Everyone deserves another chance. A story about my Dad and the power of belief

With my Dad in Colorado a few years ago...

My dad is a local legend and I've been reluctant to share his story, but it teaches me everything about redemption, second chances, and belief. I have a pretty clear memory of a visit to stay with my dad in the mid 70's. My parents (pictured with baby me to the right) had a pretty amicable divorce and so I was able to spend a lot of time with both of them, although the custom of the time meant my mom had primary custody and I saw Dad on weekends and more in the summer. The reason I remember this particular visit was Mom dropped me (and maybe my little brother, but I can't remember) off at an apple orchard where Dad might have been working at the time. I remember that he was staying in a tent and had a cook stove and we had a nice camping adventure. If I'd been a little older, camping in an orchard might have seemed unusual, but it was just an adventure at the time. Fast forward to last June and I'm at a Dr. Donna Beegle workshop and she talked about how only middle-class people could invent camping. She said her family often "camped" which was just a euphemism for a period of homelessness. And the light bulb went on for me... So, on a recent trip to visit family I asked my dad about that visit and sure enough, Dad was homeless that summer. In fact, he confessed to me 40 years later that he had actually stolen the tent and I'm assuming the stove too. I could add this story to my collection of stories from the first 10 years of my life that demonstrated how situational ethics are and how easy it is to do the "right" thing when times are good. Dad "stole" a tree once to make sure we had wood to heat the house we were in and I have some vague recollection of him shooting a partridge once out of season, so we could eat. Maybe he remembers it differently.

Those times were objectively hard I suppose, but I didn't really know that until I was older. Dad was fun and our collection of Volkswagen vans that seemed to not have heaters or occasionally catch fire didn't seem to faze him. He must have been stressed out beyond comprehension, but I don't remember seeing it. In hindsight I can see the insidious hand of poverty pushing him away from dreams and into choices that made less sense all the time. This came to a head when I was about 7 or 8 (maybe 9 I'm not sure I recall). Poverty causes desperation and as my Dad's family grew, so did his desperation. My weekend visits to his small home in the middle of nowhere now involved sleeping in the living room because upstairs, the solution to our problems was drying and getting ready for sale. It was the 70's so marijuana wasn't an unusual thing in either of my homes, but Dad figured out he knew how to grow it, and someone convinced him he could sell it for real money. I remember talk of $10,000 and a trip to Hawaii, but my memories of that time are spotty. I do remember clearly the day Dad and some friends were sitting at the table playing cards or something and suddenly there was an army of police in the front yard. I remember standing outside while they searched the house and I remember telling Dad that I thought they might have missed some and him telling me that would help pay for the attorney. They found everything. My most searing memory of that day is overhearing the police saying they couldn't reach my mom and maybe my brother and I would need to go to foster care until they could reach her. There were no cellphones in those days, but fortunately they were able to reach her, and we went home. Dad ended up being sentenced to 30 days in jail and I suppose his story should have ended there. But it didn't...

After his relatively brief time away (I shudder to think what the sentence would have been in this day and age), Dad decided that his real dream was to be a teacher and a coach. It didn't make any sense for a convicted felon, but he believed and belief matters. Dad returning to school became a family project, although I was only a part-time participant. My siblings who lived with him saw more, but I remember a change jar to save for tuition, I remember a Ford Pinto with over inflated tires to get better mileage (and occasionally too many people stuffed in it), and I remember a family on a mission. I also remember Dad bringing home Shakespeare books and being on fire as he got a chance to stretch the intellect we all knew he had. Dad is incredibly charismatic, and we were all on fire with him. Belief is contagious and people around Dad began to believe in him too. His adviser at college knew that the world needed Dad in the classroom and Dad has shared that every time money was running out, some would mysteriously show up. He realized later that his professor took care of parts of that because of his belief in my dad. That professor changed my life without ever meeting me and it has inspired me to pay it forward including the development of an emergency fund at my college that honors the practice of faculty helping students directly. Here's video of me telling the story to develop our fund with our College Foundation: College Day Speech.

All of that belief led to my dad teaching 9th graders for 30 years. He has a gift for being genuinely interested in them and their lives. His doorway was always full of students from the moment he arrived, often with the most vulnerable kids in the building. He won national recognition for organizing a Renaissance Faire run completely by students. I remember it being written up in USA
Today. He is also a basketball coach with nearly 400 wins. This is picture after win 300, surrounded by family. As I said at the beginning of this article, he's a genuine local legend.

So, what does this teach us about Poverty Informed practice? Everything... We must approach students not to give them just a second chance, but another chance. My dad could have been written off at many points, but those additional chances led to so much payback for the world. This story teaches the power of belief. Not only do our students need us to believe in them, we need to help them create a sense of belief and self-efficacy that will protect them from the inevitable ups and downs. College professors believed in my dad just because they could see his gifts and that changed the whole course of my family. And this story teaches us to never underestimate potential. If we don't believe in students, sometimes before they believe in themselves, the world might miss out on the gifts of the great hiker pictured here

Dad in his beloved mountains
 

Poverty Informed practice does not throw people away, we need everyone.