I have, lately more than normal, been reflecting about the the burdens weighing on those around us. As a teacher, I see this in other teachers and teenagers, but it is applicable everywhere to everyone.
A few weeks ago, another teacher and I were discussing a promising young lady who seemed to be overextending in clubs and activities to the detriment of class work. We weren't annoyed or angry or even disappointed. The conversation was more about if we should intervene. On one hand, we felt we should but on another we felt that this uber busyness on the student's part was a coping mechanism to deal with some big big sorrows life has handed her.
Yesterday, I took Bell to a shoe store to replace yet again sneakers that she outgrew rather than wore out. A young man greeted me at the door with a friendly and cheerful hello and smile. He was a former student who in the past wouldn't have had a smile for me. When I first met this young man, his mother had died and he had been sent to live with a step mother while his dad was deployed. His mother had been terminally ill and had refused to extend her life, choosing to die sooner than later, and the boy felt she had abandoned him. Angry young man indeed. It was a long, trying year and I was glad yesterday to see a smile on his face. I am sure he still has problems, but it was a nice change.
I encounter another boy frequently at school who has lost a father who also has had a difficult time though he has a wonderful mom. Many of my students have parents who are deployed in the Middle East. Others are alone and on their own because they aren't wanted or have no families. And while I teach in a fairly new, nice modern building, I also have students who live in deplorable poverty - the kind where running hot water is not a given. The kind with a trailer house with holes in the floor. The kind where it turns out the house I thought was condemned and abandoned still has a family in it. The kind where the gross school lunch was maybe the highlight of the day.
To be sure, I also have a large number of affluent students who wear brands I only dream of. To be sure, some of them wear that sense of entitlement I find insufferable. There are also a lot of students who come from the same background I grew up in. Always just enough but never extra.
Some of these students who carry all these burdens excel in academics and some fail. I am not advocating a free pass to these students - at sometime in our lives, we must all choose what we want and who we will be, no matter our circumstances. I know that teachers tend to try very hard to work with students who face difficulties. We know that if we were facing poverty or loss, we wouldn't hold up well and these are just children, children in big bodies, but still children.
What worries me is that I can't possible know all that my children encounter. No where in my attendance program does it say "mother died last year" or "father has terminal illness" or "lives with abusive alcoholic parent." Sometimes, a parent lets us know or another teacher who is acquainted with a family will let us know when problems arise, but so often, students arrive in my room with baggage that is kept in the dark.
I am not sure what I want you to do with all this rambling except be kind. Extend that smile, that gentle gesture to everyone. We know we are to help the homeless. We are to take in the stray dog. We are to take a casserole when someone dies. But I want us to be cognizant that those around us, those seemingly ordinary people, may also be in need of our kindness for their burdens may be far greater than our own.
No comments:
Post a Comment