Dear Boundless Friends and Families:
It’s day three of the boarding school. A bug that has felt like the plague has swept through the Boundless staff team. Which meant that I was called in as a substitute teacher to run last night’s program. There was some reticence. My colleagues were not entirely comfortable relying on an unhinged old man with barnacles to carry the evening.
I enter the great cozy room and see L. sitting by himself on a couch. I’m told he wants to get the heck out of Boundless. It’s his second session, so he knows the routine. But something is amiss. He has been besieged to stay by Boundless staff and by our longest tenured student Dylan – the Grandmaster of False Exits.
L has had his fill of being wooed. Perhaps he was expecting more singing and dancing from me.
Instead, I plop myself beside him on the couch shoulder touching shoulder, ignoring that I have 6 feet to spare. L is slightly amused which only egged me on. I started to repeatedly body-check him in full view of the other students. They, especially the new ones, looked perplexed.
I started humming an impromptu lilt, which centred on the merits of pushing and shoving students. It ended with the line “I inspire wrath cuz I’m your friendly neighbourhood sociopath.”
M, a very new kid on the block, took issue with the term sociopathy. He said, “You’re not a sociopath because those people lack empathy. What you actually are is sadoo..sadimas.”…he fumbled with the word.
A, another student, chimed in, “You mean masochist”.
“No, ” I say, “that means you like to hurt yourself.”
Keir, who was an ESL kid, clarified for everyone, “You mean a sadist.”
“Ya, that’s it! Steven, you are being a sadist, not a masochist.”
What ensued was an evening where the group learned topics like “How to have a conversation that doesn’t make the other person vomit”, and, notably, an exercise where you make up your own M.O., a code, a constitution, that will guide you through the challenges to come.
I heard so much profundity, a hell of a lot of redundancy, and sincerely earnest goals. Compassion. Never giving Up. Be true to yourself. Really good stuff. Their conversations flowed like the Madawaska river right in front of them.
I ask the group at the end, “Do you think I had a secret motive for tonight’s program?”
Alexis rang the buzzer first and declared, “You just wanted us to get to know each other.”
As to the fate of L, he and I hung out afterwards. He said he’ll give the Outdoor Ed and Math shifts a chance.
I am optimistic he’ll stay. I mean, how could he not? He just endured a throng of people saying, “C’mon man, you can do this. We love you.”
L is “seen” here. He can define his own future at Boundless without the burden of past failures. He’ll make it. I’ll bet a dozen Krispy Kremes.
Thank you all for helping this drama unfold so beautifully and absurdly.
Warmly,
Steven
