The Compassion of a Child

She quietly walked up to my desk, tilted her head down slightly, and held out a small plastic bag tied in a knot. In her shy, almost inaudible voice, she said "This is for the people in Haiti." She looked up at me with her innocent brown eyes, barely smiling, but filled with the compassion of a child. The bag boasted a toonie, some quarters, mixed with a few nickels, dimes, and pennies, all emptied from her piggy bank; a piggy bank that I knew would not be refilled anytime soon. I wanted to shout her story of selflessness from the rooftops, but at the same time, I knew that her act was not done for recognition, but solely for the purpose of giving.

With the unexpected, but also rewarding re-entry into full-time teaching, it has been so easy for me over the past two weeks, to get caught up in the pressure of what to teach, how to teach, planning, assessment. The feeling of being overwhelmed would hit me at some point each day. On Tuesday morning, with yet more directives being issued by the board, and more meetings debating rubrics and expectations, the feeling of "just let me teach" was screaming in my head. Then I walked back into my classroom, welcomed loudly by my exuberant brood, and was met with an overflowing shoebox of coins and bills from just one day of our Haiti fundraising drive. The excitement on my students' faces, and their motivation to do more, was well worth all of the politics of teaching. I was amazed with their compassion, as well as their sense of social responsibility.

For each piggy bank that was emptied, for each allowance that was donated, for each small act, this is my way of shouting my amazement and my gratitude from the rooftop.