For the past couple months, I've been spending a lot of time teaching children. I've been working my entire life up to this one mere experience, and it was stressful to say the least. I had to wake up every day knowing that I could mess up my life's work at the drop of a hat. Not to mention the everlasting murmur of childrens' jibber-jabbering when they're actually supposed to be listening to me. Teaching is my job and learning is theirs. I didn't think it would get much more complicated than that. However, I slowly started to expand my heart for them, maybe without even knowing it. Every day, I went in wondering how that baseball game went or whether or not she really did get what she wanted for her birthday. Moments passed, and the day came when I had to leave. It's funny, because when I started, I couldn't wait to leave. I imagined myself waving goodbye to the stress and the yelling and the bus duty and the misspelled homework. But, to my surprise, when I left, I yearned to stay. Without my knowledge, every one of those kids got to my heart. I was petrified. If they only knew their strength, they could very well run the world.
During my time there, I read a book called "The Family Under the Bridge". It's about an old hobo who stumbles upon a homeless family and initially finds the children detestable. However, with a little time, it turns out that all he needed to do was face his fear.
"I can't abide children", grumped Armand. "Starlings, they are. Witless, twittering, little pests." Mireli shook her finger at him. "You think you don't like children", she said, "but it is only that you are afraid of them. You're afraid the sly little things will steal your heart if they find out you have one."
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