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Every day I hear a story from one of my students that blows me away. Recently I heard that one of my students does not eat dinner because her mom puts her in her room (with her two siblings) and shuts the door at 7 p.m. and then parties all night with her friends. My student's words were, "there is really loud music and my mom has a lot of friends come over." In the morning, she gets up with her two siblings and grandma drives them to school. She said, "it is too hard to wake mom up." She lives part time with mom and part time with grandma and it is no wonder she comes to school without her homework. Sometimes she doesn't even have her back pack-mom or grandma just drop her off with nothing.

Here is the other heart wrencher for the week: One student (who never confides in me) asks if he can talk to me in private. This student lives with his grandmother, and his grandfather just died (not related to his grandmother guardian). He has been having a really tough time. Not the kind of hard time where you cry and are sad. He is having the kind of hard time where you punch kids and rip up other people's papers.
We go outside the room and he says, out of the blue, "My auntie died in 2004. She was shot in the brains." I reply (as if I hear this every day), "Are you thinking about her because of your grandfather and the funeral that is coming up?" He replies yes and I say, "How does it make you feel?" He says, "sad." I asked him who shot his auntie and he says, "her boyfriend." I asked if they caught him and he said, "Yes. He is in jail for fifty years." And I am supposed to teach him long division.