As a teacher, you often think about past students and wonder how they are doing. After all, they were "my kids" for a whole school year and you invest an awful lot of time in these kids. You hope that they all go on to live productive, well educated lives. Well, imagine my surprise when not one, but two of my former students were on the front page of the newspaper today.
The first one made the front page because he was involved in a "possibly gang related" fight at W.al-m.art. The best part of the whole story - when he pulled his gun out, he shot himself in the abdomen. So, lets review- kid goes to W.al-M.art with a bunch of friends to start a fight, pulls out an unregistered, concealed weapon, and shoots himself - UGGHH!
Student number two was arrested after the vehicle he was riding in is pulled over and the police find two loaded rifles, mar.ijuana, and other drug paraphernalia. Oh, and did I mention that these rifles were stolen?! Then there is the fact that this student also had a warrant out for his arrest as well.
In all seriousness though, there is a part of me that is sad for these boys. What a life to be living already at age 17. If they had only had a family who invested in them when they were young. I had both of these boys in fourth grade and it didn't surprise me one bit when I heard about this. I thoroughly enjoyed both of these boys and they both had great personalities. I hope that maybe they can find a way to still turn their lives around.
In my mind, reading about these boys is just another reason why foster parenting is such a good thing. Hopefully by offering a stable home to a troubled child, MJ and I can give them some of the love and nurturing they need in order to head down a more positive path in their life.
5 comments:
All right, what exactly is it you're teaching your students again? Nah, I'm kidding. You're definitely onto something with the foster parent idea ... the kids we read about in papers under such awful headlines are the ones that could really and truly benefit. I just want to know if they used apostrophes correctly in their police reports : ) Haha, you're great!
You don't know me but I know MJ. She is a very caring person. I think she would be a wonderful parent. She was always there when I need someone to talk to during my junior and senior year of high school. You have a great girl. There should be more people out there like you and MJ to help kids out. Everyone needs a loving family
Jenn Purple
that must have been crazy to see TWO former students in the paper on the same day!
i dont understand -- why did he shoot himself?!
I too have worked with troubled kids for years. Some make it and some don't... every single child that ends up a poor statistic of some sort also makes me sad. I know that being a foster parent (hopefully in addition to being a bio parent) is the path you are meant to be on. You'll be great!
He shot himself on accident as he was "drawing the weapon" during the fight. Then of course ran from the store and threw the gun out the window of the car!
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