TO THE EDITOR:
“I had a scissor… seezor… a seizure,” one of my students struggled to utter under his breath. He had pulled me away from his other friends, who were playing a pick-up soccer game during an activity time we facilitated every morning before the school doors opened.
“Were you diagnosed with epilepsy?” I asked, cautiously.
He nodded and I suppressed a look of fear. I knew friends who had epilepsy and knew how dangerous it could be. But I counseled him, did more research, and helped him better understand the disorder.
Those conversations occurred mid-winter of last year, during my corps year with City Year in San Antonio. I served to change the fact that every 26 seconds in the U.S. a student gives up on school. City Year is a national non-profit and AmeriCorps program that deploys young leaders (between ages 17 and 24) as full-time mentors, tutors and role models in 22 cities across the country to keep students in school and on track.
However, epilepsy was different than a math problem or a well-written essay. This was an accomplished student, who did not need my help in the classroom. His road to success, I thought, was clear with his ability to understand concepts and keep up his grades.
The spine-straightening jolt I felt a few weeks later, when I heard that a student had fallen from an epileptic fit, still lingers. I found him on a bed in the school nurse’s office minutes later. He looked dazed and sad. I sat and talked with him about soccer for a while. He loved the sport, as did most of the Latino students I tutored.
By the beginning of February, I had started a soccer club. The offer of a structured team to this largely Latino-populated middle school was a hit, even though they were required to complete their homework to play. And on the field, this student was the best. His skill and dedication surpassed his peers, yet he helped his teammates grow as well.
His teacher and I knew that he would easily place out of the ESL program at the end of the year. But he was absent the day of the mandatory placement test and the state did not offer a retake.
I knew why he was out. Since his epilepsy medication made him sick, he will now have to trudge through a third year of the ESL program. Seeing him, head down, as he walked up to my table at the back of the classroom, broke my heart, because I already knew the news he would mumble to me in his thick Mexican accent.
Yes, we tutor them in academics. But that is usually the easiest part. For those who drop out, life has often presented them more obstacles than academics.
