Breaking the heart of a teacher

How do you break the heart of a teacher? Do you get bad grades? Not listen in class? Forget to turn in homework (on accident or on purpose)? Do you talk when they're talking? How about you forget them at Christmas? The end of the year? Don't have your supplies? Call them a name when you're hurting inside? Strike out at them because they're there, and they care?

No.

As sad as you get at bad choices they make, silly things that they do, misunderstandings that happen when you spend as much time together as you do, those are not things that break your heart. Let me tell you what breaks your heart...

Picture this...

You have some students, they work really hard. They pull all the stunts that normal students pull, including talking when you talk, forgetting homework, lashing out at you because you're there and you care, etc. These kids are going to make it! They're going to go somewhere! Year after year you see them grow, they mature, they make choices. Three of our four are doing well, getting to the point where you see they're going to make it! One has made some bad choices, and though your heart aches for him and the way that he's headed, you know there's still time, and you do what you can.

You have them four years, then they move on...you still hear from them from time to time - either because they contact you, or you talk to someone who gives you an update. One is doing great - she's got a job, working hard and doing well. She is even dating one of your other success stories! Yeah! They're living together, both working, and while you'd rather they settle the living arrangement, you understand that it's just not always the way it happens. Another one is doing really great too! He's had the same job for several years now, doing great in it, and will have opportunities to advance and make a great life for himself. You see him now and then and always get a great big hug and a smile (worth more than every Christmas present ever remembered by every student you've ever had - not that you don't love Christmas presents mind you). He tells you each time how much he appreciated you and how you were really a big part of him making it. Heart broken yet? Of course not! But here it comes...

The boy who made bad decisions? Well on Wednesday last week he made a really bad one, he went somewhere with your other young man...they drank...they drove...they wrecked...one died...one is in jail for intoxicated manslaughter...

The one in jail for manslaughter is not the one who consistently made bad choices, as much as it hurts, he's dead - the one in jail is his friend - the one who was doing so well ruined his life in an instant...

The girl and the boy? Well, on Thursday last week the girl's stepfather came in, and although I also know him, and liked him too, he hunted down and shot the boy, and was arrested. Her mother blames her for the whole mess, so now she has no boyfriend, no step dad, no mother, and no siblings. She's alone and brokenhearted.

Now, this is how you break a teacher's heart - you tell her that the children she got when they were 14, turned loose into the world at 18 are dead, hurting, or broken. The students she loved, poured her heart into, listened to, spent time with, and just enjoyed hearing of their success because in a way it was hers. She shared in every success because she helped (along with many others of course) shape them and teach them and send them out as people who had every chance to make it...and they didn't.

That is how you break a teachers heart.