A Keeper of Stories
The vault of a high school English teacher
I have been teaching for 16 years. This year, as I sat in the back of a Baptist church in Detroit at a funeral for a student’s mother, I thought about all the tragedies I have witnessed as a teacher. This Pastor invited my student to wail as the congregation supported her. It was heart-wrenching and beautiful, and I thought we all could use more supported wailing.
How do we process all the grief without it?
It seems like every school year, something traumatic happens. Tragedy befalls at least one student in the building. Perhaps the communities I have worked in face more trauma than other more affluent communities, or perhaps not. I only know that I have been a witness, yearly, to painful events involving my students. Some, I have been closer to than others. Always, a larger circle of students is affected by what has befallen one of their friends or classmates.
Here are some of the big tragedies that have happened in my time in the classroom:
- A sophomore gets hit by a truck while riding a go-kart in the neighborhood and dies.
- A student’s mom gets cancer and dies within months.
- Multiple students have their parents deported and they…
