Cassie

As an occasional teacher, I meet about 150 to 200 students every week. They come in all shapes and sizes. You can tell that some come from families where the parenting skills are a bit less to be desired. I can only guess the circumstances some of them face. Sometimes their frustrations are taken out on the supply teacher. They soon learn that I am not somebody who accepts abuse from them. I won’t play the game.

Once in awhile, I happen to get a class and for some reason something clicks. That happened today. I have only had this group once before and was told that they can be a handful. All I can say is give me more handfuls like these students. We seemed to bring out the best in each other.

One of the students who is an example of the kind of kids in the class is Cassie.

I found out from her sister that she is one of nine children. She is one of the youngest. As she put it, she has one father and two mothers. There seems to be a lot of love in her life and she has adjusted well. She seems to have such a positive attitude. In a word, she is a really neat kid.

How neat? Today she was participating in the final of the 200 metres at the school field day. She started off well, but about 50 yards out, she fell. The rest of the field was well ahead of her. There was no way she was going to win.

What did she do? She got up and ran as fast as she could. Cassie actually passed a couple of people and finished fifth.

That isn’t the entire story, though. Others would have moaned about the fact that they fell and blame it on their substandard performance. Some would have hung their heads in shame or felt bad. Cassie walked away simply knowing she had fallen, but had done her best under the circumstances.

When I asked her later why she had gotten up and run so hard, I expected some inspirational answer. Instead I got the type of honest answer that kids often give. She said, “I don’t know. I just like running.” Come to think of it, the answer was inspirational. She was participating in something for the sheer joy of doing it. She had a desire to win, but the simple act of running for the pleasure was enough.

I look at my life and ask myself, “Do I want to moan about my circumstances or do I want to run the good race because I just like running?” I fall? I get up and run. There will be other races and other opportunities to succeed. However getting upset when I fall will do nothing to encourage me to run again.

Cassie, thank you for today. While I may have been the teacher officially, you taught me a valuable lesson.