Hello Beautiful People,
A note from our founder:
Today, I aged 10 years. Today, one of my favorite students was absent, and according to his girlfriend, he was coughing up blood and seeking medical attention.
If THAT wasn’t enough to give me another twenty grey hairs, she then handed me his essay for the common application.
So, I began to read…
…I tell you, it took all my willpower not to start crying in front of my kids.
All. My. Willpower.
My student, well, he’s such a great kid. And honestly, I know about his story. He’s told me about his story. I’ve told you all about his story. But, apparently that was just the tip of the iceberg. He went into so much more detail in this essay, and it just broke my heart.
His Dad, although he’s in jail, well, he misses him terribly. He talks of what his father was like before he was sent away for eight years, and it makes you want to reach out into the paper and just give my student a hug. Or have some choice words with the father. You pick.
Because the thing is, I still cannot wrap my head around what these parents did to this child.
I cannot understand how these parents put booze and heroin before their children. Children. They have three fantastic children who are all under the age of eighteen. And they’ve been dealing with the cesspool of dope and heroin and all the damage that it brings for years.
YEARS.
It hurts my heart that my student hates his mother. His pain, it’s still so raw, and I wonder if that will ever change. I wonder if he will ever heal. I hope. I pray. And I try to do my best to be an adult that he can look upto.
His mother quite literally has put the needle before her kids. His memories of his mother are of belts wrapped around her arm, needles on the floor, a dazed and glazed look that didn’t even register the children in front of her. Those are HIS words, not mine. She has made no attempts to get sober, as she has been kicked out of over fifteen rehabilitation facilities. I don’t blame him for hating her. But it still hurts my heart.
I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again, so forgive the broken record….
…I want to give them more.
Perhaps that’s why I teach theatre & Englsih. Perhaps that’s why I fought for my kids to have a theatre class. Because they need an outlet. Because they need a platform to express their voices, their hopes, their dreams, and their fears. They need a safe space to tell their story…they need a safe space to heal. And still, it doesn’t feel like enough….
I. Want. To. Give. Them. More.
There’s this sad misconception that just because you live in the United States means that your life is perfect. Or that you’re able to go to college. Or that you don’t have problems. I see the kids who fall through the cracks, and I see it firsthand. The poverty, the lack of education, the squalor that my students come from. My boy, he lived in a drug den, and in some ways, he still does. Strangers coming and going at all hours of the night, and it became his normal. It’s not normal. There is another misconception that one will only find struggle, poverty, and drug addictions in large cities.
I write to tell you that this is just a fallacy.
Poverty and illiteracy exists beyond the city limits. It bleeds right into your own backyards. It is ever-present in my classroom, and it is a constant fight to ensure that light triumphs through the suffocating darkness.
XO
Megan
Do YOU have a Teachsperience (teacher experience) story that you’d like to share? We want to hear about it! Email: info@thewriteteachers.com today. Like, right. Now.
Live, Love, Learn,
The Write Teacher(s)