I thought I would spend some time organizing and preparing for this first real post. Then it occurred to me that I had certainly never done such a thing before. I began my career in special education in 1969 because I was highly educated and totally untrained-I had no idea how to work at anything but my own education.
My aunts convinced me to call the board of education and ask about vacancies. It was August 27 and school started September 3. There were 6 special ed classes in Calhoun County, Alabama and 5 vacancies. I was so stupid as to tell the principal interviewing me that I had written a paper on Down’s Syndrome. I shall never forget his reply, “Darling, these kids look just like the rest of them; they just don’t act that way.” September 3, I stood in a room with 12 teenage kids. After the man shut the door, they asked, “How long you think you’ll last?” I used that scenario with many groups of student teachers: Don’t get full of yourself. That door will close and it will be you and them.
In 1981, I moved my child and dog to Macon, Georgia. Not only did I know no one in Macon; the only people I knew in Georgia were my Auburn roommates who were in Atlanta. They weren’t much help in Twiggs and Crawford Counties. In 1982, I took a job at Georgia State Prison, My qualifications? I had been on a field trip through Kilby Prison In Montgomery, Alabama and knew about conditions that impair. In 1997, I moved on to work at a juvenile development center. By this time, I thought I knew everything-I’d spent 15 years behind locked doors. Suffice it to say: I have never been more wrong.
I wrote the devotional book and am now writing this blog for several reasons: 1) in the most ungodly situations, I saw forgotten folks (stray people-Kingdom of Heaven-page 93 ) do godly things. Those things needed to be recorded. 2) I believe that in every community, town or city in this country, there are people who work tirelessly at thankless jobs. They teach or patrol or provide therapy or counseling or supervision to a strata of our society who are most euphemistically labeled difficult. They are so needy and demanding that they seem to suck the marrow from your bones and they are still unhappy. Yet these workers go back day after day. If asked why they do what they do, they often say, “I’ve got too many years in to quit.” or “I’ve got to work.” I believe most go back because they cannot stop caring. I want to try to help them see their work from a different angle.
At the juvenile detention center where I last worked, the kids were picked up and brought to us at all hours. The law required that they go before a juvenile judge the next work day. I watched one morning as a deputy sheriff came to pick up his kids. He saw a 14 year old girl and exclaimed, “Oh, Baby, No! What did you do this time?” She dropped her head and tears ran down her face. “I’m sorry” was all she could say. In that moment, that man was not a deputy sheriff, he was that young woman’s life line.
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