And we would talk about school, feelings, and most importantly: girls. Joe apparently knew a lot about girls — for a one-armed man ;‑). Sometimes he would have group therapy, three or four of us sitting down there in the boiler room discussing important things, like how he lost his arm in the war, what we hated about school, how things were at home.

He was a genius educator, a natural. But what he knew others could learn. How to deliver a lesson tailor-made and with a smile and compassion. How to do character education without preaching. How to love kids like an adult should, and still cover the material.

I never knew his last name in two years, but I will never forget the blue-bordered white patch on his shirt that said, simply, Joe.

I miss him.

Warning: This prescription is perfectly safe, devoid of any internal bleeding (well, physically speaking), seizures (except you may seize a chunk of life for yourself that you didn't know you could have), dizziness (only the fun kind), and coma (oh, especially no coma — after all you may be coming out of one!)

Doctor Zest's Traveling Medicine Show