Student Survivors

My heart goes out to all of those people who have been affected by Katrina. I have heard horror stories and received an email cautioning us as we get students who may have seen horrific things happen to family members and friends. We were warned that they might become very scared when it rains or the winds blow hard, that they could regress in behavior up to three years, and they might be very angry or feel guilt. To tell you the truth I didn't know how I would react when I got a student survivor.

My first students came today. First was little, well we'll call him Mark. I always ask my students where they have come from and so I pretended like I didn't know about Mark's situation and asked this question. Well when he responded that he had moved here from the Superdome, my eyes filled with tears. I was just thinking about this sweet little first grader trying to survive among all of those people. I wasn't sure how he would react to class so I was just kind of observing. We were playing a game where one student gets to be the wolf and he can either say that he is there, so he can chase us, or he can make up any excuse why he is gone. Some popular excuses are he went to Wal-Mart, he's brushing his hair, he's taking a nap, etc. But Mark had a turn and his reply was that he was playing the trumpet. That's New Orleans for you.