I have been very lucky in my life. Many of these issues that we have been discussing have seemed distant to me because of how few encounters I have actually had with these issues. However, reality came screaming in for me just this weekend and what is still very surreal to me is slowly but surely sinking in.
I am going to discuss this for the educational value it has for this particular class. I think that it will help us to see how much baggage some of our students will bring in to our classrooms.
Almost twenty years ago now (too long ago for me to remember) my aunt conceived out of wedlock. For this reason she married a man who turned out to be very abusive and mentally unstable. Since that time they have had eight more children (a total of nine all together).
Over the course of the last twenty years we have certainly seen signs of abuse coming from this family, but all of our efforts to help my aunt or the children get out of this situation have been met by our families being pushed away. For years at a time we would have no idea where this family was, or even if all of them were still alive. However, money eventually ran out for this family and they moved back by my grandparents. My grandparents, being the amazing people that they are, tried to support the family in any way they could. They knew that this was the only way that they would have contact with their grandchildren.
In the last month, the oldest of the children turned eighteen and moved out of the house as soon as he could. When he did this, he reported his family to SRS. SRS came in a took the remaining eight kids from the home. With the insurmountable evidence against the father of these children incarceration would have been unavoidable. However because of the impending incarceration this man took his life in front of my aunt.
All of this is just a brief description of the situation. There are countless other factors, known and unknown that have led to this. If you are wondering how you may be able to help, prayers would certainly be appreciated. We can only hope and trust in God that this family gets the help that they need.
ED460 Personal and Social Well Being is a course taken by college students in education during their student teaching semester. Topics covered include: poverty, child abuse, bullying, drugs, alcohol, and tobacco, counselors' role in school, adolescents and choices, and the use of technology.
Thank you for sharing that difficult account, Tyler. Your post caused me to reflect awhile upon a close friend I met in high school. Through a conversation we had one night, I learned that his birth father had repeatedly abused him physically and verbally as a child. Luckily, his mother was able to eventually leave that situation and move him as well as his siblings to my town. I also discovered that he had been sexually abused in the past by a girlfriend. He pressed charges and took it to court. I was relieved that the abuse was behind him, but wondered how I could offer my support to the emotional baggage that would remain. Then I realized that I was already doing what I usually do not do enough of in a dialogue: listening with empathy. That was just what he needed. We as teachers can keep the same in mind for our students. We can pray for them as well. Your family is in my prayers.
ReplyDeleteWow, Tyler, what a tragedy. Thanks for sharing that. I'll definitely be praying for your family. This class has been a reality check for me too. I come home from a pretty sheltered high school, though it was a public school. I'm sure that this sort of thing did happen though.
ReplyDeleteI posted earlier about Mayra's family, where the mother worked three jobs and 9-year-old Mayra had to take care of her siblings and her mom's dead beat boyfriend. Well, at one point Mayra and her siblings were taken away from their mom by the state. However, once she got back on her feet, dumped the boyfriend, and had a more stable job, the kids got to come home again. Over the past ten years, we have heard about Mayra and her family on occasion. During Christmas break, my mom and I ran into her at Hobby Lobby. We didn't recognize her until she stopped us and said who she was. Now, they run a store and have a nice house. That goes to show that these things can all work out in the end. It sometimes takes a long time, during which it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The light is always there though.
What a sad situation, Tyler. I can't even imagine going through something that difficult. I have an uncle who is an alcoholic and is abusive to his wife and kids. We have tried to do some things, but we worry about the possible repercussions (like in your aunt's case). Your family will be in my prayers.
ReplyDeleteTyler I am so sorry to hear about everything. It truly shows how broken our world really is. I am honestly so sorry and know my prayers are with you and your family. I can't believe the 18 year old that came forward and told everybody, it was no question the right thing, but such a tragedy. The whole thing is a tragedy and the fact that the suffering went on for so long is devastating. It shows, just like you said in my post, that we really need to be better people, the world needs us and our light. And especially good Catholic families which I am completely confident you and liz will have. This also shows our need for great teachers, where were the teachers in this case? There were so many kids I can't believe one teacher or a multiitude of teachers didn't do everything they could to stop it. We can't make that mistake as a teachers or parents, we really do need to be the miracle. Your in my prayers
ReplyDeleteTyler I am so sorry to hear about everything. It truly shows how broken our world really is. I am honestly so sorry and know my prayers are with you and your family. I can't believe the 18 year old that came forward and told everybody, it was no question the right thing, but such a tragedy. The whole thing is a tragedy and the fact that the suffering went on for so long is devastating. It shows, just like you said in my post, that we really need to be better people, the world needs us and our light. And especially good Catholic families which I am completely confident you and liz will have. This also shows our need for great teachers, where were the teachers in this case? There were so many kids I can't believe one teacher or a multiitude of teachers didn't do everything they could to stop it. We can't make that mistake as a teachers or parents, we really do need to be the miracle. Your in my prayers
ReplyDelete