I absolutely loved my time in the classroom. With my blue wall standing at attention, my illegal scentsy wafting vanilla through the room, and my students streaming into my classroom, I always stood at the door with some sort of prop greeting them. Skeleton Hand, yes, please. Giant Gandalf staff, I had that too. I once confiscated these plastic Halloween finger props that looked like witch’s fingers complete with long nails.
“Hello, my pretties!” I would say to my kids as I wiggled my witch’s fingers at them.
“Ms. Kinder,” they retorted back, “You do too much.” Which was usually true; I do too much, but you can never say I didn’t have a blast every single day in my classroom that felt like my home away from home.
Back in 2015, I had a little girl in my class that was just plain going through it. Her mom called me in a panic and asked if I could keep snacks for this sweet girl in my room, so she didn’t have to go to the lunchroom which was a huge source of stress and anxiety for her. Let’s call her, Kayla. My answer: “Of course.” Little did I know how much Kayla was actually in trouble at the time. I just made my room available to her for lunch, so she felt safe. When the snacks got low, I purchased some backups.
After a while, Kayla asked if a few other girls could come eat lunch in my room too. “Of course,” I said, and I was pleased she had made some friends, and so was her mom. It turned into a little, girl-led therapy circle most days. These girls were grappling with puberty, who they wanted to be, who they didn’t want to be, and sometimes the topics ranged from something light like favorite foods to deeper things like a fear of someone hurting them or taking advantage of them.
The best teachers help kids come to their own conclusions by asking open-ended questions to create meaningful discussions without telling kids how and what to believe. I won’t pretend that there weren’t tears sometimes because this space that Kayla cultivated with my help was a safe one. By April, we were averaging 30 girls deep at lunch on any given day.
One particular day, one of the girls from ‘lunch bunch’ aka ‘girls’ club’ came storming in mad as a hornet. She had on a skirt with a t-shirt and she was rocking Vans to boot. The other girls were eating and gabbing and laughing and came to a complete halt when this girl stomped in.
“This is why we can’t wear skirts anymore,” she lamented. “Some guy just came up behind me, put one hand on my waist and the other up my skirt. When I pushed him off of me, he just ran away laughing with his friends.”
I sometimes used this time to catch up on emails while the girls ate, but this had me up out of my seat in a flash, “Excuse me!” I yelled. “That is assault! Who was it?!” But try as I might, I couldn’t get the young lady to tell me the who behind it for fear of retaliation.
“Girls,” I said, “You are the boss of your bodies, and no one gets to touch you without your permission. Consent matters!”
“Yeah,” they all agreed. “We are the bosses!”
I went home that night and looked at my own daughter and son and began the dialogue of consent, bodies, and respectful behavior. My goal as a mom is to always keep the lines of communication open. That when something crazy happens, instead of them being fearful to talk to me, they will run toward my safety net of love. “My mom will know what to say/do.” That is my hope.
The next day at school there was a commotion in the hallway. The girls from my lunch bunch all had skirts on and white t-shirts with the words, “CONSENT MATTERS,” emblazoned on the front of each shirt; put on haphazardly with black sharpie markers. They were marching down the hall yelling, “We are the bosses of our BODIES!”
“Oh no,” I thought to myself. “This is going to be a thing all day.” And a thing it was. My principal, one of the best I ever worked with, sauntered over to me. “Is this your doing?” He smiled and asked. “No,” I said, “I just told them they were the bosses of their bodies and no one is allowed to touch them without their permission! The matching outfits and skirts were all them!”
He chuckled, “This is going to be a day!” He was right; it was a day. Complete with an impromptu, emergency assembly for all 8th grade boys and girls in the gym to talk about appropriate behavior. Things can escalate quickly in middle school without those pre-frontal lobes fully developed.
I stayed close with these girls for the rest of the year, especially Kayla. When 8th grade graduation came around, Kayla, surrounded by her lunch bunch, cried tears of sadness and joy at the end of their middle school life. Pictures were taken, promises to keep in touch were made, and the year had come to an end, but that wasn’t the end of the story.
Years later, I took a job as an Instructional Coach, teaching and supporting teachers, at a completely different school in the Fall of 2020 when things were far from normal in a school setting. On the first day the students came back into the building, complete with masks hiding their faces, and masks hiding ours, it was pouring down rain. It was a mess. I stood at the door greeting students in my Ms. Kinder way, but I knew no one. I felt sadness and ached for my classroom with the blue wall and students and staff I missed fiercely from the previous years. When all of a sudden a woman approached me, “Are you Ms. Kinder?!” She asked, “From Cooper Middle School.”
“Yes,” I answered, and I pulled my mask down. She pulled hers down and burst into tears.
“I owe you my daughter’s life,” she sobbed through tears. “I’m Kayla’s mom, and you did something back in 2015 that made her not take her own life by suicide when she was in 8th grade. You talked her out of hurting herself.” Kayla’s mom clung to me in this rainstorm while we both sobbed. Kayla’s younger brother had changed schools, and was attending the school I was placed at as an Instructional Coach. Now, in 2015, I didn’t know Kayla was in as grave danger as she was; I just filled up her snack drawer, and gave her a place to belong. But looking back on it now, I can see the gravity of the situation. I don’t remember what I said to keep her from hurting herself, but as Kayla’s mom hugged me and cried that day, I was humbled at the impact that not only I had on Kayla’s life, but the impact she had on mine.
As teachers, sometimes we don’t know or feel the true impact of what we do until years later. Sometimes, never. When I do professional development workshops for educators all over the nation, I have my attendees think of a teacher, someone impactful in their school lives, and I challenge them to find that teacher on social media and tell that teacher what she/he meant to them. So many times, the teachers I teach will reach out and say, “I found Mr./Ms. ___________ and I said thank you to them like you said to, and it made all the difference in the world in my mood and theirs.”
Teach on, my most beautiful warriors! We have almost made it to the end of the year.
-Katie Kinder
#katiekinderfromokc #relatetheneducate #oklaed #teachercoach #teacherlife #professionaldevelopmentforteachers #thespringshift #thebreakroom #thebluewall #hallwayleadership #premierprofessionaldevelopment #untoldteachingtruths
Katie Kinder 