A nation looks at the bombing suspects in Boston and asks
itself: Is it religion? Is it negligent parenting? Is it the chaos of cultural
upheaval? Is it an innate evil that gripped those young men? Maybe we will
never know what toxic cocktail produced such a callous disregard for life and
limb.
But as a teacher, there is something else I read into the
stories as they emerge. I see a kid who was captain of his wrestling team, and
I know that there is a coach who poured his heart and soul into nurturing the
good in this kid, and that coach is grieving. I see a kid who had a scholarship
to college, and I know there are teachers who saw potential in that kid; who
taught him, wrote him recommendation letters, and who tried their best to
nurture the good in him, and those teachers are grieving.
Every day we pour everything we’ve got into ground that is
sometimes fertile, but often rocky, and we just don’t know where seeds will
take root, where they’ll be hopelessly quagmired in problems too deep for us to
overcome, or where they’ll be violently cast aside. Every day the job is tough,
but I salute those coaches and teachers who tried to turn a life in the right
direction, even when they cannot succeed.
