At the beginning of the year, I hysterically cried after an
elementary class (I literally blubbered) because a girl hit a boy and madness preceded
to follow. It was, I thought, my ultimate demise as an educator. I felt as if I
had failed.
Both classes have since been occurring with only minor
kinks. Yesterday, though, during my 2nd grade special, I nearly
cried again. Only this time, it wasn’t out of frustration or feelings of
inadequacies. This time, my near tears were rooted in the mangled combination
of joy and disbelief.
Two second graders were on either side of my lap while we
read an I Spy book. One is a teacher’s dream student. She raises her hand, she participates,
she reads above grade level. The other is a sweet little boy who struggles to
sound out sight words. As the three of
us read and searched for the hidden pictures in the book, I felt so connected
to the little beings that graced my knees. I could have spent the entire
afternoon finding pictures in that book with them.
Then, I remembered reality, the unbelievable reality.
The Rez is sad. It’s not sad because the people are sad, it’s
sad because it seems so barren. It seems so lost. I haven’t been here long and
it would be unfair for me to draw conclusions about this community, but I know the
people living here deserve more. I know the second graders that snuggle close
to me deserve more.
Reality is hard to choke down especially when it seems so
loveless, when it withholds opportunity from such deserving people. But, in
those deserving people, in my second graders and fifth graders, there is a
vision for a stronger reality one day.
There is a vision for a lovely reality.
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