It’s a new school year, and I would like to make a request of teachers. I know you have a lot on your plate, and please know I respect that. I do not intend this to be negative in any way. Teachers are the backbone of society in so many ways, and I wish more people realized that.
What I would like to share with you is my experience throughout high school. I’m seventy-seven – and even though that was a long time ago, I still think of how it impacted my life.
To begin with, I think it’s important to share that I went to public school. Back then, teachers were allowed to punish students physically. I was whacked with a ruler, spanked, and put under the desk of my third-grade teacher when I “misbehaved”, which was often. I was always in trouble and struggled through every grade. I hated school!
At that time, you could graduate with a certificate. Students who failed to pass the basic math and reading tests could receive a certificate instead of a diploma and were sent on their way.
I was fine with that since I got married in the middle of my Junior year and thought I was far more mature than anyone else in my class. Good riddance! Never mind that I was divorced three years later. But that’s a story for another time.
I don’t believe kids are inherently bad, but that they sometimes do bad things. There’s a huge difference! Dr. Bruce Perry, MD, PhD, a psychiatrist and the senior fellow of the Child Trauma Academy, wrote an amazing book, “What Happened to You?” He explains the difference between asking “What’s wrong with you?” and “What happened to you?”
Let me tell you what happened to me:
I was physically abused by my mother and sexually abused when I was eight by my brother-in-law, who was seventeen years older than me. I had no place to turn for help.
In school, I only had a couple of friends, and the boys continually made fun of me. I know that my acting out was an effort to gain attention because I felt invisible. I wish I would have had just one teacher who questioned why I acted that way. One teacher who wondered if something deeper was going on in my life.
Please know that I don’t expect you to take on more responsibility than you already have. I’m not suggesting you add “therapist” to your long list of responsibilities. All I’m asking is that you notice and maybe bring it to the attention of someone who can help that obnoxious kid (that was me!).
Let me end this rant on a positive note. In 2006, my Pastor, who believed in me for some strange reason, encouraged me to enroll in a Master’s Program at Aquinas Institute of Theology. The tuition was fully funded. I thought he was insane.
To appease him, I completed the application, certain they would not accept me, but they did. So, I went there with that High School certificate and nine credit hours short of an Associate’s Degree! For most of those three years, I was certain someone would realize I didn’t belong there and show me the door. But that’s not what happened. I graduated with a 3.7 GPA.
I’m not telling you that to brag, but to say that I spent fifty-eight years of my life believing I was a broken mess that no one cared about. I was wrong. God cared, but I never knew that. He has a plan and purpose for all of us from the start and gives us everything we need to fulfill that purpose.
I can’t go back and redo those lost years. But over the past ten years, I have been blessed to work with kids in crisis through various agencies, and I know my own experience has been instrumental in my ability and passion to do that.
And again, please know I commend you for all you do. God bless you!
PASSION, PURPOSE & POOPYHEADS 