Loving Them

A troublesome 5th grader was sent to our classroom this week. The teachers at this school are in the habit of sending students into other classrooms for time-out, and when we got S. on Thursday morning we were informed that she would be spending the entire day with our class.

I was less than excited about this addition, since just last week I had to break up a fight between S. and one of my students during recess, and I had also heard about how she was put in handcuffs by security the last time she got in a fight because she just wouldn't stop. But while I was having all of these thoughts my mentor teacher approached S. kindly and introduced herself. "How are you?" My mentor asked her. "Huh?" "How are you doing?" "Good." Some of the fire in her eyes went out and she went quietly to the table that my teacher pointed out for her.

The day progressed rather uneventfully with me teaching the class and S. sitting quietly at my mentor's desk. I couldn't tell what she was doing; I was just happy that she wasn't disrupting the other students. When we came back from lunch we got word that S. would be dismissed from school early and she packed up her things and left the room.

It wasn't until after the other students were dismissed that I walked over to my mentor's desk and my teacher showed me what S. had been working on. It was a piece of yellow cardstock drawn over with clouds and squiggles and "Happy Birthday Daddy!!!" written in large print. It was the other notes written off to the side, though, that really touched me. The first said "I will always miss u!" and I instantly wondered where her father was that she would always miss him. The second little note explained it for me: "Is this how it looks in heaven?"

It just never ceases to amaze me how much my feelings for these children have changed. When I first arrived I loved them naively. I thought they were all cute and sweet and wonderful, and it was a rude awakening when I realized that they are rarely all of the above. After that I endured them as my 9 am to 4 pm daily trial, and struggled and prayed to be able to love them. Gradually those prayers were answered and through a series of little experiences like this one with S., I can say now that I love them knowingly. I know that they can be crazy, wild, dramatic, and even violent. But I still love them. And I am learning that they are more wonderful than I gave them credit for, even in the beginning.