Student B

Greetings,
This morning I get to share a little bit about another student of mine.
She is an Asian female in her junior year.
Quiet, intelligent, capable, but very disenfranchised from school.
She has been absent frequently.
And there is a vacant sadness in her countenance.


Yesterday, my student teacher was just teaching away, and I silently excused myself to head to faculty restroom for just a minute.  As I was walking back to class, Student B was leaving my classroom with a pink hall pass in her hand... and she was walking directly toward me.  


She stepped up to me, and looked me in the eye, then looked down at her own feet, and quietly said, "Mrs. Grace, can I talk with you today? There is nobody I can talk to. When can I talk to you?"


I immediately realized that this was going to be another GOD THING, where HE placed me in just the right position to help a kid...so I told her to go ahead to the restroom and that we would talk in hallway in front of my classroom when she got done.


She walked back 
I joined her in the hall.


She began her story with an apology.


She told me that she had been skipping classes because she had been staying at home when her parents went to work...and crying all day in her room. She told me that she was sorry for skipping school, but that she was so sad and that she didn't want to come to school and cry all day in front of everyone.


The Young Lady went on to tell me that her parents own a nail salon, and that everything in the family centers around that business.
She told me that her parents are never "there" for her.
She told me that all they care about is the business.
She told me that she has no relationship with them, because they never listen to her and they don't care about her.


And I realized that all she needed was somebody to listen. 
She craved someone to give her complete and undivided attention.


And don't we all.


She went on to tell me about how she runs with an older crowd of people who are beyond high school years.


She told me that the young man that she has dated for the last year and half just broke up with her.
She told me that he never listened to her either, but that at least he kept her from being lonely.


And that now he is gone.


She told me that the only other person in her life, who ever listened to her, was a young man who committed suicide 2 months ago...and that now she feels so alone now because she has lost her only true friend AND her boyfriend...and does not have parents to lean on.


And it hit me that all this baby girl needed was someone to hold her and sit with her and tell her that they love her and value her and appreciate her.


These are the things that parents are supposed to do.


But once more...yes for the zillionth time...it's a teacher in a hallway...putting stitches in some kids heart, hoping it will be enough to hold that fragile thing together long enough for it to heal.


AMERICA...WHERE ARE OUR PARENTS?????


We have sacrificed our precious babies on the "Alter of the Pursuit of Almighty Dollar Bill".


Our unwatched and under valued children shrivel and fall into the waiting arms of their still immature and generally unwise peer groups...and we wonder why we have teenaged drug addiction and teenaged pregnancy and gang troubles in our country.


I stood in that hallway for nearly an hour, listening to that young lady talk. 
I offered her my best advice.
And then I asked her if it would be OK if I prayed with her.


She hadn't cried through the whole conversation.
She had carefully kept her emotions just under the surface.
But when I put my hands on her shoulders and tipped my head towards her and asked God, to watch over her, and to listen to her, and to guide her, and heal her relationships with her family and help her to make wise choices...she lost it.


She hugged me and clung to my arms...and when I finally said "AMEN" at then end of the prayer, she was crying intensely. 

The emotional damn had burst.

I asked her if she was a young woman who prayed.


She told me that she was.


I told her she should pray more and talk more to God because HE always listens.


I asked her if a teacher had ever prayed with her before, and she said "No."


I told her to remember that I care and that God Cares about her.


I left her in the hallway with some tissues...she repaired the running eyeliner...and came back into class.


Classrooms in America are often like Hospital Emergency Rooms...and Teachers Triage Continually.


We help "heart" victims.


I thank God that ONCE AGAIN He positioned me to be in HIS service yesterday.


In HIM,
Grace