Making a Difference

My new students’ parents are CEO’s, surgeons, politicians and important people in general. My students at my most recent school had parents who were often in jail, looking for work or working 3 jobs to put food on the table. While the former position was often more challenging, it was very satisfying to know that I was building relationships and educating students (or at least trying to) who were often overlooked, ignored or forgotten. In my new job, I was initially struggling with the fact that my students’ families here are ridiculously wealthy and I was no longer needed. In fact, I am teaching students that are the children of the Salvadoran elite. They have drivers, nannies and maids. However, over the past month, I’ve come to realize that my students here have more in common with my students living in poverty than I initially realized; many of their parents are not around. These students are looking for love, attention and acceptance from anywhere they can find it. They may be more polite in their approach, but many of them are just as needy for approval. Absent parents due to working 3 jobs or multiple month-long business trips abroad produce similar results only one is masked with material possessions.

Making a difference last year may have meant encouraging a student not to get into any physical altercations in the evenings or convincing a student that stealing really isn’t the best way to get what they need. Making a difference this year might mean impacting someone so that they are compelled to make environmentally-friendly or socially-conscious decisions when they inherit the family fortune or become president of El Salvador. Believe it or not, the former is easier for me to stomach in my “making a difference” mindset. It’s hard for me to recognize that the latter is valuable and important as well and not just making myself feel better in a cush situation. In fact, in the end, these students could end up having a really influential impact on the most vulnerable members of society based on the decisions that they make. Teaching them well means hope for the powerless (hopefully)!