Return of the Repressed

So today I helped in another classroom, since the one I normally help was on a field trip. I missed my kids, especially when I realized I had a crazy class on my hands. The teacher, though very nice, was a pushover to say the least. The kids, needless to say, walk all over her. I found myself as the mean teacher again. Kids were yelling, running, hitting each other, shouting expletives...it was chaos. 

I saw the class is in desperate need of extra help. It's not that the teacher is incompetent; far from it. She's been an aide for 15 years and is working on getting her credential. She told me later that her daughter is in jail for drug possession and theft, so at 60, she's raising a newborn baby and an 8 year old. She wanted to retire in a couple of years, but she's back to raising kids. To top it off, she's been chosen as one of the teachers at the school to get laid off in light of the budget cuts. Thanks, Arnie. 

She and I talked about the kids a little, before I left for home. One kid's mom is on drugs and there's no dad at home. Another's dad molests him and his sisters so he's living with his grandmother who works 3 jobs. The teacher told me just about every single kid in the class has huge family issues: parents are in jail, on drugs, they live with their grandparents, etc. etc. 

It's a classroom of pure nightmare, and it's 10 minutes away from my relatively peaceful life at Biola. I couldn't believe that all these kids were placed in one classroom, and with a teacher who has so much going on in her life. When I called the school to receive my classroom assignment, they put with me a really good teacher whose students, though some are troubled, are bright and well-behaved. I'm confused as to why I wouldn't be placed in her classroom.

I don't know if I have anything especially insightful about this discovery. It does mean that inadequate parents are very much real; I don't think a lot of people realize how much hurt there is in American homes. We can brush off teenage angst and rebellion as a normal, middle-class thing. But there are cases - more common than we know - where kids are really living nightmarish lives. They're not just sporadic situations that will make for good book sales in 10 years. 

I'm thinking more and more that perhaps I'm not called overseas. I'm affected by these kids so much that I think I'd never be able to live with myself if I didn't at least try to help. I feel obligated, even, to help; I criticize American government, the school system, American priorities so much that I have this feeling like, If you see so much wrong, then why don't you try to fix it? I have the right to complain, as an American. But as a Christian, there's so much to do. The responsibility of course, is God's, because this is his world. Christians are his hands, though; loving people in the ways they need it is part of the job description, and something I feel incredibly strong about. 

If I watched people complain about the way things are then retreat to their ivory towers, I'd be inclined to say they're useless and ineffective as Christians. I don't want to be that way. Those kids need so much and while I know I'm not the savior and will probably hardly make a dint, I feel I must at least try.