Tuesday's Child

One of the most depressing things a teacher faces is a child who is at risk to begin with and comes to school with a coke high. He’s dazzled by the lights and his eyes dart from object to object. He can’t sit still and movement is his only release from the discomfort of a blood stream high on sugar and a body still digesting last night’s dinner of pizza.

Ordinarily, pizza is a good meal for a child, but some children don’t respond well to tomato sauce, and their behavior and ability to focus drops like a stone.

Homemade pizza is great, but the high fat, high calorie, high density calorie pizza you buy out is just too hard for a child to digest quickly. Children who eat more than a piece spend considerable time in agony.

Trying to emotionally or mentally contact a child sky high on soda and pizza might as well be considered ill. He can’t think and he can’t cooperate. He spends the day getting in trouble.

This week we have the fall festival. We expect children who are taken out to come in tired. We expect behaviors to be questionable, but children who come in shipwrecked will be sent home.