More From The Past...

For today's blast from the past post, I dug up some of my old student teaching pictures. This little guy is Joseph if I remember correctly (and since you can't really make out who he is, I will share something about his personal life). This little guy will forever be etched in my memory because he had no mom. Of course there were probably lots of kids I student taught who had no mom, but Joseph was the first one that really made me realize that kids have it pretty tough these days. When I first began student teaching, I naively thought that childhood was still mostly like Care Bears, Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers...you know the 80's-- even when things were bad, they weren't that bad. I quickly learned that times had changed. His story seemed more sad to me than any other because his mom was killed in her home by a fire that her boyfriend intentionally started in order to harm her. I know you're not technically supposed to have favorites as a teacher (though we all do), but Joseph was one of my favorites and I'll never forget this little guy. He did a pretty radical job on that Mondrian Art too, huh?!