Be unshakeable.

My Friday started off super rough.  One of my students with an Emotional Disturbance had an issue, and turned it towards me. Hardcore.  Scary moment for us all.

This brought me back to my days as a Special Education teacher working with the behavior students day in and day out.  Every single day, I was hit, kicked, pinched, spit on, had things thrown at me, been stabbed with random objects, hair and clothing pulled, and called super vulgar things.  My job was not to be angry or upset when this happened, but to remain calm and help my kiddos work through their issues.  They have the behavior verification for a reason.  Did I get upset at the end of the day when I was filling out my paperwork and reliving the issues all over again?  Absolutely.  Did I ever hold grudges or stay angry with these children?  Absolutely not.

That was not my job.  That is not any of our jobs as teachers.  Children we work with have mental health issues, and they're not going away.  It's quite the opposite, in fact.  We are seeing more and more children with mental health issues and dealing more adult issues than they should have to.  I wrote my research paper for my Master's on this subject, so, when I say they're not going away, it's the truth.  And it's something we all need to prepare ourselves mentally and emotionally for.

When this incident happened yesterday, the behavior teacher thanked me profusely for welcoming my student back and being genuine about it.  Why would she thank me?  This is my job as an adult!!  This student of mine didn't do these things to me because they wanted to.  They did them because they cannot control when things like this happen!  It is how this child's brain is wired!

Our job, as adults in a paid relationship with our students, is to always remain the constant.  The unmovable.  The unshakeable.  We are the one thing in their lives that is not supposed to be affected by things that happen while we are with them.  Yes, we are immensely emotional beings, and it does shake us when these things happen, but we cannot let our students know that it has.  We need to love them unconditionally and always be ready for them to be back on track.  We are TEACHERS - we teach them how to forgive and love, along with academia.  We are also teaching our other students how to forgive.

We are not judge and jury in our classroom.  Sure, there are many things we have control over in the day-to-days of our rooms, but having a student come back, feel wanted, and be productive is not one of those issues you can flip-flop about.  You are not there to judge the child and hold their actions against them.  Always welcome them back, and do it genuinely.  Kids are smart - they can tell when you're being fake.