Changing Lives

One of the reasons why I want to be a teacher is so I can help the kids that can't help themselves because they're too young to stand up for what's right.  I want to be that kind of teacher that's like a mother to those that need a motherly figure.

This is why:

I don't remember what grade this was.  I was very young and in elementary school.  I don't even remember which school it was, either.  Or who the teacher was.  I don't even remember if I even had a sister at that age.  When you have a nightmare, the worse the nightmare is, the more vivid and real it seems.  But in reality, the worse a situation is, the more dreamlike it is and you can't really remember a thing.

It was the weekend.  Something terrible was going on downstairs.  I went down, and my parents were fighting like always.  Again, my dad was blaming my mom for something she probably didn't do, and I knew she didn't deserve to get yelled at like that everyday.  This time I finally got up the courage to say something. I walked towards my mom, stood next to her, and told my dad that she didn't do anything wrong.  That probably took up every ounce of courage I had.  My dad got angry that I talked back to him.  He raised his hand like he was about to slap me.  My mom yelled at him that I didn't do anything wrong and he shouldn't be taking things out on me.  The rest of the scene is very hazy.  Like a dream, where time goes by and you don't even know.  Did minutes pass?  Hours?  I don't remember what time of the day it was.  Just that it was daytime.  The rest of the week is a blank.  The week before was a blank.  Heck, I don't even remember when during my life that this happened.  And when I mean that the scene is hazy, I mean that I don't even remember the details of the room.  I know we had carpet.  My dad was holding one of those black metal chairs.  He hit my mom across the back, and she fell.  I don't know whether she walked or crawled to the front door, or if she was even next to the door to begin with.  I don't even know where I was in the room when this happened.  When i remember this event, it's like I'm going dizzy, spinning around with my parents at the center.  My mom opened the door.  Yelled at my dad to keep on going so the whole neighborhood can see how he treats his family.  He went upstairs.  I don't know how, but my mom got to the telephone.  It was hanging on a wall.  She called the police.  She started crying.  This was the very first time I saw my mom cry.  I've only ever seen her actually cry twice in my life.  The other times, I just hear her.  The police came in, and my dad came downstairs.  One of the policemen pointed at me, telling my dad how scared I was.  How I was hiding in the corner, shaking.  I didn't even realize it until the man pointed it out.  When did I get into this corner?  Was I here the whole time?  When did I start shaking?  There were tears on my face.  Since when did I start crying?  Have I been quietly sobbing the whole time or did I cry out loud?  I tried to get a hold of myself.  The next thing I remember my dad was gone.  He went out with the police.  My mom was still crying.  She was telling me that we should do something to get my dad back.  He is my dad afterall, and he runs the family.  I remember that I was the one who told the police what had happened.  When I said all that, I don't remember.  I told my mom that I was sorry that I told the police.  That I thought that's what she wanted.  But in truth, I wasn't sorry.  Why did we need a dad like that?  Couldn't she just take care of us?  We didn't need someone like that in ours lives.  I would be fine without a dad.  Better no dad then a dad that makes everyone feel miserable all the time.  I think the next day, my dad came back.  All I remember was that he stopped fighting with my mom for a while after and that there was peace in my family for a while.  I don't know how long it lasted, maybe days, maybe weeks, maybe months.  But I was glad.  Although I never said it, I wish my mom would have called the police on him more often.

On Monday, I went to school.  One of the first assignments of the day, a warmup, was to write down something that I remember happened over the weekend.  If nothing interesting happened, we could make something up.  I wrote down everything.  About what happened to my dad.  I was hoping that my teacher would read it and be able to help me get away from my dad somehow.  After everyone was done writing, I thought we would hand it in, because that's what we always did with the warmups.  But the teacher said that everyone had to share what they wrote.  We had to get up in front of the class and read it out loud to everyone.  I raised my hand and told the teacher that what I wrote was too private to tell the class.  Couldn't she just read it?  Did the whole class have to know?  But she told me that if it wasn't something I was willing to share with everyone, then I should erase it and write something else.  I was upset.  But I did what I was told.  I erased that story and made up something about going to a park.

That's when I realized that I was too young to do anything with my life.  I was too young to get away from a situation that I was trapped in.  I couldn't run away because there was nowhere to go.  I didn't know where any of my friends lived.  The teacher wouldn't help me.  No adults would help me if even my teacher wouldn't help me.  How would I eat?  How would I go to school?  I had no money for buses or food.  There was no way I could survive on my own at that age.

And so one of the things that I want to accomplish as a teacher is to not let any kid slip by.  In the teacher's point of view, everyone must have had a great weekend, but this one kid wrote something she didn't want to share.  So the teacher tells the kid she should just write something that she did want to share instead.  A tiny detail that the teacher missed could have changed a child's life forever.

I want to be a teacher to change lives.