What would you do as an elementary principal if an eight year old girl ran into your office with panic on her face and shouted, “Mr. Patrick, Ruby said come quick. Some men are aiming guns at the kids on the playground. Would you run to face the presumed killers or would you run the other way? And would you cry when you arrived at work one morning as the high school principal to be told a boy you cared for, but had to expel for drug use, had committed suicide the night before? Would you wrap your arms around the crying senior girl, a woman physically, but who had a little girl inside who feared her mother would die? And would you not swell with pride when a troubled young man, who had graduated the previous year, threw his arms around you and said, “I owe it all to you Mr. Patrick.”? This was a boy who everyone, including the school board, had regarded as an evil intelligent boy who should be expelled. You alone stood as a buffer between his critics and him. These then are some of the highs and lows of being an educator.
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