Wednesday, April 20, 2011

What hurts, part 2

(This is another rerun from something I posted on Myspace when I was a schoolteacher, again from October 2006.)

Sometimes my kids can't concentrate in school or get their homework done at home because their mom is an alcoholic and a smoker and their stepdad yells a lot, and the kids stay awake way past midnight because they can't get to sleep while mom and stepdad are yelling and fighting in the next room, and the only way to get away from it is to stay with their dad who lives and works about 30 miles away, so they have to get up extra early to go to school, and they have to wait for him to pick them up when he gets off work, and so it's either endure the long hours and the 30-mile drives every day or endure the drinking and the fighting at home, and although I take my hat off to honor the dad for doing what he's doing for the kids, it's still a sucky situation for the kids any way you look at it, and it's no wonder they can't get any learning done.

Rather than try to teach them math, I want to give them a blanket, a pillow, some cookies and milk and let them curl up someplace safe in my room for an hour and a half.

No comments: