the students who showed attitude, a surliness and
apathy for education, talking back or
talking out of turn, and then he started hearing
stories from their lips, the dad in prison,
mom in jail, other relatives who didn't want
them now obliged to feed and clothe along
with children of their own they never wanted
either. Rejection, constant ridicule and criticism
of each thing they say and do and then they
come to school, where they can pick on others,
act a certain way to get attention, spend the
day inside the dean's where it is clean and quiet,
a light years from the turmoil that they'll find
when they get back to houses that
were never homes and never will be. These
are heroes, of a sort, and villains of another,
and just how they'll turn out in the end is
hard to say, and so he doesn't, anymore.
He listens and he teaches and he tries to share
a little lightness, kindness, something positive,
planting seeds that will not grow, most likely,
but maybe one out of a hundred has that extra
umph, miraculously makes its roots keep trying
to find nutrients in sun-baked soil, steal moisture
out of desert air, survive by hook or crook and
one day, one day, something's there that blooms.
Good teachers helped, the moment that they tried
to see beyond the outer shell. Remember that.
(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014
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