Each day that I go to school, I prepare myself for my students. Prepare to teach them and guide them where they need to be.

And each day, they teach me something.

One of my students, Sofie, left her abusive boyfriend, is now sleeping on her parent’s sofa with her daughter. She didn’t wait for the time to be “right”, she did it when it needed to be done.  She is struggling with her decision, but sticking with it. There are people that would and do condemn her for being a teen mom. They don’t see how she works to make a future and a life for her little family.

She isn’t the first student that I have had to leave an abusive situation. My first year at the school, one of my students, Amber was being abused by her boyfriend. He shoved her head into the wall of their house and beat her with a shovel. All while her daughter was watching. I saw the bruises as did others.  She was eighteen, had already been in a group home, but had left to return to her boyfriend. Everyone was at the end of their ropes.. then I rush in like a fool. I drove her to her house, load everything we could into my car and took off.

I stored the majority of the things which we gathered in a closet, took them to dinner, then I waited at a bus stop with Amber and May for the van from the shelter to pick them up. I spent the next couple of months taking her back and forth to school.  Finally, we were able to get her school bus. It was a crazy time. But worth it.  Amber graduated that year and is now in massage therapy school.

Some might call me a hero for what I did; others foolish, but in the end, I did what I thought was right regardless of the consequences.  My students look to me to do the right and teach me everyday how to be a better person.  Many of the girls I teach have gotten a raw deal by life, yet they choose to raise their children, go to school and work towards a future. When Amber graduated, she was the first person in her family to do so.

I am grateful for them. All the lessons that I have learned and all the lesson I have yet to from them.