"How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us."
There are students who put others off through their anger, their willingness to argue and yell, to attack. And there are students who take a more passive-aggressive approach, who are interested to see if they can get under your skin and make you back off through sheer "I don't know and I don't care" apathy.
Neither type of student is truly helpless. But they often feel that way, have been betrayed many times by the people who were supposed to love and support them. So when an adult reaches out, their first response is usually to test, to put weight on the hand you extend to see if the hand will fall away or whether or not it will return.
Our job as adults is to care for and love others, especially children, as hard and as long as we can, to see in them strengths and potentials that they dare not recognize until others shine a stubborn light on them. It has been my experience--and certainly was on Monday--that few joys in life equal what one feels when a wounded child offers up her or his trust.
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