Wouldn't it Be Nice...

if we were all from good, wholesome homes? With parents that cared and loved us and wanted what was best for us? Wouldn't it be nice if this world wasn't so rotton and some kids got a break? I have just been feeling so overwhelmed with my job. Don't get me wrong overwhelmed in a good sense I guess you could say. I have the greatest job anyone could want, I teach, but I teach resource which is a whole different world than the general population. I get very very close to my students, I look up to them actually in so many ways. This year has been very challanging in the fact that my kids and they do every year come from very hard home environments. They don't go home to fresh cookies pulled out of the oven made by a loving mom who gets the opportunity to stay home. No not my kids. They don't have parents willing to help them on their homework like me and you had. Let me give you a sneak peak at what my students reality is. I speak for the majority of my students this is not to say everyone of my students have this life. Most of my kids are abused in all different aspects, mostly sexual. My kids come home to mom's boyfriends who are usually drunk and beat them, my kids go to bed hungrey, my kids live in poverty, my kids have given up hope, my kids think they are failures and there is no reason to try, my kids don't see the importance of knowing what a noun and verb are when they are just trying to figure out if they will get dinner that night, or if a beating is waiting for them when they get home, my kids don't know how to deal with the crapy life they were given nor how to love or feel loved so most of them turn to drugs, acholol, abusing others, and dropping out. My kids are broken, their damaged, their drug babies who didn't even get a fair chance at life. My kids have seen more horrible things than I ever want to experience, my kids are very unique and rare if they have a mom and a dad, my kids have watched their parents die from lung cancer due to smoking, being shot and so many others. My kids are bounced from one home to another, living in foster care not knowing where their next stop will be. I kids come with a past, with baggage and when I get to them when they are 10th graders they are usually pretty broken with no life left and no fight to give.
I was driving to school today to met with a parent who's kid who was having some problems at school and this song came on by Carrie Underwood.

Little boy, 6 years old
A little too used to bein' alone
Another new mom and dad,another school
Another house that'll never be home
When people ask him how he likes this place
He looks up and says with a smile upon his face

"This is my temporary home
It's not where I belong
Windows and rooms that I'm passin' through
This is just a stop, on the way to where I'm going
I'm not afraid because I know this is my
Temporary Home."

Young mom on her own
She needs a little help got nowhere to go
She's lookin' for a job, lookin' for a way out
Because a half-way house will never be a home
At night she whispers to her baby girl
Someday we'll find a place here in this world

"This is our temporary home
It's not where we belong
Windows and rooms that we're passin' through
This is just a stop, on the way to where we're going
I'm not afraid because I know this is our
Temporary Home.

Old man, hospital bed
The room is filled with people he loves
And he whispers don't cry for me
I'll see you all someday
He looks up and says "I can see God's face"

"This is my temporary Home
It's not where I belong
Windows and rooms that I'm passin' through
This was just a stop,on the way To where I'm going
I'm not afraid because I know this was
My temporary home."

This is our temporary home

I couldn't help but just cry the whole way to school. Those were not just words in a song, those were the kids I see and interact with everyday. Those are the kids I have seen ruined and have taught me lessons I will never forget. People will say oh you must work in a bad kid school type ordeal. No I teach at very normal, functioning public schools. You would never know the crap that even yes the school down the street from you deal with. All schools have these kids, even the rich schools. You just don't know it if you weren't them.

I get so close to my kids, think I am making progess I look forward to seeing them and I am very involved in their lives and what they are doing. Than one day they don't come, than the next day, than a week goes by and you really start to worry. You hear than that this kid you had grown to love with all of his flaws raped someone, or got caught with drugs, or got a new foster mom, or was arrested for several reasons. Those are the days I just sit at my desk and cry for them. You hope every year as you look at all your kids in the begining of the school year that they will all finish the year with you, that you can save them from the choices they will face. But I can't, and every year I lose students, more than I ever want to. I don't blame the kids, I don't, some are not given a chance from the day they are brought to the earth. Makes me think, that must be so hard on Heavenly Father to send these precious babies down to these families that are broken and messed up.
So next time you think life is a little rough, which I know we all have our rough times, if you were lucky like me and had great parents, who loved you, and helped you through this life, be thankful. I am reminded daily of just how good my life is when I look into the faces of my amazing students who fight life and death battles everyday!