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Lessons in living

For four decades, she devoted herself to teaching kids about academics and about life. As retirement beckons, Shirley Thompson reflects on a fulfilling career.

By SUSAN ASCHOFF
Published May 1, 2006

Thompson teaches work experience classes in Northeast High School's GOALS program, part of the Pinellas County School District's dropout prevention. In the morning, she and her students tackle resume writing and balancing a checkbook. In the afternoon, Thompson visits her students' places of employment - each has to work at least 15 hours a week - to grade their performance on the job. Before GOALS, Thompson helped start the county's program for pregnant students and new moms, then called Project Help.

At 62, she concedes she could stay another three years before she retires. But there are reasons she is ready to go. There are countless more why she will miss teaching, a profession she says fulfilled her every day.

Why are you retiring?

Quite frankly, I'm tired. I'm not tired of the kids. I'm tired of the FCAT, the Kaplan diagnostic testing, this, that. You spend so much time doing that, you have to work in the curriculum. What I teach is work experience. The kids, because it's real life, really respond to this class. I tell them, you're going to work a very long time. You've got to enjoy what you do. I have friends who make a lot more money that hate going to work.

Why did you pick teaching?

I volunteered in my church with a group of 8-year-olds and I loved it. I started out teaching third grade in Brevard County, at the school I went to. I did it for about seven years. I was getting a divorce and an opportunity came up to start, for Pinellas County school system, a program for pregnant teenagers. I started that with 10 out-of-date dictionaries. Over the six years I did it, I taught 800 girls, fourth grade to 12th grade, all their academic classes and parenting skills.

When you and others created Project Help (in the early 1980s), was that controversial?

It was by Mirror Lake, before all the development, and I'd take them to the thrift stores and teach them how to shop. Someone said we looked like a line of ducklings. At the public library, a woman came up to me and said, "Did you notice how many of your students are pregnant?" "Yes, I did, because we're a school for pregnant girls," I told her. She spit in my face. I was shocked. The library workers were shocked.

I recall one year I had 36 girls. We had girls whose babies had the same father. We had fights.

Tell me about the students you work with in the GOALS program.

A lot of the kids get put down by the mainstream teachers and kids: "The GOALS kids are stupid." Which is absolutely erroneous. I think kids today have so much pressure on them that having someone who believes in them is so important.

What has surprised you the most about your students?

Their resilience.

How do they need to be more resilient today than teenagers in the past?

I think there's a lot more stress for them. Their childhood is such a brief moment. I ran into a woman whose third-grader was stressing all summer about the FCAT. My kids will come to school and say, "There was a drive-by shooting," "I had a friend die." They keep on coming to school. They keep on trying. It staggers me.

I think the main thing is, there is just no respect for the educational system in the homes of a lot of kids. Now the first words out of anybody's mouth is, "I'm going to sue." The parents call and instead of saying, "What can we do,'' it's "What did you do to my child?"

Is some of that attitude due to how things have changed for families?

My parents of my kids are working as hard as they can work just to survive. A child I had for a little while in a homeroom was the nicest kid. His parents called to apologize because they were late for a conference. They had to change buses three times to get here. So if I call a parent, I always say so-and-so did something good. Then I'm going to get so much out of that kid.

What makes the difference in whether a kid fails or succeeds?

The support system. No kid wants to fail. Some of them have bravado, like "it doesn't bother me," but they want to do well and they want to be accepted. I liken it to playing cards. You're dealt a hand. Those are the cards you have.

Does it seem ironic that you went from taking care of small children at a church to teaching teenagers who are dealing with major personal problems?

I taught 3-year-olds, and it was the worst. The kids I have now can get on your last nerve, but they have a sensitivity that is unbelievable. The kids are witty, they're savvy.

In the GOALS program, what has visiting the job sites been like?

I do tend to be naive. There was one time when I had on a very red dress, and I go up U.S. 19 and I find this address where one of the students is working and I'm thinking, "Oh mercy!'' I walk in, and there's mirrors on the wall, mirrors on the floor, there's mirrors on the ceiling. It was a topless place and it was full of men. My face was redder than my dress. I said to the student (a boy who worked washing dishes): This isn't going to work.

Did you ever have a serious, a dangerous, incident with a student?

I was scratched by a student once, and I did prosecute. As it turned out, this student attacked a bus driver while the bus was in motion.

So how do you feel about the job you've done?

You always wonder, have I said the right thing, have I been encouraging enough? I get so much more from them than they get from me. I had them sit on a stool and look in a mirror. Three people had to come up behind them, and each person had to give the person on the stool a compliment. Then each person on the stool had to say something nice about themselves.

Some of them literally couldn't do it.

I hope, as they get a little older, they can recognize what they do well. No matter how squirrelly someone was in class, there was something lovable about each one.

Susan Aschoff can be reached at aschoff@sptimes.com or (727) 892-2293

[Last modified May 1, 2006, 07:57:14]