Six Word Slice of Life: Fragile Students

(For this month’s Slice of Life Challenge with Two Writing Teachers, I am aiming to do Six Word Slices most days, with some extended slices on other days.)

Context: Actually, I don’t want to give much context today, to protect the privacy of my students. I just want to say that the inner lives of our students are complex and confusing at times for them, and their grappling with difficulties and stress and anxiety and friendships can suddenly surface in unexpected ways. Helping our students through that, as best as they can, is part of what makes teaching both challenging and rewarding.

Six Word Slice of Life Fragility

Peace (inside, too),
Kevin

16 Comments
  1. I’ve thought about this a lot this year. I have a class in which quite a few students are trying to cope with bad situations or major upheaval at home. It saddens me to think of the burdens we place on our children.

  2. Being a newcomer in Singapore and at my school, I have been surprised more than once by just this very thing–mostly students have shared vulnerable, fragile moments when they’ve also seen me struggle or cope with hard times. It’s been daunting and wonderful simultaneously.

  3. This has been on my mind as well. Again, something I can’t share either because of the privacy of my students. I like how you honored that with this post.

  4. We should all stop and consider these words. We never completely know what a person is carrying. Creating supportive environments in schools is critical. Thank you for inviting us to pause and consider.

  5. In the old days kids were always stressed from something- romance, grades, college… serious of course, but given the more dramatic issues from guns, cyber bullying… I wonder often how much harder life is for teachers and kids… how will that impact on our future?

  6. This is so true and something we need to remember daily. I feel like the number of fragile students continues to increase and I continue to struggle with providing them with all they need. Heartbreaking at times.

  7. I’ve been thinking a lot about fragile students. Sometimes I think their lives are just more complicated w/ more demands; other times I think their parents and society, including teachers, haven’t done a good job helping kids learn coping skills. I do know kids seem more fragile now than ever, and I feel overwhelmed by that.

    • It’s doesn’t help that too much of education seems to have shifted away from community building and emotional work. That’s not just soft and fuzzy treehugging. That’s survival skills. Many kids don’t have anything close to that at home. And even ones that do, they can still have difficulties for all sorts of reasons. Teachers matter.

  8. Yes. Keeping our hearts open to what behind-the-scenes stuff our kiddos are dealing with is so important. Your students are lucky to have your compassion in their lives.

  9. Fragile and resilient
    I’m proud of My Kids 🙂

    I used to have kids walking almost a mile as the school bus will not drive them to school for free – “to close from school according to decision makers”, one had to feed his niece before getting on the 6:30 bus, and the stories go on and on. They did not give up easily and so shouldn’t we. My kids, all 100 of them.

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