WATCH ABOVE: Allison Vuchnich looks at some of the heartbreaking thoughts students shared with their third grade teacher.
TORONTO – What did you wish your teacher knew? That’s the question one teacher in Colorado asked her pupils.
Some of the answers are heartbreaking but maybe not surprising.
Kyle Schwartz is an elementary school teacher near Denver, Colorado. For the past three years, she’s been asking her students to complete the sentence “I wish my teacher knew…”
The responses vary, but in her district, which is mostly low-income according to an ABC News report, many of the responses reveal the young students deal, and sometimes internalize, serious stressors.
“Some notes are heartbreaking like the first #iwishmyteacherknew tweet which read, ‘I wish my teacher knew I don’t have pencils at home to do my homework,’” Schwartz told ABC News.
“I care deeply about each and every one of my students and I don’t want any of them to have to suffer the consequences of living in poverty, which is my main motivation for teaching.”
Are you a teacher and want to share a story? Use the contact form below.
Schwartz lets her pupils decide whether or not to keep the messages secret or share them with the class. Most students choose to share, Schwartz told Qz.com, and sometimes it helps. She told the website that after one student told the class they had no friends there was a group of kids hanging out with them during recess.
She started posting some of the responses on Twitter, encouraging other teachers to try the same thing in their classrooms.
The hashtag caught on and motivated teachers to share the post, or try it themselves, and others to admit on Twitter some of the things they wanted their teachers to know.
And others, like Josh Stumpenhorst, a teacher in Illinois, commented on the hashtag, saying teachers – ideally – shouldn’t be surprised by the sometimes heartbreaking responses.
Are you a teacher with an opinion on #IWishMyTeacherknew? Or do you have a story about how you learned of your students’ problems? Contact Global News with the form below.
Note: We may use your response in this or other stories. While we may contact you to follow up we won’t publish your contact info.
Comments