a friend of mine just sent me a piece she wrote about a visit from a former student. Now what you need to know is that Anne is a teacher, in inner city Philly. For those of you who don't know that means very low income kids who are disadvantaged in more ways than just things money can by. And the "money can by stuff" is often heartrending enough. Some of these kids have no bed to call their own, and call a two bricks and a board a "couch". They go to be hungry and know what real fear is...they see their family members in jail, in the psych ward, in rehab and dying from things they should not die from. THe hit the floor when a car backfires, because they think it sounds too close to gun shots, they attend the funerals of friends and relatives who fall in fights or in drive by shootings. And their lack of education is the price they pay for all this "knowledge" by the time these kids hit kindergarten many have Phd's fron the School of Hard Knocks.
And she teaches them ~ to read, to write, to cipher , to believe in their dreams and she teaches them that she can be trusted in a world that offers them too little to trust in. And some times they come back.
Latasha did today ~ and made a difference to someone who had helped her...paid it back ina very real sense. Latasha told Anne that she was graduating with honors and going to the U of Alabama to become an OB\GYN! A hero in the guise of a young woman, talking to a hero of teacher ready to retire. And each was intent on making the other understand that they had made a difference.
wouldn't the world be a better place if we all did the same?
2 comments:
Andi, I love you. You get it.
Two real-life heroes - kudos to both the teacher willing to make a difference, and the student willing to take that opportunity.
The world definitely needs more like both.
Post a Comment