It's 7:30am, I walk into my classroom with my two travel mugs of coffee--it was especially hard to wake up this morning. It's almost a half hour later than I usually get to work, and as always I become immediately flustered by all of the posters falling off the walls, the papers that are everywhere, and the desks that are arbitrarily strewn about the room. I wish, for the ten-thousandth time, that the teacher I share this tiny space with would help me keep our classroom clean. No matter how much time I spend organizing, it never lasts more than two days. I'm now remembering all those times I made a mess after my mom cleaned and she would say, "I can't wait until you have your own kids, then you will understand why this makes me so mad." In a funny way, these are my own kids. The only way I could love them more would be if I gave birth to them myself. Before I can even take my coat off I hear my phone ring: it's a text from Arnelle.
"I had a miscarriage, I lost the baby. I can't stop crying."
So, my girls are having babies, abortions, and now miscarriages. My boys are in gangs, watching their cousins get shot, spending their winter breaks "locked up," missing school for court dates. I try to remember my most traumatic high school moments. No matter what I come up with, it pales in comparison to what these kids are going through. I realize no matter how great of a relationship we have, I will never completely be able to understand where they are coming from. I've learned never to say, "I know how you feel," because really, how could I?
This was a wake up call for me. As frustrating as it is when my students have those days (or weeks, or months) where their grades and their education aren't priorities, I have to remember that it's not necessarily because they are lazy or they don't care. But every now and then they do need a gentle reminder that education might very well be their only chance to make safer, happier lives for themselves.
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