Even More School Stories

Every teacher has assignments based on circumstances. Doesn't matter what your job description says. If things happen on your watch, you have to deal with it. Recess duty is one of those responsibilities at the elementary level. I once had a student in fourth grade--cutest kid on the planet with the biggest brown eyes--who had lost his mother and a sister in a vehicle accident just a few months before. I was "just" his teacher. I trusted that his family was taking care of his physical and emotional needs. Silly me! The only family he had left was a brother and a stepfather, a grandmother (who soon died), and an aunt. He never knew what bus to take because he didn't know where "home" was, and the school quickly determined that absolutely no one had legal custody of him. He was what? Nine?? On the playground one day, he came to complain to me that he and another child had gotten into some mild altercation when the other kid said, "At least I have a mother!" Understandably, I came unglued, but I couldn't fix it. The words had already hit, and nothing I could do would ever change that. I gave that child all the support I could, including homebound instruction when he got in trouble with the law later, but it was never enough. I don't know where he is now. Wish I did.

 There was also a playground story that is a little less tense. When I was teaching 6th grade in that district, the other 6th grade teachers had declared that girls couldn't play with boys at recess. It was all about the fact that hormones were changing and that playground competition had the potential to turn into what my father always called "grab-fanny". In my class at the time were two very basketball-talented young ladies who had no other students to play with but the boys, yet they were forbidden, due to the above-stated rules. One of those gals was the current Superintendent's daughter. The other is now a friend on FB. I did what I could to try to influence the other 6th grade teachers to change the "rules", but they were not approving. I guess those young ladies survived, but I was irate!