She wandered quietly into my room, so quietly that I didn’t look up from my work until she was almost standing beside my desk.  I looked into a little face with tears dripping off her nose and chin and it took a minute to realize who she was.  I could tell immediately that something was very wrong, as she hiccuped through words I couldn’t understand.

This is a child who usually comes bounding into my room right after she gets off the bus on her way to her homeroom.  She tells me something exciting , gives me a hug, tells me to have a good day.  She can be a bit of a drama queen and does demand a bit of attention, but she has a good heart and is usually a pretty positive kid.  But not this morning.  When I finally got her calm enough to talk to me, she said, “my mother said she doesn’t love me anymore”.  My heart sank.  We continued the conversation where she filled me in on a few more details, but she finished again with “and my mother said she doesn’t love me” and tears began to roll down her face again.  I gave her a big hug, told her I loved her and that I would walk her to class.  I talked briefly to her teacher and walked back to my room where I sat heavily in my chair and tried hard not to cry.  My heart just hurt for this beautiful child who just wants attention from an adult.

It is not my intent to portray so many of my interactions with students as negative although lately it feels that way.  The more I teach, the more I see and experience in terms of what children are dealing with and being exposed to and it just weighs heavily on my heart.  Something as simple as a conversation I had later this morning with a 7 year old who asked if I had seen the movie “IT” yet.  I said I hadn’t and he proceeded to describe the opening scene in graphic detail, down to Georgy getting his leg chopped off and being pulled into the sewer by the clown.  Seriously, is this something for a young child to watch?  And he talked about it as though it was no big deal. What happened to protecting kids from violence?

When I check out the headlines anymore, the ones that jump out at me are the ones where parents do horrible things to their children.

“Mom and dad charged in death of 4 month infant found rotting in swing”

“Father leaves his five year old stranded in the woods”

And these were just today.  Tomorrow there will be new headlines.  Is the news promoting these kinds of headlines because they sell or does this kind of thing really happen all the time?  And has it been happening all along and we just weren’t paying attention?

And the unkindness continues.  Today in one of my classes, I overheard one little boy call another “the class idiot”.  The child just sat there; he didn’t stand up for himself, didn’t tell him to stop.  Just sat there.  Is he used to being talked to that way?  Does he believe he is the class idiot?  We had a little talk as a class to state that nobody in any of my classes is an idiot and to say so was very unkind.  The usual sensitive kids nodded their heads and looked sorry, but the usual suspects looked at me with that “yeah, whatever look”.  I see more and more of that.

I feel this great urge or need to do something about this trend that I’m seeing more and more of, this total lack of caring for another human being.  On days like today where it felt like I was dealing with disrespect and unkindness like playing whack-a-mole, I leave the building feeling overwhelmed.  I makes it hard to stay motivated to continue teaching.

But then I think of this little girl this morning.  Would she have had another adult she trusted enough to share her experience with if I hadn’t been there?  Would she have sucked it up like so many kids do and just acted out later?  Maybe I’m there for kids like her because I understand kids like her.  And somebody needs to be there for kids like her.  And so I go in each morning, dealing with the ever changing face of elementary school hoping that the little bit I do can help improve a life.  I have to admit that it feels more and more like a losing battle, but I’m surrounded by other educators who have the same heart for kids.  Maybe together, we can make a change and lighten each others’ hearts.