Challenges

This chapter pretty much summed up and put into one place all of the situations I worry most about dealing with as a teacher. It's not that I fear them, I only worry how I will handle myself and the students involved. Perhaps most of this worry comes from my own experiences throughout high school. Between 7th grade and graduation, it was a miracle to go six months without attending the funeral of a friend. I watched as friends withered away from cancer, got hit by cars, and slammed headlong into motor vehicles, trees, and bridges. I remember at each funeral the teacher that was closest to each individual would stand and deliver a eulogy or some meaningful memory to explain what this student meant to them. This is why entry 44 meant so much to me. This teacher is right. "no college professor's lecture or college textbook" prepares us to stand up and deliver a eulogy for a student. There is no "How to Read at a Student's Funeral For Dummies". It is rarely even stated in our classes, "Oh, and by the way, sometimes students die." This is why I worry about things like this: it is something constantly in the back of my mind because it happened so much in my school, and continues to happen there. This teacher handled this situation extremely well, and I hope that none of us have to endure the pain that is losing a student, especially when they are those that choose you as a friend and confidante making them "more than a student". Throughout our careers we will see examples of many of the stories held within this chapter on the challenges of teaching. I feel that the author of entry 32 put it best in saying that the stories we see in our students should become "tattooed on [our] heart[s]" and we should allow their voices to "stitch the open wounds of [our] past"