Being a teacher at PWBHS is hard work if you set out to treat it as a mission to love the kids with God's love. It is heartbreaking. I have kids come to me and ask, "Should I break up with my boyfriend if he got another girl pregnant while we were dating?I think I should stay with him because boys will be boys and I know he loves me." I overhear conversations about kids who don't know where their mother is, haven't seen her in a couple of days. I hear conversations about kids who have never met their father. I hear more cuss words and degrading comments about girls bodies and sex than I ever thought I would. I've seen photos of the kids guns. I've had conversations in class with kids trying to argue the point for killing a schoolmate if they make fun of them. I want to stand in the middle of my room and scream,
"No! This is not love. If he loved you he would have eyes and thoughts of only you. Hold out for it. It is worth it. No! Waving a gun around is not courage, it is fear. Being brave is backing down from a fight that isn't worth dying for. You don't have to wear that, drink that, smoke that, say that, sleep with that to make someone love you. Open your eyes! Look at what God has done for you. He loves you. Stop turning your back on him! Let him love you and show you what real love is. Don't waste this oppurtunity to learn and leave all this behind you."
Instead I say, " Okay class! Marie Antoinette married Louis XVI in 1770." I say it with a smile. I hope the smile communicates God's love. That maybe it speaks to them and they don't even know it. But sometimes it gets hard to smile, it gets hard to try to love them unconditionally. But then I remind myself of all the times God has stood in the middle of my life and screamed, "Carrie I love you!" and I didn't hear or choose not to listen. So I pray instead of giving up because in college when I decided not to teach Kindergarten and do high school instead it was because I thought I heard God say this would be my mission field. I just didn't realize it would be a battlefield too. What makes it so hard is that sometimes I don't get to know if I one the battle or not and I know that I alone will never win the war. But I will fight for God because He asks me to. I will walk into this school everyday I am able and try to love on these kids. But I will also count down to summer's refreshing and renewal. Nine weeks to go!
3 comments:
Amen amen amen. Carrie I teach (special ed) elementary in a low income Title 1 school where most days the kids don't have proper clothes or school supplies. But that is fixable... what is so hard to cope with is the untreated cuts, bruises, ringworm, bronchitis, hunger, and abuse that I get told about and see EVERY day. I have literally cut a bloody sock off of a first grader's foot because she had stepped on glass months earlier and gotten a staff infection that ran all the way up her leg but wouldn't ask her mama for help because her mama's boyfriend tried to put a needle in the middle of the cut to "get the puss out." I also hear stories everyday of K and 1st graders telling me that their mama got thrown down the stairs last night or brother got shot and we expect these kids to function at school much less contribute to society!?!? It is awful. It is a battlefield and to be honest sometimes I do look up and say God where are you in this baby's life? But I know He is :*(
i hear you, car. and i know first hand what a tough school that is. i love you and am praying for you. and i know for a fact that you are making a Godly impression on those kids. they love you and respect you so much! i admire you for sticking it out and even being able to pull back enough to look for what God's doing there and how He can use you!!!
quit teaching and just become a writer...you still have your gift with words!
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