Sometimes the battles we face consume us to the extent that we neglect to see the battles our kids might be facing. As adults it would seem that our life’s trials are more important than our student’s. We are the ones who have all the responsibilities after all, bills, family, career, deadlines to name a few.  We are the ones who our kids turn to for answers when there’s a problem. It’s us that shoulders the weight, right? This has been true for me.

Our story begins at the beginning of my 8^th year of teaching. While school shopping for the beginning of the school year there was a 5-year-old boy in the school supply aisle demanding that he get a name brand backpack with a specific logo. Mom and dad both said no, but the 5-year-old boy continued to demand the brand name bag.

“You don’t need this one. You’re only in kindergarten,” they explained.

“But everyone else has this kind,” he argued further. This 5-year-old insisted that he needed the bag with the logo which was the most expensive one in the store. “We are NOT spending THAT much money on a kindergartener,” which ended the argument (or at least all of it but the crying).

This 5-year-old was convinced that he had to have this bag. Yet, it’s not the price of the bag that matters but what goes inside of it. After all, the purpose of the bag was to tote his belongings to and from school. When I pondered this scene, it struck me that our kids are carrying more than just books these days to school. We just may not see these obstacles because we have our own.

One particular student in my 6^th grade English class was struggling with his work, and in turn his grade suffered. I was tempted to be frustrated with him because I knew this boy’s abilities. If you’re a teacher, you know how frustrating it is to have a student fail on your watch because they choose not to do the work, they are capable of. Instead of getting frustrated I started making attempts to tutor him to bring his grades up. He was going to need some one-on-one help if he was going to get out of this hole. His older sister stayed behind with him after school while he was tutored.

“First things first. Get your book bag out and find your homework from yesterday.” He started pulling out papers with no folder to place them in. I went over and got a folder and a label for his English class. As he pulled out another paper, I noticed it was a Science worksheet. So, I proceeded to get him a different colored folder with another label for Science. He went back in to dig yet another subject worksheet with no folder. Homework half completed, some completed and NOT turned in for a grade! One after the other after the other. And each with no folder. Just like Mary Poppins with her magical bag the papers kept coming and coming.

I gave him a different colored folder for each subject, all with a label. It was apparent that to get this boy on track we would need to dig through the entire bag, which you needed a shovel to dig out. Paper after paper, crammed, shoved, and stuffed down into his bag. At the bottom of the bag, was the technology use permission slip from DAY ONE of school. (It was now the second semester of school) After unpacking his entire book bag, he sat on the floor surrounded by a crumpled mess of papers.

It would appear that he was simply shoving every paper into his bag never to be touched again, some having multiples copies of the same paper.

It was at this point that I realized this 6^th grade boy was shoving a lot more than crumpled up papers in his book bag.  

Come to find out, his family was recently going through a divorce, and he was going back and forth to his mom and dad’s over the weekends, often losing track of his book bag from place to place. When I spoke with mom, she explained that both brother and older sister were leaving things behind at one place or another. Mom was also at work when the kids arrived home from school and just barely making ends meet. Checking homework was not being done.

With each crumpled up piece of paper being unpacked; I saw just what this boy was actually suppressing. He wasn’t just cramming his schoolwork down into a mess, he was cramming each emotional response to his broken home down inside, just hoping he would not have to see it again. Seeing the immense amount of work, from day one, surrounding him was a visual image of his emotional baggage he carried each day.

In the same way, our students walk into our classrooms with unspoken, and unacknowledged burdens weighing them down daily. They carry the guilt of a broken home, depression and anxiety, self-hatred, loneliness, anger, hopelessness, and even abuse, things kids should never have to shoulder, especially alone. Just the amount of pressure to fit in as a kindergartener is much more than a child should be concerned with at 5 years old.

As adults, our plates are so full of our own battles that it becomes easy to overlook the ones our kids face but seeing the physical manifestation of a 6^th grade boy’s emotional baggage spoke volumes to me. Each student brings in burdens too heavy for them to bear. These burdens in turn get dumbed on us as the educator and we then carry them home.

If you feel tired, if you feel exhausted at the end of the day, dear teacher, it’s not just because you have hours of grading to do. You take on each and every one of your students burdens they carry in with them. As much as we love our kids and care for them, we can’t lift each of these burdens. It’s critical for us then to find a way to release this weight placed on us.

For all the overworked and burnt-out teachers out there, there is a place where we can unload our burdens. We first must admit we can’t lift the burden ourselves. Take time today to unpack your book bag, dear teacher. God is waiting to hear from you.

^“6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, ⁷ casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.”  I Peter 5:6-7 NKJV (New King James Version)

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