All in a day's teaching

Mollie was hoping for a good year now that she could teach in person. It hasn’t been her best. She has twenty kids. Four are on anti-psychotic drugs another one should be. Five are on medication for ADHD, four more have been diagnosed but the parents have chosen not to medicate them. I think I shared that earlier in the year one of her students broke both his arms on the playground. There is a grandmother raising one of her students whose hobby is getting teachers and administrators fired. She’s making Mollie more and more nervous. Then a couple of weeks ago…

 

A little girl in her class said that she felt really sick. Mollie sent her to the nurse and they called the parent of the day – mother, aunt, grandmother the child has no one steady in her life, to come get her. The adult refused saying the child was faking and if she wasn’t throwing up or running a fever she wasn’t coming.

The next morning a cafeteria worker called to Mollie’s classroom before school got started and said one of her kids looked so sick, so pale she was white. When the girl got to Mollie’s class she begged her not to call her aunt saying she’d just get mad and not come any way. There is a large walk-in closet in the pod and Mollie got the girl a pillow and blanket and just told her to rest. She slept for four hours. When she woke Mollie sent her to the nurse who called home and told them that if they didn’t take the child to the doctor that they would call social services. They came and got her but no one knows if they saw a doctor that evening or not.

 

The next morning they couldn’t wake the child and took her to the ER. Her sugar was reading just over five hundred and they transferred her to a children’s hospital an hour away. The child will eventually get a pump, but for now she needs to learn how to give herself insulin with Mollie overseeing each dose. You have to go to the cafeteria chart, check to see how many carbs in whatever she eats for breakfast or lunch, calculate the amount insulin in units and inject the insulin. And of course, keep records. 

Mollie didn’t seem as frazzled by this as I would have been, but last Friday was a bad day. Many things had gone wrong. One child had taken a swing at Mollie, the vicious grandmother had been texting her, and there were a few other minor things. She made sure the child insulin packet, that she has to carry home each night, because the parents won’t pay for two, was in the girl’s book bag as she led them out to car riders. Five minutes later Mollie sees the girl eating candy. She rushed over to see what was going on and the kids says, “Don’t worry I gave myself some insulin.” My poor daughter is freaking, the kid has given herself too much. She gets with the nurse and they tell the mother what’s going on and how many carbs she need to eat now… And the mother responds, “Oh, that’s all right. It doesn’t matter.” 

 

Mollie breaks down into tears – something she doesn’t do – as the mother drives away. She wasn’t only scared at what had just happened, she was also worried that no one will be caring for the child over the weekend. Mollie’s principal and the nurse comfort her. The principal, a really nice lady, give her a hug and asks, “You are coming back Monday, aren’t you?” She was only partial kidding. Many teachers these days are simply walking out. And I can’t really blame them. But Monday was a better day. And she has her eye on Thursday. After that she has a ten-day break. That’s going to help a lot! 

 

If you have kids or grandkids in school, please know that most of the teachers are doing the absolute best that they can. Maybe send a note, a kind word goes a long way.