Tuesday, May 20, 2025
Words stick with me—not just like glue, but like splinters. Some are buried so deep I forget they’re there until they ache unexpectedly. A student’s quiet “I want to be dead like my dead grandfather” is one I now carry in my chest. It echoes. It lingers. It becomes a responsibility I cannot put down. When another calls himself “stupid” day after day, I feel something sharp and invisible pierce through my belief in progress.
What does it mean to teach when my students already believe the worst about themselves? What does it mean when their self-hate mirrors my own old wounds? Sometimes, their words open mine.
I remember being a new teacher, and a senior colleague scoffing, “Not everyone is meant for this.” I believed her for a long time. I repeated that line in my own head on hard days. I think about the words I’ve used to hurt myself—You’re weak. I am not enough. I will never fix this. Still, I showed up and I continue to show up. I also remember another student once whispered, “You make me feel safe.” That stuck too. Words build worlds. I am trying to create a space where my students—and I—can exist. Not just survive, but LIVE. Words build the walls of my classroom—not just the ones on anchor charts or in lesson plans, but the invisible ones too. Words from students, colleagues, myself. Some lift; many wound. A seven-year-old saying he wants to die isn’t just a red flag—it’s a knife in the air, and I catch it with my bare hands, again and again. I listen. I respond. I document. I call home. I alert the team. But at night, I lie awake wondering if I did enough. If hearing him means I somehow carry the responsibility to save him. What if I miss something? What if he stops speaking?
My own inner words haunt me too. The old ones, the dangerous ones: You’re failing. You’re falling apart. You’re the problem. I push them back with newer truths: You’re showing up. You’re trying. You care. But it’s a battle—daily, hourly, moment to moment. And in that battle, the good words matter just as much. A student once said, “You always smile when you see me.” I remember that. I hold onto it.
Teaching in special education is living in a world of raw, unfiltered truths. Nothing is masked. Nothing is softened. Emotions spill into the room before the bell even rings—grief, rage, joy, shame, love. I carry the pain of my students, yes—but also their brilliance, their humor, their hope. I see the way they light up when they feel understood, the way they laugh even through struggle, the way they show up again and again, even when life has taught them not to trust. I must remember I carry mine too—my own resilience, my small triumphs, my capacity to hold space for others while still healing myself. It’s easy to lose sight of that. I often forget that I am human and that my own story matters. I need to remember that I deserve the same grace I give so freely to my students and colleagues. I am not just a witness to my students’ growth—I am part of it. We are growing together, learning together, and surviving together. Some days, survival is sacred. Some days, simply staying is an act of quiet rebellion against every voice that ever said we couldn’t. I carry pain. I carry hope. I carry stories.
me: You’re heavy. I didn’t expect that when I first made you. You’re beautiful, but you ache. I look at you and feel that ache rising again—the one I try to keep buried.
The Words We Carry: I carry what you couldn’t say aloud. What you absorbed but never had time to grieve. His words—“I want to be dead like my dead grandfather”—you buried them in my lines, but they still breathe. I hold them gently. I don’t let them disappear.
me: I didn’t know how to honor those words without letting them destroy me. So I hid them in you. In collage and ink. But they still call out when I look. They still haunt me. He’s only seven.
The Words We Carry: Yes. Still, he gave you truth. And you listened. And now I echo it back—not to hurt you, but to remind you: witnessing is a form of love. You think your job is to fix, to heal, to rescue. But sometimes, the work is simply to see, to stay, to not look away.
me: It hurts to stay. Some days I feel I’m made of cracked glass. The scribble on you—that’s me. That’s how I feel most days: tangled, frustrated, barely holding shape.
The Words We Carry: Still, you created me. Out of chaos, you chose color. Out of despair, you chose presence. You didn’t throw me away. Just like you haven’t thrown yourself away. Or him. Or the others. The pain shines through, yes—but so does your hope. That’s why the man says, “I see you.” He’s you. He’s all of you. Seeing, staying, surviving.
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