What I Came Here For

Editor's Note: Sometimes I write things about my job to help me remember why I took the job I have. 

Being a teacher in an urban school means you don't always get to do the thing you signed up to do: Teach. Instead, you find a whole basket full of other things to divert yourself from your primary mission: Teach.

There are so many needs for so many kids that are only filled here at school. Learning to read is way up there, but having a safe place to be for most of the day and getting two meals out of three is a big part of survival for many of the students I encounter five days a week. 

This is not to say that every one of these kids lacks a caring support system, parents and caregivers who are there to bring them home and keep them ready to return the next day, but this is a tough place to do that. I have often described here in this space the candle and bottle memorials to fallen heroes I see along my route to and from school. These are the ones who didn't make it out. These are the victims of the place where they live.

Do they have to get shot to be removed from the game? No. Some of them slip quietly through the cracks of the systems that are supposed to be there to catch them. We don't miss them because they are part of a continuing story of poverty, discrimination and a startling lack of opportunities. 

All of that being said, I would like to relate to you one of the stories that make it so incredibly worth the struggle. This past week, our noon supervisor was not able to look after our young charges during lunch for three because she was busy. She was away taking her son to college. Morehouse College to be precise. This is a kid who I taught a lifetime ago, but who persevered, along with his mother and grandmother and overcame the odds that were stacked against him. Now he has a chance to do something no one in his family has done before him: Graduate from college. Morehouse College. 

This is not the first time I have heard one of these success stories. But it does come as a bright spot in a week full of gray skies. That's a metaphor there. The summer sun has actually been beating down on us quite effectively since the beginning of the school year, but it might be that this is a symbol of the hope that exists out there for all of us. That I can continue to do all those things that I do, and the thing that I came here to do: Teach.