It’s fifth period on what appears to most as just another unremarkable day of the week, yet for the students in classroom A314, there’s a sort of jittery energy in the air. At once, every student begins to slide and shift the rickety desks into a rather uneven circle, as today is what some may consider the most nerve racking moment of being in English 2 honors— discussion day.
Backpacks rustle as a wave of beat up and crumpled copies of “The Catcher in the Rye” arise atop the desks, and everyone in the room knows that someone is going to have to start the discussion off, whether they want to or not. A wall of silence presents itself, as everybody awkwardly stares at the movie posters on the wall, the beige linoleum floor and out the window at the gray sky, only being infiltrated by a sarcastic voice that says, “Don’t all raise your hands at once everyone.”
That notable line comes from English teacher Mark Indreika, who has been teaching English at DGS since 1996, an alum graduating in 1984. Indreika has a physical condition called Arthrogryposis Multiplex Congenita (AMC), which is commonly characterized by contractures in the limbs. Each case is completely unique per diagnosis and can range in severity, but Indreika lives his life like everyone else does.
In Indreika’s case, he is affected in both his legs and arms, but primarily in his arms, as the required muscles never fully developed while he was in the womb. His elbows are fused in a bent position and his wrists are also fused to his arm, causing him to use his core for balance. Due to these contractures, he uses all kinds of adaptations in his daily life, like in his car, which has a steering wheel on the floor that he controls with his feet.
“I mean, my students help me do things sometimes, but I think the assumption is that able bodied people think that it should have some sort of impact. But if you’ve been born disabled and you don’t know anything else, then it’s kind of hard to say. I mean, I guess my disability shapes every aspect of my personality, I guess. I don’t really think about it,” Indreika said.
To some students, being in Indreika’s English class may seem challenging during those first few weeks, but it doesn’t take long for them to begin to be able to understand and connect. Indreika is able to achieve these connections with his students by doing one simple thing: being down to earth.
I try to be really personable and non threatening. I just think it’s really important to establish a personal relationship with kids, and I also use humor–you know–like a lunatic, which is just what I do because I have fun doing that. So I mean, I just try to be serious and yet not serious at the same time.”
— Indreika
Indreika is able to impact student’s lives in a positive way, as Long saw when she was a student at DGS.
“I was super shy, and so he made me feel smart and that he saw me, and he was the person that said, you’re going to be on newspaper next year, and you’re going to be an editor and that was like, not on my radar, and you just can’t say no to Mr. Indreika,” Long said.
Indreika sees just how much of an impact he has on people, even if he doesn’t realize it in the moment.
“I think the most significant moments probably are the ones you just don’t even know about. Kids will come back to you years after you’ve had them in class. You won’t even remember who they are, and they’ll say that I made a really big impact in their lives,” Indreika said.
As he grew up prior to the introduction of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the experience for most disabled school-age children at the time was insufficient for receiving adequate care. Even though the situation for Indreika was very limited, he refused to let that hold him back from reaching his potential.
“I’d also have to talk about my grandmother, grandma, because she’s the one who taught me how to read because when I was in school, as a kid, they stuck me in an elementary school classroom with just a bunch of disabled kids, one teacher three grade levels. I just assumed that I would do something, because my parents, my mom and dad and my grandmother, tutored me for two summers got me caught up. Otherwise I would have fallen behind and never got caught up,” Indreika said.
The lessons he learned from his family are still mirrored within his classes. Indreika is a big believer in the idea of never giving up on a student, no matter who they are, as he knows very well the importance of always supporting those who need it. He recalls a moment when he swooped in to help one of his students succeed who was struggling with an assignment.
“I suppose I could have just given her an F. But you know, she came in every day after school and worked on it for about, I don’t know, 2, 3, 4 weeks on it, and it ended up being a really good paper. And, you know, I mean, this is a kid that I could have just let go,” Indreika said.
Students of Indreika are immediately taught that they should never be afraid to ask for help, as he makes it clear that he is there to support their journey to success in life.
“Mr. Indreika taught me that you can always improve and make more revisions on essays. No matter how many drafts and revisions I made, he always showed me another way I could improve. He helped me to grow as a writer,” Ryan said.
