I pass out pencils and answers to homework assignments every single day. At the end of one class, Allison Vargas asked, “Mr. Kim, will you be passing out homework answers today?” And I responded, “Have I ever not given you answers to the homework? Why do you doubt?”
I think I see a lot of parallels between how God sees us and how teachers see their students. I’m sure we ask God to provide us of all the things that we should know better than to ask for again and again. Why do we doubt? Has he ever not given us exactly what we needed?
One of my students, Keion Teal, had been incarcerated for breaking and entering. I only found out because Ms. Bethany Darnley emailed me saying that one of his friends told her about it and was looking for me to get paperwork to him. Well, it turned out that he returned yesterday. I removed Jermaine from my classroom. When I returned, I noticed that the paper that I use to roll down quickly for lockdown drills was down, and that my door was shut closed. I didn’t notice anything being out of place until my 4th block when I opened my drawer to give my top performing students rewards for working hard. Well, that’s when I noticed that my entire bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter cups was gone, along with all my white Kit Kat bars.
I suppose the student who stole it had noticed me give out the candy to my top 5 students who finished the classwork. And when I was removing Jermaine, he must have rolled down the blinds for the window, closed the door, and gone to the further corner of my personal space on my desk, pry open my drawer, and grab my candy, all before I was back. I knew it must have been Keion. I trusted everyone else who was in the classroom at that point in that day. Jermaine was not there, and neither was Emmanuel, India, nor Danizjah, and everyone else were the quiet unassuming types. Keion was the only obvious choice.
Today, Daniela was the first person in the classroom, as usual. She and I never hit it off, but she never disrespected me and I tried to let her be for the most part. As soon as she walked in today, though, she said, “oh, Mr. Kim, I have to talk to you about something. It’s about your missing candy.” I told her I know who did it.” She asked, “you do?” And I said, :yeah, it was Keion, right?” I suppose it was more of a validation for me than anything else, because I didn’t know for sure but only had speculation. She confirmed that it was her.
I was more surprised that she was the only one that actually told me. No one else even tried to tell me, via a note or pulling me aside, or anything. And of course, I am more disappointed by the fact that there are students who think there’s nothing wrong about stealing from people, much less adults and teachers who are only trying to help them. On their way out to lunch, I asked Keion to stay. I left the door open, and I told him, “Hey, I wanted to talk to you about yesterday, and let you know that I know it was you. But I also want to tell you that I forgive you” He asked, “What are you talking about?” I said, “Both of us know what I am talking about. What you did yesterday. But I don’t want to talk about it. Instead, you should know that I forgive you. You know why?” He asked, “Why?” I said, “because I, too, have done evil things and sinned. But Christ has forgiven me, and as a Christian, I should also forgive others who have done evil things and sinned against me. You do go to church on the weekends with your parents and know what I’m talking about, don’t you?” He nodded. “Well, then you also know what the Bible says about all of this. Repent, and don’t do it again. I forgive you. I won’t write you up.” And with that, he left the classroom.
Why are students like that given more and more opportunities to do more and more evil and negatively impact other students’ ability to learn? I do not know why. He’s clearly given up, is not unwilling to do evil things, and is a bad influence on all the kids in the classroom.