A very cool thing

Do you ever have one of those days where there's a real struggle between good and evil? Where you can almost feel the fight around you. A good thing happens and boom! a bad thing comes right on it's heels. But then sometimes a good thing happens again to make the bad thing move away from the front of your mind for a little while. Yesterday a very cool thing happened that made some of the bad things seem a little further away and less important.

John McBride is a teacher at Crane and he runs a very cool program called Turning Point that takes in students who have had severe academic and discipline problems. He teaches them every subject and in addition, he helps them to grow up. And one of the best parts is they do. I have several students in John's program and they've all either changed significantly or in some small way that shows they are on their way. While Turning Point is a Crane program, it's separate from our school and of course, as always, there were budget cuts this year, and try as he might, John couldn't save the program he has dedicated his life to. He's a guy who puts his money and time where his mouth is, a former Marine who doesn't give these kids an inch and who gets results. He takes the kids none of us can handle (or frankly, don't want to handle anymore) and he works with them - often one-on-one. And he created a cycling program to keep them motivated. And it worked. They bike miles, they bike inside in stationary programs, they bike in 112 degree temperatures, they get run over by other cyclists (it's true, I saw it happen, one kid went down and John, not wanting to wreck brand-new two thousand dollar rims, rode right over the kid). And they love it. It's a very cool thing.

And yesterday, they got a call from Jenny Jones, the former talk show host, and she awarded John a $25,000 grant to continue his cycling program. He's going back into the traditional classroom at Crane next year but he'll still work with intervention kids and keep his program going after school. Click on the link above and read all about it - John's picture, with his kids, is on the front page of the Yuma Sun today. Very cool indeed. And standing next to him and three of my kids, kids who no longer sit in my classroom every day but kids who were once mine and who now are doing pretty darn well in John's program. I can't think of anything better today. I really can't. God bless public school teachers. Seriously.