Sometimes I look out at my classes and just see adolesents dealing with the same issues I dealt with as a teenager – like conflicts with parents and parents and balancing one’s social, academic, and extracurricular commitments. However, I know that some have much heavier baggage.
A couple days ago, I was remindered of this again. A student who has been in and out of my class this year approached me and said she had to be honest about something. She was recovering from being addicted to heroin and meth. She had also been a dealer. After being clean for 30 days, she slipped back into it again. She missed school a couple days last week because she wanted to avoid a situation that would have dragged her further into it again. She was trying to stay clean, again.
I told her that the Industrial Revolution project was not as important as her health. We talked about modifying the project so she could still attend five meetings a week and pass the class.
She missed another three days in a row. I hope she is ok.
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