Member-only story
Monday Morning Mellow — July 22nd
The words rang loud and clear and pierced through to the heart…
“Go back where you came from!”
It’s the first week in August of 1986 and my first year as a classroom teacher. I was assigned a 5th/6th grade split and happy to have the job. Even though I had been a substitute teacher for several months during the previous school year I had no idea what it would be like to be the leader and at the helm in my own classroom.
I’d imagined an idealistic setting where everyone loved to read and learn. I would begin the new school year the way I had taught school to my stuffed animals as a child. They each sat attentively and waited patiently for my direction and instructions. Before the week was out my real life, human students were unkind to one another to the point where I finally I had to stop teaching my lesson to address the issue.
“What’s going on here?” I asked in a serious and authoritative tone.
“They’re telling us to go back where we came from,” came a voice I couldn’t recognize.
I feigned ignorance to get closer to them.
“You mean like go back to the play yard or the lunch area?”
They ignored my feeble attempt at humor and proceeded to school me.
