the things that break your heart
2006-09-28 | 7:16 p.m.

Today at lunch, the staff room at the school where I'm doing my placement was all abuzz with stories of the Scary New Kid. SNK couldn't read, he had extremely poor social skills, he was agressive, he said disturbing things, he threw horrific tantrums.

When I say that the staff room was abuzz, I mean that the teachers were freaking out. Freaking ... out.

After lunch, I met SNK. He seemed pretty bright, actually. Not very articulate, but bright. There's potential there, I think.

But this kid has got a shit home life. Utter shit. He never even went to kindergarten (since it's optional), and now he's in grade one, surrounded by kids who know the teacher, know each other, know the routine, and know the basic skills that he's never had a chance to learn.

When I last saw him, he was sitting alone in the principal's office with a picture book in his lap, looking utterly terrified, struggling not to cry, and pleading with anyone who would listen to let him go home because he wasn't having any fun at all.

And now, I can't stop thinking about this little boy whose future may already be set out for him, because he's got a mother who isn't able to do what's best for him, and teachers who see him more as a scary behaviour problem than a person, and a set of school support staff who can't or won't do anything for him because he doesn't have any actual disabilities.

These are the kids who slip through the cracks. And there are so many of them in the world.

A couple of comments I heard in the staff room at lunch gave me reason to hope that someone, somewhere, might be able to do something for that little boy. Someone, somewhere, might be able to step in and prevent him from growing up to be an unemployed high school drop-out, or worse.

But what if they don't?

The look on his face as he sat there in the principal's office ... oh, if you had only seen it.

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