Empowerment

I connected best with story #137, the one about Charlie. I think that especially in middle school classrooms, you will always find students who need someone to talk to about what's going on in their lives. While reading this book, I was torn between rallying for these students who obviously have issues in their lives, and wondering how things like this even come up in class? I don't remember any other student in my own middle and high school classes ever just having a random outburst that was actually caused by a crack-addict mom or a dad behind bars. I keep thinking that things like this just don't happen in Maine. I'm happy that I haven't experienced it, but it's also frustrating because I haven't experienced it.