Something that changed my life

A few months into my first year in the classroom, my mentor teacher in Philly saw that I was having a rough time with a student. She sat in my classroom after school and listened to me vent for ten minutes.

When I finally shut up, she was quiet for a while. Then she said this:

What helps me is to remember that no matter where a child came from, they are coming from somewhere. Someone has sent that child to you. For that person, that child is the best thing in her life. That child may be flawed, but it's still more important to that person than anything else. You are being entrusted with the best thing in that person's life. It's not up to us to judge the person. It's up to us to remember that each child is the best thing in the world to someone.

School starts in a little more than a week. School board elections are heating up.

In the midst of all that, it helps reorient me to remember that all of this is about helping people with the best thing in their lives.