I know I'm supposed to be on break, but I wanted to come back for a bit to share a post I read on a fellow anonymous teacher blog today.
One of her students committed suicide. A smart, athletic, class leader, 13 year old boy committed suicide. I can even imagine how absolutely devastating that news must be to hear about any of your students. There are no comments to be left that will appropriately express your feelings about the amount of grief, sadness, and heartache that teacher must be feeling.
The next time you hear someone complain about how terrible education is, remind them that while dealing with test scores and mandatory state and national exams and 504s and IEPs and exploding class sizes and differentiated instruction and grading essays and prom dates and football games and vocab tests and general teenage drama and play practice and whatever else we deal with on a daily basis, there is also this: the human side of teaching. That sometimes you have to deal with the death of a 13 year old boy and also with teaching a day of classes when you are bereft and heartbroken.
I can't even imagine how hard it was for this teacher to write this post. My heart goes out to her and I hope that you would please take a moment and read this beautiful post and appreciate how deeply teachers feel for your children:
https://sowillthisbegraded.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/good-bye
One of my former students committed suicide last summer, the summer after I had him in class. Sometime during the year he'd written in sharpie at the top of his desk "You have the power to change the world." I've never erased it.
ReplyDeleteA student of mine, too, several years ago. It is awful.
ReplyDelete