You Don’t Know Everything
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“You don’t know everything Ms. Johnson!”
“I know everything that goes on in my classroom!”
“Oh you do!?!?! You know all about your students?
Do you know what they deal with outside of these four walls? I don’t think so!”
Let’s take Isabella, do you know all about her?
Did you know she’s a single teenage mother?
Struggling to take care of her child, mother, and herself?
Working the 9-5 and I’m not talking about the daytime
Straight from school to the house
Cooking, cleaning, doing homework and trying to find a babysitter
Her shift starts in an hour so she makes the long walk to the bus stop that takes her across town
Come home and all she has is 3 hours to sleep before she heads right back to school
Just to start the routine over and over again
Oh but you knew that right?
What about Johnny over here?
Did you know at home he’s being abused?
Not just verbal abuse, but vicious, agonizing physical abuse
Constantly wearing long sleeves to hide all the pain
The bruises, the cigar burns, and lashes that cry out HELP ME!!
But where can he go? His mother left when she had the chance
He has no idea where she is and can’t find any family to run to?
He goes to the cops, his father goes to jail
Then he goes to Foster Care
But he doesn't’t want that for some reason
For some reason, he still sees the good inside his father
So he copes and survives
So you knew that too?
And Kurt…You see, he is an orphan
He was abandoned by his parents when he was little
You know those scenes in movies
Where the child is left on the doorstep?
You would think this happens only in movies
No see that is 100% real and true because that’s what happened to Kurt
Now he goes day by day trying to find someone to love him
The house mother is severely verbally abusive
“You’re nothing but a doorstep baby!
You will never mount to anything in life!
No one will ever come for you or love you!”
But he still believes that someone will come for him
But that constant question that runs like a midnight train through his mind is; When?
You see, this may be your classroom, but we are your students
Sometimes, there are thing you don’t know
Reasons that you possibly couldn't’t think would happened, but it does
And it’s about time that you knew even though we are not adults
We too have problems and responsibilities that are almost too great to handle.