Warning: I planned on not having a very seriously focused blog, but my emotions got the best of me. SO I thought I would start on a happy note. In going through my Teachers Planning Book this afternoon, I found a note I had scribbled one day in February: “C: Ms. Davis, skin milk is gross. I mean, whose skin is it?” I love kids.

On my drive home from work yesterday I saw a rainbow. I was driving up by the Arch and there it was, waiting for commuters after a chaotic summer rain. And the first thing I thought: did my kids see this?

And more specifically, it made me think of one face: Mia. Mia was a beautiful little girl who was in my class until January 29, the Saturday she passed away after a too-brief lifetime of sickness and exhaustion.

It has been almost six months since that day Mia didn’t come to school and my heart broke, and I think about her every day. I think about her smile, her laugh, her pout. She was one of my kids.

One of the most difficult things to deal with personally was feeling that I failed Mia. I still feel that way. Here was this wonderful little girl who just wanted to go home with a sticker on her spelling test on Friday, who wanted to play in gym and recess, who wanted to show off the teddy bear she got for Christmas. This little girl had every reason in the world to live a normal and healthy life, and she couldn’t. She is the face of our children, the face of the students who suffer each and every day (physically, emotionally, and educationally) because they are trapped in the cracks of our system.

I’ve never been a bleeding heart liberal person, and I’m still not. I’m a bleeding heart, I care too much, I over-invest, I tend to root for and stick by the underdog. But I don’t think every person is out for themselves and themselves alone. I don’t think criticism of welfare and other social policies are devilish and uncaring. I don’t hate America or its policies, and I still truly believe that we try our best for the whole – but I don’t think it happens. And I don’t think it happens because we do not see everyone in every walk of life, we don’t empathize the way we are supposed to, and we don’t plan for success, we jump at it when we have a glimpse of it. I’ve known my entire life about poverty, lack of opportunity, the gaps – but this experience took me from a sympathetic place to one of empathy. And too few of us get to go there.

Whatever your thoughts on Teach for America (and I know there are many positive and negative), I hope anyone reading knows that people are usually better than you give them credit for, they usually care more than you think, and when people understand one another, beautiful things are possible.

The reason by kids are in the gap, the reason Mia didn’t have the help she needed, the reason programs like TFA were created – we don’t know enough about the problems to fix them. Many people in Saint Louis don’t realize that a mile down the street, schools are failing. People don’t realize a smile down the street, children are being abused. People don’t realize that in their own backyard, they can help.

Mia is my reminder that there is work to be done and children who need our help, our attention, and our love. The pain I have in my heart with her death is one of the strongest feelings I have ever known, but she is only one of the faces that fuel the dreams I chase every morning.

We turn on our televisions each day and hear news commentators and politicians battle it out over education and how our system is a mess, our kids are failing, and our teachers are cheating and dropping the ball. I promise this isn't going to be a rant on how teachers actually aren't these evil, selfish beings who are exploiting children for holidays off and a "part-time" job. No, I'm more concerned with something way more important than us teachers.

The one thing I notice in each of these heated discussions (aside from the ignorance at play) is the constant elephant in the room: nobody is really thinking about our children. Yes, we are pointing fingers and arguing until we are blue in the face, but what good does that do?

The students - the children - are left out of the politics play and not regarded as they really are. It's not about whether you think testing is evil or a necessity, if you think teachers are the culprits or the school boards are dropping the ball - it's about what we do now, where we go from here so our children are not BEHIND where we were, but rising to the occasions of their growing futures.

Because really, all I see is a society who pretends to value education but really does not. If we did, we would invest in training for teachers. We would make teaching an ideal career opportunity because educators are the gatekeepers for our children's futures. We would make sure our children had opportunities to interact with one another and ourselves as much as possible, we would invest in mentorship programs with more than a check or a Facebook shoutout, and we would devote our time to them instead of multitasking our parenting by letting the XBox play babysitter.

My heart is breaking on a daily basis because I have to face that I am not yet a good enough teacher for my students, and nobody seems to notice or care. Yes, I helped them this year - a lot. I taught them, I loved them, I raised them just a little to be better human beings who ar confident and smart. But I didn't challenge them the way they needed, because I just don't know how to truly turnaround a school. I'm missing several factors that I had in my childhood that made me who I am, and I have to figure out how to fill those gaps.

What do you do when your children are already forgotten by their society before they have a chance to be who they are? How do you make them see their own significance when nobody seems to notice that they exist? When they are brushed under the rug?

Because I'll tell you what, my students, your students, his students, her students, their children ... they matter. They aren't a set of numbers behind a test sheet. They aren't a ploy to fuel your fire for television ratings. They aren't your philanthropy project to make you feel better about yourself. No, these kids are amazing and they have the potential to change not only their trajectory, but that of every child who follows their footsteps in their neighborhoods.

I've seen my kids wake up to a dismall day beyond the window and come to school with a smile on their face and their homework complete. I've seen my kids run from dogs to get to school, run past the dangers that loom the streets in their neighborhood, and find a way to put on some clothes and come to school. I've seen my kids resist gangs, watch family disappear from their lives tby death, choice, or (well, it's still choice) imprisonment. I've seen my kids stand up for each other on the playground when a friend's life or family is threatened. I've seen my kids lose one of their classmates and mourn and support one another. I've seen my kids handle things I didn't when I was 7 years old -- so what makes everyone think my kids can't be successful?

I'm watching the world mourn the injustice of a beautiful little girl who was ripped from this world in a tragic and horrific way. Like many of you, it broke my heart to hear her story. But then I think she is one of so many children who are neglected while they are here and given a life undeserved. And then I think of my children, and I want them to be remembered now while they are here, not forgotten in life or death. They matter, and people need to know that.

Now, how do we fix this?