sadness

i'm not going to go into details because i don't think it's a good idea, but one of my student's fathers shot and killed a man over the weekend. it's a complicated story and i don't want to make the student or father identifiable, but there was an element of self-defense involved. the newspaper story was very brief.

on monday, this student (he's in my strategic class) asked me if i had seen the news. yesterday he asked me again, and while we were in the computer lab he was trying to find an article on the newspaper website. (at this point, i still had no idea what was going on--i didn't even know that something had happened in his family.)

he asked to use the phone at the end of class yesterday. he got off the phone, and everyone else was gone, and as he was leaving class he told me the story. his dad is locked up, and my student's other family members who he is staying with won't let him go home and get any of his stuff. he's staying with his grandfather who is apparently very dependable.

his other teachers couldn't find the newspaper article but i found it last night. i can't stop thinking about it--this is the closest i've ever come to something like this, other than when i volunteered in the jail, but that was very different. i care a lot about my students and i can barely imagine how he is feeling. i know him pretty well and i'm worried about the effect this will have on him.

anyways, it's just on my mind. i didn't get a chance to post last weekend because all i did was grade papers and go for a long bike ride on sunday and a long walk on saturday.

more this weekend.