When Ms. T becomes Mother T(heresa)....

In my handful of years teaching my particular population of students, I've come to find they generally fall into one of three categories.

The first--and most rare--is the category of students with issues in isolation from the rest of their family. In other words, their parents are normal. Perhaps their child's perplexing behaviors have driven them a bit batty over the years, but who could blame them? They are totally cognizant of the problem and they do their best to care for him/her while handing the reigns trustfully over to the teacher during school hours. Again, this scenario comes along about once every 10 kids.

The second category of students--the most common--are those with emotional issues congruous with the rest of the family. They're the "apple doesn't fall far from the tree" kids, or better yet, the "apple is just a smaller version of the tree". These are the families, Annie and I joke, could all benefit from being placed in our ED program.

These first two categories of students I believe I was born to teach. Somehow, despite even the most ludicrous of situations, I'm generally able to approach teaching and managing these students with a great deal of objectivity and emotional detachment.




Now, I'm not saying there aren't some days when I think my head is going to burst into flames. I'm also not saying that ice water runs through my veins and I don't feel any sort of emotional connection to my students. I just believe that, in general, I've mastered the proper degrees of investment and detachment to ensure some longevity in my career.

But then comes the third category of students--the deal breaker. These are the students who lost the lottery. If born into any other family where they were loved and encouraged and provided for, they would be, for all intents and purposes, normal. But they haven't been so lucky. They've been broken. They're bright and seemingly so full of potential; you see glimpses of love and that child's innate desire to please, but it's clear that much of that was sucked out of them long ago, and by no fault of their own. It was this situation on a very large scale that drove me from my first job--a urban, impoverished community where ignorance and depravity beget more and more of the same in a never-ending cycle. It infuriated me and I knew I was not doing myself or the students there any favors.

Teaching in the context of a much healthier community, now, it's a less common scenario. But, it is still one that gets my goat every time. When tales of abuse and neglect emerge from a child's background, it's all I have not to take them home with me that very day and start showering them with the protection, love, and affection they so dearly need. I'm sure I wouldn't fix the kid overnight, and I'm no miracle worker; but I'd like to think some proper nurturing is all it would take to nurse these poor kids back to some semblance of normalcy.

Talk about your emotional investment. When I'm ready to bring home troubled 12-year-olds and become their surrogate mothers, I know I've gone off the deep end.