NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — October's Allen Samuels CDJR Teacher of the Month is Special Education teacher Ruth Ford from Wichita South High School.
"When I was young, I knew I wanted to make a difference," Ford said. "I wanted to make a difference in who I helped, but I didn't know who or what that was going to look like and so, I took psychology classes and special ed classes and about 18 years ago, I landed my first Special Ed job and it has evolved into working with students who have the greatest behavior needs."
It takes a special kind of love to know that you are going to come up against actions every day that others don't even want to see and to take that on as a challenge rather than trying to avoid it.
"The tougher they are, the more passion I have for working with them," Ford said. "I feel like they are often the ones that are misunderstood and already have that negative attitude about school. I just want to be the person that can try to help show them the positive things that they have going on with themselves, that may not be the standard things that school looks for. It's the qualities in each individual kid that I try to bring out, so that they can walk away feeling good about themselves."
Getting kids whose parents may be at the end of their rope with their behavior and who are looking at giving up to have hope that school is going to be a safe, growing place for their child and giving that same hope to a child where home may not be safe is part of Ford's daily work, too.
"It goes to the very basics," Ford said. "It starts with relationship building. It doesn't have anything to do with academics in the beginning. It's really, what does the student like. Meet them where they are at. Just all of their outside interests, the things that make them who they are. I think, as you build on that relationship, then you are able to build trust and, once the trust is there, then you are able to help them come out of their comfort zone and start participating more and then you can start adding the academics. That's how I do it with each of my students."
Working in the high school setting, there are some behaviors that may happen that put the kids in legal jeopardy in the other parts of their day if their behaviors make others unsafe. That's hard to see.
"It's very hard, because, inevitably, there are some that, you know will end up making choices that you can't protect them from," Ford said. "They will make choices that land them in trouble outside of the school. No matter what you see within them at the school, or how vulnerable they really are, you know, it's hard to see when they have to learn really tough, hard life lessons."
The amount of calm required to do that job for one child is more than some can bear. To do it for a whole classroom of kids is truly heroic.