Day: July 30, 2025

The children are ours, every single one of them all over the globe…James Baldwin

My entire life has been filled with children. Before I went to work as a teacher I had two daughters of my own and watched the five youngsters of others inside my home while their mothers took care of jobs and other business. While juggling classes at the University of Houston I landed a position as a preschool teacher that convinced me that my life’s work should be devoted to young people. After sending an editorial letter regarding some of the homilies being presented at my parish church the pastor visited my home and surprised me by agreeing with my complaints and convincing me to become a Sunday school teacher. Eventually the nuns directing the program tapped me to oversee the classes for preschoolers through the fifth grade as they exited to do community work. I somehow kept all the educational balls in my repertoire in the air while I finally obtained my degree and certification to be a teacher.

I bounced from school to school for a time, starting with an assignment at a Catholic school where I was the math teacher for all of the students in grades six through eight. I had six different classes to prepare each day but what might have been an onerous job for some became an exciting adventure that told me that I was doing what I was always meant to do. My enthusiasm for my students energized me in spite of the long hours of standing on my feet attempting to interest and challenge my charges while understanding the needs of each individual. Oh how I loved those young men and women!

More for a better income than any other reason, I next worked as a fourth grade teacher of every subject that the children needed with the exception of PE and music. I had even more preparations to make for three reading groups, social studies, science, math, art and a few other duties thrown in here and there. The students were much more diverse and economically disadvantaged than those at the private school but once again I adored them even as a little voice was telling me that I wanted to focus on the middle school aged pupils who are so often viewed as difficult. When a new opportunity arose I grabbed it in spite of the fact that I adored the principal of the elementary school and learned how to be a real teacher from her.

I enjoyed the growing pains of my middle school students with boundless joy. Somehow I got them and they got me. I taught wealthy young people from powerful families and youngsters who lived in poverty. It didn’t seem to matter whether they were altar boys or gang members, I loved them all and felt that they were part of my great big extended family.

Over the years I spent many a sleepless night worrying about my students and even when I retired there was never a day when I did not think of them. Most of them are in their thirties, forties, and fifties, now. I do my best to keep up with them, rejoice in their achievements and grieve when I hear of their difficulties. I also still teach and tutor a small group of young people a few hours each week. I no longer have the fortitude to spend eight to ten hours on my feet with little more than a few short breaks, but I miss the long days that began in the dark and rarely ended before ten at night. It was then that I knew true happiness in my vocation.

I have felt an almost spiritual devotion to the children and young adults who came my way. I did my best to nurture them, guide them, love them. I enjoyed being a Dean of Faculty and providing assistance to the teachers. I understood the enormity and importance of their tasks. I learned from them and became as close to them as I had always been to my students.

I truly believe that those children, even the more grown up ones, are ours and that we have a duty to make sure that they will be okay. There should be no strings attached to what we might do for them, no budgetary restraints that do not allow us to provide them with whatever they need to fulfill their talents and dreams. We should be focused on and dedicated to providing them with every opportunity to reach the potential that is inside each and every one of them. There is no investment that a society might make that is more wonderful than insuring that no child in ever afraid, hungry, sick, or uneducated. Every one of them is unique and longing to become the best of themselves. It matters not what language they speak, where they live, what appearance they may have. The children should always be our number one priority. We should minister to them without prejudice or avarice. If we have to sacrifice to make their lives comfortable and meaningful, so be it.

It has been a great honor to work with children over many decades. There is no job, that compares. The satisfaction that I have felt in knowing that thousands of souls are now productive and able to care for themselves and their loved ones because I played a part in educating them is immeasurable. I truly cannot understand why anyone would become stingy with the resources and care that they all need. To deny even one child anywhere in the world a childhood filled with wonder and discovery seems almost to be a sin. If we were all to focus on the children with love most problems would disappear. We cannot reserve our opportunities for only those like us. Our largess for children must be given freely and happily to all.