Helping Young People Can Be Very Rewarding
She came to me in tears last spring. Yearbooks were in at Lake City High School and in the frenzy and excitement of unveiling a year’s work of memories, her purse had been stolen. Her personal I.D., a large amount of money and all the valuables necessary to daily life were gone.
It’s not always easy to fix life’s hurts or even try to explain why bad things happen to good people. It was fairly easy to help this student. The young woman was worried most about the inability to pick up her yearbook without proper identification. Since I was the yearbook adviser, I just released one to her earlier than scheduled so she wouldn’t have that worry eating at her all day. I also alerted my staff so if someone came in with her identification, we’d call security. Then I sent her on the way with a reassuring hug that not all the world is heartless and at least one teacher could bend to accommodate her wounds.
Sometimes when we think of schools, we think in stereotypes. Students are lazy, belligerent, frightening people who harass solid citizens. They want the world handed to them without the sweat of honest work. Teachers, on the other hand, know all the answers and aren’t afraid to tell students the error of their thinking. We think that starched teachers somehow pop out of the closet every morning and methodically drone on.
In reality, we care about kids and enter into a variety of emotions with all the students. And they teach us about life. They teach us that all the answers aren’t in a textbook. They teach us that meeting a child’s mind, merging thoughts and ideas, is often greater than we could imagine by ourselves. They teach us that even in an imperfect world, good kids are everywhere. The ribbons of caring, concerned individuals are often the teenagers in our society’s tapestry.
So, have faith. Talk to the young person who lives next door, delivers your paper or the one you see in your community. Volunteer at a school, help answer a teen hotline or get involved in a teen’s life. Your life can be enriched by listening to our youth. And in the process, you too may learn.
MEMO: Your Turn is a feature of the Wednesday and Saturday Opinion pages. To submit a Your Turn column for consideration, contact Rebecca Nappi at 459-5496 or Doug Floyd at 459-5466 or write Your Turn, The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210-1615.