The Water is Wide

I asked the kids to write a paper briefly describing themselves, telling me everything about themselves that they felt was important, what they liked about themselves, and what they didn’t like. This seemed like a fairly reasonable request to me but most of the kids stared at me as if I had ordered them to translate hieroglyphs from a pyramid wall. So they began. As I walked around, the kids earnestly applying themselves to the task at hand, I had my first moment of panic. Some of them could barely write. Half of them were incapable of expressing even the simplest thought on paper Three quarters of them could barely spell even the most elementary words. Three of them could not write their names. Most of these 5th to 8th graders hid their papers as I came by, ashamed for me to see they had written nothing. By not being able to tell me anything about themselves, they were telling me everything.”

Dawn Marie Moss: “I began to understand that being a teacher is more than being paid to read books or having summers off. If you do it right—with passion and integrity and energy—you realize very quickly that you will earn every minute of every summer through sweat, tears, and sleepless nights. Most young teachers would have quit after the first day that Pat has on Yamacraw. The fact that he comes back the next day and the next and the one after that is testament to his desire to give those children a fighting chance at a better life.”