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Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/197412
Te moment O'Bannon-Morton enters the tannish, bulky school on South Jackson Street you can't miss her. She generally speaks in three volumes: loud, louder and mad. So you hear her before you see her. One morning, running late again (yes, she's frequently late, but getting herself, her precocious 11-year-old daughter and sleepy six-year-old son ready in the morning is a triathlon), she enters the building frazzled, chomping on honey-mustard pretzels. Her husband had left the minivan out of gas, adding an extra hurdle to the routine. And yet, even slightly soured, in the seven minutes before class began she delivered six hugs, sung out the name of a student at the top of her lungs, "MICHAEL!!!," directed a loiterer to his locker, air-kissed a colleague (she does this a lot), checked on a kid who wasn't feeling well yesterday ("Did you get that sinus medication?"), and reminded herself out loud not to forget that a kid wants to try out for the basketball team but can't aford a physical. She needed to help him. Tis isn't a show. She's consistent. Never once in six days of observation did I see her sit down between classes. She's always out in the hallway, scanning faces for tired eyes or pouts, anything that might alert her that a child's of. Sometimes as she's instructing a class, she'll pop out mid-equation, toss a quick compliment or tease to a student, only to slide back in before the numbers foating in brains have settled on the right side of the equals sign. One morning she spent her free time talking with a persistently tardy boy. She found out he was often in the bathroom cleaning up dirty, worn shoes. "You need to let me know," O'Bannon-Morton said before ofering new shoes and a fnal thought that she repeats to all her students: "You will not come to school feeling like you're not worth anything. You got to come to school and get your education so you can have your own money. So you don't have to depend on anyone." Melody Raymond, a former Meyzeek assistant principal, says most teachers want to make an impact on children's lives. For many that impact ends with academics. Let me teach this child to read. Let me teach this child math. O'Bannon-Morton goes further. Rather than assume a kid's lazy or wayward, she digs deeper. "When you go past the realm of academics — the social, the emotional piece.… Tat takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of energy. And sometimes a lot of teachers can get to a certain point but then they get tired," says Raymond. "But Sharonda? I've never seen her let anyone go." 60 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 11.13 O 'Bannon-Morton says it usually takes her until Christmas to really get to know a child, as well as fgure out what they respond to. Sarcasm? Humor? Whispered conversations at the end of class? On the frst day of school, she begins her detective work, seeking out ways to relate. It can appear playful. During roll call she spots a tall, athletic looking girl in a Meyzeek sweatshirt: "You hoop? You play ball?" "My dad wants me to. He used to coach." "What happened (stated in high-pitched exasperation)?" Because she is so good with kids, O'Bannon-Morton's often assigned challenging students, the ones who've been kicked out of elementary schools for fghting teachers. "Te frst thing I have to do with them is intimidate and then build a relationship," she says. "Make (them) realize they can't bully me. . . . No one runs this classroom but me." Take, for instance, a girl with explosive anger and a difcult home life who attended Meyzeek more than a decade ago — Cheryl. "She made me want to quit teaching!" O'Bannon-Morton jokes. "She was mad at the world." But the two bonded quickly. Cheryl liked sports. She was tough, playing nose tackle on a youth football team. One day, Cheryl took of running from a security guard who was to take her to an inschool suspension room. She stopped at a window and threatened to jump out. O'Bannon-Morton was called. She could always handle Cheryl. "You gonna jump?" she remembers asking. "I'll push you out." O'Bannon-Morton opened the window like she was going to shove her. "No, Ms. O'Bannon!" Cheryl yelled. "No!" She then took the security guard's hand and walked down to the suspension room. O'Bannon-Morton remembers Cheryl telling her, "You crazier than me!" Rarely are the incidents as high-drama as the one with Cheryl. One morning during class, a slight boy with brown eyes as round as plums teased a girl for her "big belly." O'Bannon-Morton froze. Her voice elevated to mad, Bobby Knight mad, shiver-up-the-neck mad, scary mad. "You have something against nice-sized women?" "No." "You calling people big belly and stuf?"