Work

I was subbing in a Title One classroom yesterday. Title One is the program that funds special classes for underprivledged kids. At this particular school, three quarters of the students are immigrants and probably half the kids are English Language Learners (ELL). I really enjoy teaching at this school because I love the kids. I feel at home. The kids are very sweet and the teachers are a really amazing group of people. They continue to teach with passion and committment even though their state funding just got hacked due to not making the schoolwide testing cut for No Child Left Behind. The educational system has gone completely crazy...but I won't get into that. Anyway, I learn a lot when I teach. It's truly inspiring to watch the way the kids, parents and teachers at this particular school are always working together helping and supporting each other.

This Thursday there was one little boy, a second grader, who caught my attention. He was my teacher that day. Being Title One, he was obviously underprivledeged in some way. He looked poor, a solid little guy with a dirty T-shirt and a close, blond buzzcut, but the expression in his blue eyes was angelic and he maintained a look of intense concentration and contentment as he worked. He only asked me to help him once - to time him on a reading test. That's when I really noticed him. After I stopped the timer and he politely told me how to fill out the record page, he looked up at me and very honestly said, "You know I used to hate being in school and I would just waste time in class". I was surprised by this sudden declaration so I think I said, "Oh?". "Yeah", he said, "but now I work hard". He smiled with an ironic sweetness, "You gotta get to work some time". He bent his little head back to his work with a determination I've rarely seen in a child his age. In that moment I knew someone had touched his heart. Who loved this child enough to help him choose to turn his life around? Praise God for working through that person.