JUST ANOTHER BAD KID?

Still a little sad after the situation involving Brad from my last post, but coming into work today I was hoping that things would get my mind off of it. WRONG!

Not here more than 10 minutes when I hear that one of our students was found dead. He had been shot and dumped on the street. No one will ever really know what happened except the one who pulled the trigger and those who watched this senseless action that took another young life. He was one of our kids last year, not a real problem. Only an 8th grader at that time but now he was in the 9th grade.

Who do we blame for this? His mother? Father or lack there of? The people he choose as friends? His teachers who couldn't take the time necessary to help him succeed? Obama?

What could we have done differently? What could I have done differently? Good questions but I have no answers. I don't know any one who does. I know some that think they have an answer and for a price they'll come and train you to save all children.

I think the first thing to helping these kids is to look into their eyes. Look pass the pants hanging down below their butts. Look beyond the hair in knots, the gold in their teeth, and the slang in the voice. Look into their hearts and mostly let them look back into your eyes to see your heart. I mean your real heart, the one that shows your real intentions, your real beliefs, your real desires. Let them see that you care despite their inability to read, write, and compose on grade level. Despite them not following the rules. Despite them having been born to a mother that was on "crack".

This "JOB" sucks the life out of a person or it pumps purpose into every capillary. It just takes one William, one Juston, one Joshua, or one Kesha to reassure that your mission is true and it makes leaving the mission so much harder that just staying in the boat.

Spock puts the eternal question in this way, "The needs of the many out weight the needs of the few or the needs of the few out weight the needs of the many?"

I look at it this way... "Greater love has no man than to lay down his life for another..."