Every December, you can feel the holiday spirit in the air. Even here in Arizona, where “winter wonderland” is just a cactus covered in sun, a middle school is a perfect way to gauge the collective holiday spirit.
At my school, Christmas spirit has been raging since before the calendar turned to December. There are decorations, costumes, Santa hats, ugly sweaters, treats aplenty and lots of dress-up days. We even had a “wear blue day” for Hanukkah and my plastic Menorah sits proudly on my classroom desk.
The environment closely resembles my first teaching job back in Texas. Each school’s PTA goes all-out in thanking the staff for raising their kids… err, I mean doing their job as educators.
Sandwiched between these two high-achieving schools planted in prosperous communities was my experience at a Title I school last year. The holiday season felt very different around those kids, even with the lure of a two week break from school on the horizon.
The thing is, those kids weren’t going on vacation over break. They might go to the mall. They’re not getting cool new clothes or a new iPhone for Christmas. Some won’t celebrate Christmas at all. Some don’t have a family to celebrate it with. There are no eight days of Hanukkah. There might be one night of joy, and that’s pushing it.
What troubles me most about this egregious difference in class, quality of life and imbalance of childhood is these kids are just that… kids. They have no say in the matter and didn’t choose the family they were born into. Many of the young boys and girls at my previous school don’t even live with their birth parents. Some don’t even know where they are. Some do, and that answer is worse than the unknown.
At the center of this personal conundrum, a specific boy comes to mind. For obvious reasons, I won’t be divulging his name. So, like the famous Johnny Cash song my dad used to play all the time in the car, he’s going to be a boy named Sue.
This boy lives with his grandmother. His mom is a drug addict living in Wisconsin. He wears a Packers jersey sometimes and occasionally speaks positively about his birth mother. Most of the time, he laments about how she only calls to ask for money, constantly relapses, and is a negative influence on his older brother who is out of the house and has joined mom up north.
He knows where his dad is. Sort of. He has an idea. He’s strung out somewhere in Phoenix.
Grandma is incredibly supportive and, despite the hurdles placed on this boy since before he even entered the world, he was one of my best students. In fact, he was often bored in class as so many students at this school required extreme attention for both academic and behavioral reasons.
When Christmas or any holiday or even just the weekend came around, Sue and many of the other students said something that surprised me. I was shocked to hear a middle school kid ever mutter these words.
“I don’t want to go home.”
Staying at school meant not being home. This boy had a grandmother who cared about him, but his home wasn’t teeming with space or fancy toys. Long weekends and holidays are loved the world over by all ages. It really woke me up to the life these kids live when they would rather stay at school than have time off.
The day before a break, I’m used to students bouncing off the walls, barely able to contain their excitement. For many at the underserved, ignored Title I school, the days before breaks were somber, tepid and nervous.
This holiday season -- scratch that, any given random Tuesday -- it’s never a bad time to appreciate what you have. I never did that enough. As I’ve gotten older, and especially after sharing my life with disadvantaged young people who have a stacked deck against them in a laughably uneven playing field, I do it every day.
Appreciate what you have, because some have never had it. Think not about what more you want, but what you've never needed. Be grateful for the things you never need to ask for, but are always there.
We don't choose the family we are born into. Some of us are more fortunate than others. Always keep that in mind and never lose perspective.
Have a Happy Holiday!
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