Insight

I had such a scare.

It was a really busy morning, preparing for students that never came, but we didn't know that and so I was running around getting materials ready. And then I was told one my students was asking for me, a girl I had worked with this past semester. When I first saw her I thought she was just stopping in, hoping for a free tour, but then I realized this is a school day, and that she shouldn't be here. I took her someplace private and we began to talk, she began to cry, and I thought "Oh god, please don't be pregnant." She wasn't, but she was in need of some help and someone to take her seriously, which I hope I was able to give her. 

This was a girl I had only seen for a few hours once a week for just a semester. We had never talked privately before or seen each other outside of my class. I feel somewhat flattered that she came to speak with me, but also frightened. How is it that she doesn't have anyone she trusts more than me in her life? When she is so scared, why walk 20 blocks in the pouring rain to me? 

Now I am viewing the work I'm doing so differently. I have always known that education was much more about the relationships people form and the support they feel than the topic being taught or learned, but it is so much safer to stick to content and far from emotional exposure. I've thought of myself as a kid; someone barely out of school with no real responsibilities, someone who jokes around with students and isn't called "Miss". Of course little kids see me as an adult, but I assumed teenagers saw me as not very far from where they are at. Now I understand that by teenagers I'm seen as an adult, someone who is capable and able to help. I suddenly feel incredibly responsible, but uncertain if I can live up to the children's expectations and needs. From now on I see myself, and the relationships I will have with the students differently. I really want to be that person that a student can come to for anything and I will have the right numbers and solutions to their problems.