There is more to teaching than teaching.
Armando sat handcuffed, bloody and angry in the back of the police car. The officer asked me if I could please talk to him because he wouldn’t listen and was not calming down. As I approached the police car I could see Armando’s eyes. There was something about him that I had never seen in him before. I can only describe it as rage, a drunken rage, laced with some other popular street drug, like meth or coke. I had no ideal what was wrong. I entered the front seat of the police car and faced Armando sitting in the backseat. Separated by the bars that divided the front seat from the backseat I questioned him. “Why did you do that?” His nose was bleeding and appeared broken, his white t shirt was covered in his own blood and his rage had instantly turned into tears. My questioning and presence changed him. But his response to my question changed me as a teacher forever.
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