Miss Janel, are you homeless?

The other day as I was nannying, one of my kids asked me point blank: "Miss Janel, are you homeless?" I know what you're thinking. Why does he call her MISS Janel?! But it's something their parents wanted, so that's what they do.

Anyways. I was kind of taken aback by the question, and simply responded "No." Well this struck up an interest in his younger sister's mind, because she had no clue what homeless meant. So the next hurdle was trying to figure out how to explain it to her. Before I could get a word in edgewise, the 6 year old boy says "Being homeless is when you do drugs and drink and then you have nowhere to live." Um......

At this point, I have to interject. "Well, that's not entirely true. Sometimes that's the case, but sometimes it's people who come back from war and have nowhere to go. Sometimes it's families that get into fights and it leaves some people without anywhere to go." And so on and so forth. Just trying to throw some other ideas out there for the kids other than "Oh yeah, they're just drunks and druggies."

As soon as I was done giving other explanations for why someone might be homeless, the conversation was over, and we were on to talking about baseball. I'm hoping at least some of my rambling and defensive conversation about the homeless people they're bound to see got through to them.

But the interaction made me think long and hard about what we're teaching our youth. Why is it that so many kids will go through life believing total lies like these? How can it be that we allow young people to believe the worst in people without any backstory? Isn't it ridiculous that WE as adults are the ones teaching our little ones to judge others? I think back to the stories we read in all the classes I student taught in, and how almost all of them came down to simple concepts like the golden rule and not judging a book by it's cover. But when it comes down to it, and all the books are closed, we're modeling the exact opposite.

It comes down to making a change at home first and foremost. But our schools, churches, after school programs, etc can be making a huge impact! Talking about real world issues can make a huge difference in these kids' lives. I understand that learning to read, write, and count are important. In fact, I devoted 4 years of my life learning to do just that. But right here, right now, I vow to do more than that. To instill values and impactful ideas into my future students. To focus not only on academics, but also on things that will give them insight on the outside world.

I hope that someday this will become a popular point of view. That teachers will be able to see past the standardized testing and district requirements, and will fall back in love with their profession. I know that's the desire of many teacher's hearts, but that desire gets lost behind the stress.