Shame on Me

I was in WalMart the other day and a well dressed young man approached me. As he drew closer I recognized him as one of my students when I student taught at Benton ten years ago. We spoke breifly about his classmantes and he told me that he was a practicing lawyer. This did not suprise me. He was a great kid to have in class and was quite clever. As we left each other I realized something very embarrasing, I forgot his name.

My wife helped me realize a while back that I had a tendency to spend a lot of time on my "bad" kids. This is true. I could tell you some stories about my worse kids and tell you all their names. This is sad and shameful. The young man I spoke to in WalMart was a great student and kids like this should not be overlooked. Instead we expect them to do good things and we fail to spend time on them. He gave me maximum effort and respect in that classroom and I cant even remember his name. I ahve tried to make myself feel better about this by thinking surely teachers forget kids names at some point in their careers but that is no excuse. Shame on me!