My students love photographs. They still shoot with disposable cameras and get pictures developed. I always ask to see their photos — they tell me so much about who is in or not in their lives. Students show me snapshots of children they haven’t seen in years and long-dead parents. Herve asked me for a scissors today so he could trim the tattered edges off the picture he carries of his girlfriend. These photos are not sequestered in albums or frames. Some were literally posted on prison-cell walls with toothpaste for an adhesive. They are treasured touchstones to the outside world, the family as an imagined unit, the lover, the beloved auntie or the grandparents who raised them. I always appreciate what students share with me, even if it’s not necessarily how it is.
Archive for the ‘rehab’ Category
Let the games begin
May 25, 2010
Our local rehab, recovery and treatment centers recently competed in Olympic-style games. In my opinion, the methamphetamine addicts clearly have an edge over the heroin users, but the crack team is definitely in the running. The guy who smoked too much PCP — he’s off fishing, hates this kind of thing. My student Yvonne brought home the gold in track and field. I thought she was going to run from the community today, she was so wired from the games. I heard we also took some kind of medal in chess. Yes, the recovery games also feature chess. Some of my students spent time in prison playing chess and they are very good players. Most of my students just went to hang out. One remarked they ran into someone they haven’t seen in many years, also back in treatment.
Several of my students are complaining to me about how messy their roommates are. They have to cohabitate in very small dorm rooms. Why not make cleaning a competition? Who will take the gold in running the vacuum? Or how about a triathlon of vacuuming, dusting and cleaning windows?
Sunday Brunch
May 11, 2010
On Sundays, I am not at the Rehab. The residents wake up to a sweet roll and coffee at 8am to hold them over till the big Sunday Brunch. They then receive visitors and can do activities such as read, play dominoes, shoot hoops, or watch the game on one of several jumbo flat-screen TVs. Chain gang or Sunday Brunch, there needs to be something in between. Shouldn’t rehabilitation involve more giving back? Break into a house then you have to help build a house for someone else. Steal a car, then you have to repair a hundred potholes. Deal drugs? Plant and tend a community garden. You get the idea. To my students’ credit, they are all required to give volunteer hours at the rehab — kitchen, groundskeeping, cleaning. So at least they’re whipping up those mile-high pancakes themselves.
Sunday Brunch
Shark sticker
April 28, 2010
The student I call Diogenes now has over 20 hours in class. He is fiercely independent. When I assigned him a five-paragraph biographical essay he wrote about Patsy Cline. He pokes his head into class five times a day but rarely spends more than an hour inside. He got 100% on his spelling test today so I gave him a shark sticker. I saw he put it on his thermal coffee mug. I appreciate when a former gang member softens over an incentive as small as an aquatic-themed sticker. Though he is bound to be off task and chatty and a bit disruptive, I no longer dread having this student in my class. One must celebrate small victories.
Burn this
April 21, 2010
I love the quirks of my job. For instance there are many things that happen here that simply wouldn’t happen in a regular adult education classroom. I used to teach in a more traditional setting inside of a parole office and there was always a sense of tightened security. It got to the point where my students were occasionally searched and scrutinized without warning. German Shepherd dogs were brought in to sniff for dope. Instead of drug-sniffing dogs, we are likely to be visited by Anthony, a resident here who gives shoulder massages to my students who have been working hard at the computer all day.
Several of my female students wrote letters yesterday that target a painful memory. They told me they were going to read them and burn them the following day as a way to release the pain. All this is part of the process of recovery here. I wonder if they may also be writing about the painful memories they caused others?
Z and the GED
April 8, 2010
Z is a longtime student. She is back in rehab and back in my school for the third time. The first time she relapsed after having fully graduated the program. The second time she was picked up for not showing up to see her probation officer and spent several months in jail. This is probably her last run at the rehab and I can’t imagine not having her in class. I am trying several strategies to get her to take the GED. She is smart and ready but terrified and reminds me often that she is bipolar. “You’re wonderful and magnificent,” I say, “bipolar!” I talked with her bunkie (roommate) today. Z’s bunkie Wanda is retaking the math section of the GED next week and I suggested they study together. Wanda convinced Z to let me write a letter to get her exam funded. Z starts shaking at the thought of taking the GED, it’s that scary for her. “I’m not interested in achievement, Ms. P.,” she says. “Family and love, that’s what matters to me.” I tell her, “We’re here for you, Z.”
Smoking area
April 7, 2010
Fire drill. Fire drill at the rehab, evacuate the school. “Everyone out to the smoking area,” I repeat a couple of times. Mario who is on crutches moves very slowly, all the time saying he won’t let me burn up. The fire alarm sounds relentlessly, like a child having a tantrum. Everyone exits out the gate and stands in the street, in the cul-de-sac. The area where residents smoke, a dirt lot with chairs and a white tented canopy is just across the way. A staff member announces that the building where the residents live was constructed in the 1920s and no one is to smoke in their room. “The building would go up like a tinderbox,” he says. I wonder if we have any guys/gals with arson on their record? It’s time to go back to work. As I walk the winding paths back to my class I notice a handmade flier taped to the wall. It announces they are having a ping-pong tournament coming up and first prize is several bags of Bugler Rolling Tobacco. I miss playing ping-pong and the occasional smoke. Smoking is just so 20th Century.
Sprung and spun
March 17, 2010
My students are big on emoting. After working for about an hour on reading comprehension, Linda said, “I’m sprung.” “Is it the coffee?” I asked. Being “sprung” is not uncommon for addicts, especially crack and meth users. It’s a feeling of not being able to stay in your seat, a kind of restless mind-body syndrome, along with some anxiety. “Can I clean the classroom?” Linda asked. “Okay,” I tell her, “here are some antibacterial wipes, go ahead and clean some of the computer keyboards.” Students have told me more than once that being in my school gave them the space they needed to stay in recovery. I wish I could get a little sprung (on coffee), it might help me clean my house.
Whoops, I was confusing being sprung with being spun. Being spun is that constant restlessness I see in addicts. Being sprung is a state of intense desire and obsession for someone. Coffee in general will not get you sprung. I think my student was saying she was very horny, so it’s a little strange that I had her clean my keyboards.
I’m not looking
February 27, 2010
Today is Friday and it feels like the week has already left the room. Most of my students are at a handball/basketball tournament, playing against another rehab. It’s the last day of the week in this month and somehow I feel entitled to just relax. On my way to the dining hall to warm up last night’s leftovers for lunch (stuffed red pepper), I saw William sitting on the ground. He was surrounded by at least five staff. One went into the kitchen to get a cold towel for his forehead. I just walked by, didn’t say a thing or ask how he was, like the car accidents on the highway I often ignore. Now I feel bad. Maybe William noticed me breezing by without out a care to his fall. They took him away to have his head examined. I’m sure he will be fine, at least I hope so.
I called Victoria to ask how William was. She said, “When the paramedics came, they assumed the 911 call was for Jensen.” The paramedics had come so many times to rescue Jensen. They were expecting to take him to the hospital again.
Point to the sky
February 24, 2010
Yesterday the community went quiet. The entire rehab was called to the big dining hall for an announcement. A long-time resident who’d been in the hospital died of a heart attack. He’d become a fixture in our community, funny and beloved. He had relapsed and re-entered the program, was just about to finish and go back out into the larger community. Though his mom and girlfriend showed up for the gathering, it seems this place was also his family. For close to two hours, fellow residents stood and sang, told their favorite memories, and gave prayers. One of his friends asked everyone to point to the sky. “That’s where Jensen is, ” he said, “in heaven.” Jensen was never my student so I didn’t know him very well. I did appreciate the complete shift when we gathered, the quiet, and the open grief.
Today, when I came into work, I noticed someone had put Jensen’s name on the completion board. Students get their names on this board when they graduate and leave the program, move on to the greater community.
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