Homeless Kids- Part II
I have written several tributes to my former teachers during the course of the past year. I feel a special indebtedness to those who went the extra mile to enhance my educational experience. They did not just teach reading in the second grade or algebra in the 9th grade. They instilled confidence. They really cared about their students. I took a little bit of each of my favorite teachers to the classroom with me when I was teaching as an adjunct university instructor. Thankfully there is a new generation of outstanding educators stepping up to the plate. In response to my first blog about homeless kids, a wonderful teacher wrote:
Through the years, many of my students have come to school each morning not just without breakfast or clean clothes, but without a sense of identity, worth or belonging.
Of course she is correct. I used to refer to my students who fell in that general category as my “lost puppies.” There were generally several each semester. As I have reflected on her comment through the course of the day, it strikes me that there are a lot of kids out there who have homeless hearts.
The girls allegedly prostituting themselves whom I encountered recently while I was with a police officer have homeless hearts. In their estimation, no one cares where they are or what they are doing. There are a lot of kids out there who have a roof over their heads at night, but their hearts remain homeless. In fact, some of them even come from very affluent homes.
I am grateful for teachers who show up at school every morning with two lesson plans. Their administrators require them to have a pretty structured curriculum actually mapped out on paper in their respective disciplines. That is a good thing.
Today, however, I am grateful for the lesson plans that are impressed on their hearts. They are ready when those kids show up without a sense of identity, worth, or belonging. Those lesson plans include kind words and expressions of reassurance. I imagine the lesson plans of the heart include a strategy for critical listening.
Caring teachers build a temporary shelter over the homeless hearts of their students. The kids they are serving are given enough strength to find a sense of identity and worth while their hearts are given a home by adults who care. It could just be that those kids ultimately find a home for their hearts. The temporary shelter allows them a safe place to grow up and learn how about real life in a secure place.
I am almost inclined to think that the kids who are in the worst trouble somehow missed the teachers who had lesson plans impressed on their hearts. Teachers can’t solve all the heart homelessness that exists among kids, but I am grateful for the difference they are making. I pray that their spring break this week is especially restful. It will be time to use both varieties of lesson plans next Monday.
4 thoughts on “Homeless Kids- Part II”
Wow! I like and will repeat the term "homeless hearts", as I believe that this is an accurate and tidy description of the emotionally vagrant students we encounter from time to time. I too am grateful for good teachers! I am the person I have become because of the great skill and scouting ability of a few good teachers. They saw something in me then that I had not the experience nor the opportunity to see in myself. They took a girl who grew up in a household where college was never part of the vocabulary and began to subtly embed into a me new horizons, that required unprecedented feats in my family. Teachers. Now, many years later as I prepare for my doctoral study I think of how very different my life might have been. My ideas and aspirations are boundless thanks to the educators in my life. I am afraid to imagine myself in an existence in which they had not entered my life. I look fervently to repay their great deeds by assisting in the "scouting" of the generation of young people that I now work with. I have long believed, and am testimony to the fact that education (public or private) is the largest ministry in the world. While it is true, teachers may not organize prayer in school…believe that they are exercising their moment of silence in prayer for their students; they are reaching out to those homeless hearts, just as Jesus would, and they are ultimately shaping the character (good or bad) of our youth. Mostly good, I would like to think 🙂
I sort of "stole" your quote without permission, but I knew you were on spring break!
These are excellent thoughts today.
I found my 2nd grade teacher that I had in 1969-1970 this year, after writing a blog about her. She got me so excited about "reading with expression." I also found my 9th grade algebra teacher, who was absolutely fantastic recently on facebook. I wrote a blog about her as well.
What a difference YOU are making!
That is neat! I can imagine how touched they must have been! I am honored that you agree with or find anything I have said worth repeating. The truth is I have read so much material lately, I am not sure how much intellectual property I can actually claim. I cannot seem to find where my thoughts end and where the great words of these philosophers begin.
LOL…Been there. That is a good sign. Not to worry.
I need to ask your permission to use some of this in another context.
Email me when you can, drjohnknox@yahoo.com