The will to see it through
33
“Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
While Harrison was questioning whether college was right for him, I was having my own internal dialogue. For example, how did I find myself living part-time in a dormitory at an age most people are weighing the relative merits of early Social Security? How could I motivate Harrison to develop an interest in increasingly complex courses? Would he ever be able to control his reactions when facing challenges?
To borrow from one of my favorite quotes in literature, I knew the cards were stacked from the get-go, but seeing this through to some acceptable outcome was shaping up to be even more daunting than I’d imagined.
Harrison’s spring semester classes were heavier on the academic side. He had just one welding class — Welding Layout and Fabrication. This course would put skills he learned the previous semester to use actually building things.
In addition he would be taking courses to fulfill requirements toward an associate degree. These included Psychology, Multicultural Education, Backcountry Navigation, and Yoga. The five classes totaled 12 credit hours.
The Psychology class had been recommended as not terribly difficult. However, when I saw the syllabus I became concerned. In additional to weekly reading, the final grade would be based on a presentation and paper, and an exam, all at the end of the semester. My concern was no ongoing assessment. I spoke to Professor Dave Huston over the phone and he urged me to keep Harrison in the class, making the point that there would be practice quizzes, and the final exam would be based on questions from these. Dave was confident Harrison could easily put together a presentation and paper, as many of the points were based in self-reflection. I felt better but still uneasy.
Multicultural Education would prove to be the most intense class of Harrison’s entire CMC experience. I spoke with Professor Brooke Carson prior to Harrison showing up for class. She assured me she was totally supportive of having a student like Harrison in the course, and was positive about his being able to handle the assignments.
Yoga was an online evening class and based on participation. Backcountry Navigation involved hands-on learning of mapping skills.
As the new semester began Harrison seemed excited and happy to be back at CMC and among his teammates. However, I was called in to meet with Evan. In one meeting he brought up the extreme number of Care Reports for Harrison going back to when he first arrived in the fall semester.
Evan suggested Harrison was overwhelming the college’s support system, from faculty and staff to fellow students and teammates. I was encouraged to seek out additional help with tutoring — at my own expense — and also to find Harrison a part-time job in town. Involving him in the Leadville community would take some pressure off the college.
I was aware of many of the Care Report incidents, but asked if I could be provided copies so that I could better understand these situations. Evan said he could not give me the actual reports but could provide a summary. A few weeks later I received an email with a summary of various incidents in the residence hall, classrooms, the cafeteria and with the running team going back to Harrison’s arrival at CMC. It was mostly a recap of events I already knew about.
In the first weeks of the new semester Harrison had a panic attack thinking that someone had called the police because he had been loud in his room. He paced around the residence hall for about two hours worried the police were coming to arrest him as residence advisors did their best to calm him down.
Out of the blue another evening he began stomping and screaming after realizing his plans for a choir club had failed to gain traction. In another incident he freaked out in the residence hall over a missed class assignment, raising his voice and yelling, “I am going to flunk out,” “I shouldn’t be here,” and “I am a terrible student.”
Academically, faculty reported that Harrison could grasp the material, but it took considerable one-on-one time and effort from professors. If Harrison wasn’t assisted immediately, he would sometimes panic or have an outburst about failing the class.
It was clear to me that his vicious cycle of anxiety over continually being written up was fueling the growing number and intensity of infractions. I became increasingly frustrated, caught between Harrison’s inability to control his impulses and defending him from a system expecting him to conform. I also was concerned about the strain his presence was placing on the college faculty and other students.
The road ahead seemed an impossible quixotic journey. Giving up seemed even worse.
Also in the back of my mind, as nightmarish as some of these incidents seemed to me as a parent, I wondered if they were really all that bad in context of other students’ misbehaviors that apparently went unreported? I knew from staying nights in the dorm that students were being loud at all hours, using marijuana, alcohol and other drugs against college rules, fighting, and clearly participating in other shenanigans. These “normal” college-kid behaviors did not seem to attract the same attention as Harrison’s antics.
At some point I began to view the situation as a matter of social justice. Only this wasn’t about race, color, religion, national origin or gender. People with intellectual disabilities deserve a level playing field too. I wanted to work in cooperation with the college, but at the same time I’d begun to research disability rights in post secondary education.
I was determined to see this through.
Still, I was constantly on-edge. Any noise or slip-up by Harrison sent me into fight or flight response. An email or text from Evan caused an immediate pit in my stomach. I began to feel withdrawn — and quite paranoid — during a long, cold Leadville winter.
This feeling was stifling, and in the midst of all this, and partly to escape it, I decided to seek solace in Nordic skiing.
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