In an effort to push myself to write more - a struggle with a small child - I’m going to share some of the stories emerging as I work on a book. This is the second excerpt I’m sharing, and I hope you’ll see more soon. This post includes curse words, as my language often does. Enjoy!

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My dad’s study had a second desk. His was the serious one - it had dark wood littered with nice pens and blue books from the law school classes he taught. Ours was uglier, perpendicular to the serious one. It was probably from Ikea before it got nice. At our desk, we had an Apple 2C. We used Prodigy CDs to access the internet for the first time.

Given the hours spent at that computer, you couldn’t help but notice the photo collage that hung on the wall next to it. Long-haired teens stood with signs. The one I remember - “He’s a Helluva Hecker!” - demonstrated impressive wordplay. There were balloons, and there was a younger version of my dad. Many people clearly loved him, but - as a kid - I didn’t know who they were. I learned later that they were the teens of a local church youth group thanking him for his leadership.

There was also a clipping from a newspaper article. In it, my father was quoted. It said, “Teens need a place to skin their knees.” While, as a child, I wasn’t all that interested in why some teens loved my dad so much, that quote sunk in. We all need a place to scrape our knees. A place where mistakes, even significant ones, are considered part of a learning journey.

In his own white, suburban, church-focused way, my father recognized that teens need adults who accept their mistakes. They need to be given the space to grow. His lesson stayed with me.

This resulted in a policy at Reach that stated we would NEVER fire teen tutors. We were all about scraped knees. Additionally, it meant that we often didn’t immediately confront issues (disrespect, cursing, etc) with the hope that space would allow teens to grow through our patience rather than punishments. We didn’t always get it right, but sometimes we did.

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D was having a bad day. I had tried to ask her to quiet down a few times, but she was just not interested in actively participating in the day’s lesson. The third time I asked her to quiet down, she said something under her breath in that way teens do – just loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.

This was a test. I had told our first cohort of tutors that Reach would be different. It wasn’t going to be a place of order and obedience. So, I knew eyes were on me as soon as D said it:

You be quiet you bitch ass motherfucker.

I took a breath. The class got quiet. But, I was on a roll, so I kept going. D deserved space.

We were discussing a children’s book that we would be reading with the students the next day. Digging into themes and character development, we were studying this children’s story like the piece of great fiction it was.

As we moved on, part way through the conversation I saw D had tuned in. She was finally listening. Maybe she had run out of things to say after talking through the first twenty minutes of the session? I waited for her to tune in completely, as I imagined she had missed part of the conversation previously, but soon, I could see her nodding along out of the corner of my eye.

I could tell she disagreed with B’s assessment of the quality of The Giving Tree. Eventually, I turned to her with a major question – based on the evidence just stated, what can we infer about the character’s motivations? The lesson was one about inference, something many teens struggled with at the beginning of their time in the program. But, D nailed it.

I gave her a fist bump and a smile. She was clearly both engaged and proud. So, I said the only thing I could possibly say in the moment:

I guess I’m a bitch ass motherfucker that can teach.

We could have chosen obedience, but we created space. Patience rewarded, the class - D included - erupted in laughter.