Today is graduation at my school. All year it seems as though this day will never come. It also seems like I will be glad to watch my students leave and ready to start the summer – which I am. However, I also feel a deep sense of reflection at this time. I can’t help but get a little teary-eyed as I look back at the past year and the lives that my students have led.
Josefina is the perfect example.
This is her son – Chucky.
I took this photo one day after school with my iPhone. Josefina was staying after school, working on math. Josefina stayed after almost every day to work on math. We are lucky in that our students can bring their kids to school and take them to a day care that is downstairs. So, every day, Josefina would take Chucky to day care and pick him up after school and bring him up to our math teacher’s classroom. He would play or nap while she worked on her homework.
I wonder about Josefina’s life. I wonder about what drives her to just keep on going. She has pure strength inside of her.
Chucky’s real name is Angel. I think that embodies perfectly the innocence and optimism she must have felt, when at 15 years old she had him. The father is in prison and Josefina struggles to make it to school every day. She also takes care of her mother, who doesn’t speak English. She lives on Top Raman because they can’t afford to buy groceries sometimes. Josefina is by far the best student in my class. You wouldn’t know it by her grades, but she really is. She studies. She works hard. She has a positive attitude. She is funny. She enjoys learning. And she is a bright spot in my day. Last fall, she debated about whether or not to drop out of school. I talked with her, her case manager, and her tracker and tried to convince her to stay. She did and I truly believe that my year would have been completely different if she had gone.
I think this year I might be a little bit more emotional about graduation because I don’t know if I am coming back next year. My job interview in Casper is on Tuesday. Only a few students know that I might be leaving and it is weird to not say goodbye to anyone knowing that I might be leaving. As I made the graduation video today, I almost cried.
From Josefina I have learned that you can keep moving forward, taking one step at a time, one day at a time. I have learned to laugh and giggle as much as you can. I have learned that I am truly blessed. And I have learned that we really do influence other people by just being who we are. I’m sure Josefina has no idea how I feel about her, but she has changed me. I will miss her the most if I leave.
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Love it!