Sherry

Sherry (not her real name) is in tenth grade. She is a cheerleader and often puts her head down on her desk, tracing her name on her paper while I’m explaining something. She fiddles with her lip ring when I ask her to do work.

For the autobiography project, Sherry wrote about her father. When she was six years old, her father took her to a place that she thought was a toy store, but was really a gun store. He bought a gun and drove home. While her family was eating dinner, he burst into the room and pointed the gun at her mother.

In the midst of everyone screaming, Sherry and her sisters made a circle around their mother, using their bodies as protective shields. He father then pointed the gun straight at Sherry, who said she just stood there, frozen, for a long time. Eventually the neighbors saw her father, and he put the gun down.  Sherry and her three sisters and mother ran to her aunt’s house and broke in through the window, where they were safe.

Sherry didn’t see her father again until she was twelve and he got in a car crash. She visited him in the hospital and saw him hooked up to machines, and thought that things had worked out just fine.

She ends her story saying, “even though I am only fifteen, I learned I don’t have to depend on anyone, especially someone who can’t remember your own birthday.”

Ever since I heard this story, everything about Sherry makes sense. She looks out for people who need help, she doesn’t really trust authority, she’s argumentative because she thinks for herself. She is not this way by choice; she had to grow up much too quickly.

I have gotten better at not being constantly affected by my students, but I came home the other day and sat down and cried. I was thinking about all the shit, the drunk dads, the criminal brothers, the knives and guns and fear and sadness so many of them went through before they could read, or talk. They are all survivors in some way or another,  but it’s still difficult to comprehend.

I can’t help but wonder if I’m doing the right thing, having them share their personal lives and putting everything  in a book. So many terrible things have happened to them and when they finally expose themselves, they have to face the experience all over again. They definitely don’t want people feeling sorry for them.

So I’m proud of my students. Some days I feel proud of them for just coming to class.