Another day at the office

At work today, a well respect teaching assisstant said to me: "25 years I've worked here....and it's worse today than it's ever been."

The children are hard work sometimes. They have a severe lack of respect for themselves, their friends, their teachers (or indeed any adult).

They don't care about their surroundings or the equipment they use.

They have day, after day, after day off school....get behind in their learning...have more days off because they don't fit in and can't keep up. And so it continues.

They don't see the point of school, so run away fast enough to not get caught.

They claim disabilities, inequalities, differences, to stand out, get attention, be different, be noticed.

They swear, they hit, they argue. And that's just with the adults.

A normal days work? A teacher's job? Maybe. They're only children, afterall.

But there's more to it than that.

I simply responded "Even more reason why we have to love them."

"It's ok for you," she replied, "you've got a faith."

She's finding it hard. It's hard to give out when, on the receiving end, negativity is all you get.

"But what if we give up on them? They respond to us like this because of how they are used to being treated elsewhere. If we, the only example of calm, kind, love, smiles, forgiveness etc etc that they get, don't show them how life 'should' be, how will they ever know?"

I continued....."Not all nice people have a faith, but for me it's the only way."