I Do Not Know What to do About This
By Nate Reaven
I do not know what to do about this.
This past weekend one of my students was shot through the chest. Apparently, a family friend turned enemy entered into my student’s house at 2:00 am, killed the father, and shot my student, who is currently in the hospital but should be physically okay within a couple of weeks.
What do I say? How do I react?
How do I change? What do I change? Do I change?
We passed out notes to our class and had them write a get-better soon note to the student. His friends and favorite teachers went to visit him at the hospital and saw that he was in high spirits. What do I say? Sorry? Is that enough to make it better? Is that ever enough?
How do I act? Like nothing happened? “Move along class, there is nothing to see here. Please turn to page 218 in your books.”
Is this just something that happens? Should I have expected something different?
How do I change? Do I teach differently now? Do I let up, let them slide a little bit more, let them get away with talking out of turn? Or, should my class become stricter, teach them discipline instead of grammar, life skills in place of quality of living?
What do I change? Do I change the way I teach? Change the way I interact with my students? My mother said something interesting to me. She said the teachers that make it into the movies are not the ones teaching grammar every morning. They are the teachers who make the classroom a place of social well-being, a place of comfort –first. The teachers that focus on creating self-confidence as the learning target. The movie teachers are those teachers that consider the the academic goals, not secondary, but certainly second priority. How much do those movie-teachers actually teach? Do their students walk away from their classrooms more intelligent, more confident or both? Do those students get shot at 2:00 am in the morning?
Do I change? I had nothing to do with what happened, and there is nothing I could have done to prevent what happened. Maybe I should not feel any sense of obligation at all. On the other hand, the reason I got into teaching was to make a difference. What kind of difference?
I do not know what to do about this.
Nate you don’t ignore it, but you can’t dwell on it. I remind my students that there may not be a sense of control in their home lives, but this is our community in this classroom. This is a place we can create a safe haven of love and community. The reality is this student will probably come back and need a lot of time. Give the love and support needed with your expectations. There’s a balance teachers struggle with consonantly. Goood luck with this and keep your support system near.