Life...When does the line get clearer?

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As I was teaching my class today I had something come across my path that I found both enlightening and disheartening.

I gave my students an activity to do on their own. Simple game of writing out the alphabet letters, sending them outside to go and find objects that corresponded with the letter and write about what they saw. I had split them into groups and sent them on their way.

There was on one group of girls that moved outside and stood under a tree and wrote down words that they looked up in their dictionary.

Well as they came back to class I confronted them about it. They stammered and said “well you only saw us for 2 minutes”, ok…well it was quite a bit longer but that is neither here not there.

As we went around the class discussing what they saw, it became clearer that the ones that didn’t were copying again, neither here nor there.

The group of girls that stood under the tree started there list and unsurprisingly it lacked any thought or imagination. So…as we finished I had told them the group that does the best will win lunch on me. There was a lot of “in my opinion we all did out best, I think we all deserve to win”. Now I liked the sense of fair play they showed but they also lacked that people that try harder are sometimes rewarded while those that don’t do not.

There was one girl in the class that sat silent, staring dead pan ahead, as I spoke to her, she raised her voice…a DAMN good thing…and she defended her position and I was impressed, but the aftermath was what broke my heart. I asked to speak to her after class, as she did so, I asked her what the problem was with someone losing and someone winning…well apparently in China, or at least from her point of view life was an equal opportunity issue…and…I think this was the first time in her precious life that she realized that it was not.

It tore my soul to see her cry and to actually see a little beginning to understanding that life is not fair…life is just life…I wanted to say to her and will wait for a while before I do…that life is this…life is cruel, life is hard, it shows no mercy for the weak, the strong, the young, the old, the smart, the ugly, anyone...but...life can also be beautiful...at the heart of life, it wants to be good and it battles to find and make good...where we screw it up is thinking “why me”?...versus thanking the sheer greatness that life is.


I hope that I have the courage to help them face this…I hope that I find the strength to be a great teacher to them…I hope…

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Comments

[Ann]

The little girl
I believe she represents all of us when we find some of life's secrets. Some are good and some are not and all are a part of life. God bless her and you and all the people in the world. Love, Mom