How a ‘beautiful soul' helped save a troubled teen
September 30, 2010
Kristin Rushowy
EDUCATION REPORTER
In Sarah's words
Sarah Chaboyer began her journey at the Pine River Institute as a drug-addicted and troubled teen.
She emerged, just over a year later, a confident young woman who is now finishing her high school diploma with plans to go on to university.
There's one person she credits as “a friend, a mentor, a shoulder, a mother” who helped her through those difficult times: her gym teacher at Pine River.
Chaboyer wrote an emotional, moving nomination letter to the Star about Jackie Pye, saying: “It's incredibly hard to drown in self-pity and hate when beautiful souls like Jackie are constantly trying to save you.”
Pine River is among several Section 23 schools in Ontario, facilities that provide care to students who are in treatment, sick in hospital or in prison. Teachers, who are employed by the local school board, work with staff at the facilities to cover the kids' academic needs.
Chaboyer began her stay at Pine River in July 2009, which entails four weeks of outdoor survival in Algonquin Park before students move into a supportive facility for schooling and therapy. Eventually, students reintegrate into society, usually living with family members, but continue to be in contact with Pine River staff.
“I am going to university — there's no doubt in my mind,” says Chaboyer. “From being at Pine River, it's crazy, but I want to do the same thing, be a psychologist and be able to help girls like me. It was a huge influence on my career choice.
“When I was little, I had dreams and stuff, but as I started getting more into my drug life, I lost all ambition. It's like I didn't care about anything else, about what I was doing to myself.”
Chaboyer first met Pye at the residential treatment centre after her month in Algonquin, where she and a small group of teens lived under tarps, started their own fires from scratch and spent their days canoeing and portaging.
Pye was her gym teacher and Chaboyer says she judged her harshly at first.
“She came in all bubbly and I was in the worst mood ever, thinking, ‘What am I doing here?' She walks in all happy, wearing yoga pants and she looked like a hippie. But her happiness is so contagious that I just ended up loving her right away. She became my favourite teacher.”
Pye coaxed Chaboyer into trying sports such as cross-country skiing or soccer — activities she grew to love. “She would not allow me not to do anything,” Chaboyer, now 18, recalls. “I would do it for her, but tell her she'd experience the wrath of my terribleness at this game.
“She put me in net to begin with (in soccer), and I made a huge save but it happened to be with my face.” Pye's laughter, a big hug and congratulations made Chaboyer feel better.
“Even if I was having a shitty day, she'd look at me and I would feel that she knew what I was going through,” adds Chaboyer, who overcame her addiction to intravenous drugs, mostly cocaine, which she'd been using since age 14.
“She's a mom herself; naturally, with her mother's instinct, she just reached out to everybody. She was just a person I could hug.”
Although Chaboyer graduated from Pine River a month ago and is now attending a Toronto high school, working part-time and living with a family member, she's still in touch with Pye and others at the school. She credits the staff at Pine River with “saving my life.”
“It gets to the point where this person has invested so much in me and has so much faith in me, there's no way I could let her down,” she says. “Even the thought of her being disappointed in me would break my heart because she's so caring and gets absorbed in what she does.”
Pye, who has been teaching 14 years and is starting her second year at Pine River, says the biggest challenge is to motivate students to enjoy physical activity.
“They come with no self-esteem,” she says, and have no access to drugs and alcohol, “which was their self-esteem.”
But sports gives them control over their bodies and, as she did with Chaboyer, “I teach them that they can fall on their face and get back up.” She makes phys ed. fun, getting the teens to ski, snowshoe or hike within the 200-acre property.
Teachers are part of the team that helps the teens return to normal life and supports them once they leave. Pye and Chaboyer still keep in touch.
“She's a leader, someone everyone looks to,” says Pye, who teared up reading the nomination. “She's a charismatic young woman who as soon as she smiles, she has you.”
Excerpts from Sarah Chaboyer's nomination letter for Pine River Institute teacher Jackie Pye:
Normal has never been my forte; I'm not a normal girl under normal circumstances, and I am in no way nominating a normal teacher.
Before PRI, I was troubled, and what normal teen isn't?
Hating my mother and the entire world, I was bitter. I was convinced I was going to despise everyone I came into contact with.
It's incredibly hard to drown in self-pity and hate when beautiful souls like Jackie are constantly trying to save you.
. . . If you take all the rebellious, neurotic, emotional, s***-disturbing people and put them into one place, you would have PRI. Jackie somehow manages to love us unconditionally, and handle us with grace and empathy.
She understands that we're in a difficult situation, stuck between a rock and a hard place, without the comfort of home and family.
She is my family, this place is my family. She sees me kicking and screaming, hugs me when I'm crying, and she listens when all I do is vent and complain . . .
I literally thought I was good at nothing, and sucked at life. I always felt inadequate when it came to school and sports.
That feeling instantly disappeared when I was playing my first team sport in years, soccer. Jackie was on my team, and I was panicking in my position as goalie. I made a huge impressive save with my face.
I didn't even have time to react when I was surrounded by warm laughter and comforting arms. She was congratulating me on my embarrassing, wicked save. After that she could get me to play any sport . . . Through her I learned the confidence to let go and just have fun.
I love Jackie. Her influence helped me to become the person I always wanted to be; the person I am today. She is a friend, a mentor, a shoulder, a mother. She is a teacher, my teacher, and I am honoured to have known her.
I will always remember her.