Sunday, December 4, 2016
What We Don't Hear About
My last day with the kiddos was not like anything I've ever expected. I thought that it would definitely be hard to say goodbye, but I never thought of a scenario like what happened. One of my students shut down on Friday. After we, my cooperate partner and I, gave the class a thank you card for this opportunity to learn, one of my students shut down and went into the fetal position. This student does not usually carry behavioral problems nor does he do poorly for staying on task. The student, I noticed from the beginning of the experience has a difficult time keeping his hands to himself. What I wasn't told, was that this student spent most of his life living with his mom, was sent to a refugee camp, then flown to North Dakota to live with his dad. His dad then moved them to St. Cloud. My student was in the fetal position for 30 minutes. Five different adults had attempted to get him up and active, but each failed. It wasn't until we notified the vice principal that we, teachers, were informed of the student's living situation and that the chances of me and my cooperate partner may have triggered something. What we don't hear about is the trauma some kids experience and how to bring them back to an active participant in class.
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Throughout our careers, we will learn about situations in children’s lives we will not foresee or fathom possible. By becoming a teacher, we willingly put ourselves in these circumstances and become a part of the healing process for students, even if we don’t realize it at the time. We can only control what is in our control. We may not have a magic book of answers to their problems, but they need to know we care. We may not know who needs a helping hand. This is why we must go to our classrooms everyday with optimism on our minds and love in our hearts.
ReplyDeleteThis is absolutely heartbreaking! Being future educators you never know that your students home life will be. Not unless they tell you, of course. That's when we, as teachers, have to be there for them. We could possibly be that students foundation and safe place. When we leave or they move on, those students lose that foundation and safe place. Some students only know loss, chaos, and no routine. What we can do and create a safe place for the time being and slowly transition them as needed to cause less stress, but still have a safe place and foundation that they can fall back on if needed. These kids are the future, we need to treat them as so.
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