A mother and teacher's heavy heart
At the core of education is providing for our children, and at the core of every teacher worth his/her salt is caring for them. As I've tried to keep it together the past 30 hours, I have this subtle feeling of sickness, and I find myself wondering what I would do in a school setting with such terror, imagining how I would feel as a parent with such grief. Most of the children who died were the age of my daughter, and the adults who died were female educators.
I want to share my thoughts, but they are so worthless in light of my grief.
My main conclusion is one that sickens me -- we, you, our school system, our churches, synagogues, faith communities, circle of friends, our friends, our towns can not protect children from the evil of the world. Anna Cate is starting to ask if Santa is real and what the middle finger means. I can not shield her from the ways of the world. I have had students whose mothers abused substances while they were pregnant; I wish I could hand them the chance they deserve. I know from mere statistics that chances are that many of my students are hungry or molested.
We can not protect children from violence, from perverse intentions and from neglect. And my overwhelming sense is that schools are places where we see, feel and experience how the faults of society hurt the least of these. While I know school shootings are rare, this still represents for me the ways of the world that threaten our children.
“The child's naive dream of life is the only one worth having.”
― Marty Rubin
I want to share my thoughts, but they are so worthless in light of my grief.
My main conclusion is one that sickens me -- we, you, our school system, our churches, synagogues, faith communities, circle of friends, our friends, our towns can not protect children from the evil of the world. Anna Cate is starting to ask if Santa is real and what the middle finger means. I can not shield her from the ways of the world. I have had students whose mothers abused substances while they were pregnant; I wish I could hand them the chance they deserve. I know from mere statistics that chances are that many of my students are hungry or molested.
We can not protect children from violence, from perverse intentions and from neglect. And my overwhelming sense is that schools are places where we see, feel and experience how the faults of society hurt the least of these. While I know school shootings are rare, this still represents for me the ways of the world that threaten our children.
“The child's naive dream of life is the only one worth having.”
― Marty Rubin
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