Well, today was a hard lesson learned. We began our cancer unit today, and I found out that one student has a grandmother who has cancer that is about to take her life. There wasn’t a big scene or anything. She began to cry and when we noticed, my mentor teacher walked her out and talked to her. After he explained her situation to me, I felt absolutely horrible. I had talked to the class and given them a pretest about our unit weeks before, but she didn’t bring it up to me. It may not have even been a big issue a few weeks ago, but now that her grandmother is reaching the final stages, it’s just too much for her to deal with having a whole period devoted to talking about something that is causing her this pain. I figured out a couple of assignments for her to complete on genetics today and tomorrow. I’m now working on a project for her, but I still feel bad that things have happened this way. I feel bad for her situation at home, and now it’s just magnified, but I also feel bad for the timing. I feel like this would be a great unit for her to be a part of, but she’s just not ready for it at this point. We are going to end the unit with a cancer awareness project, and I hate that she will miss that because I think it will be something that she will be a strong advocate for at some point in time. most of all, I just hope that everything works out as well as possible in her situation.
What an important lesson to learn as a teacher. It's surprising how you can learn about the home lives of students, even through sad experiences. I can read that this was hard on you, too. Hope it has gotten better in the mean time.
ReplyDelete