confession and a rant?

Today in class we were talking about our duty as teachers to report any suspicions of child abuse we may have. We are held liable if we do not report any suspicion within 48 hours, which is good, because then you have to make sure you take action right away instead of deliberating forever over what the right thing to do is.

It reminds me of one really bad memory. Of everything I've ever done in life, this is one of my biggest regrets:
It was 4 years ago, when I was a junior in high school. I was an assistant leader of a group of first and second graders in Pioneer Girls, which is basically the church's version of Girl Scouts. There was one girl who had some developmental problems. She absolutely could not sit still or pay attention and would roll around the room touching things while we were supposed to be doing an activity while sitting in a circle. She had to have a parent come in with her. First, it was her dad. He was so good with her. He was calm and patient, and tried to explain things to her very simply. He kept trying to hold her attention and help her complete the activity with the rest of us. The next week, however, it was her mom. She was rude to her daughter, yelling at her and just telling her to "get over here!" She was very impatient and abrasive, and her daughter did not respond to her well at all. She just rolled around the room even more, so during the middle of a lesson, the mom grabbed her daughter by the hair and dragged her across the floor to sit next to her. I was absolutely horrified. I wanted to yell at her and push her away from the girl, but I couldn't say a thing. I didn't even know if I should. I looked around, but the teachers just kept talking. They hadn't seen a thing! The only people who saw were me and one of the other girls. She looked just as shocked as I did and just stared at them and at me. I can't believe I didn't say anything. Not only did I not do anything to protect the girl from abuse, but I sent the message to the other little girl that it apparently wasn't a big deal. No one would do anything to stop it. No one even seemed to care. I often forget this even happened until something like this brings the memory up. If I got any moment to do over in my life, this would probably be at the top of the list.

So as a teacher, I can see how this will be hard. But I am accountable to other people, and I'll have guidance counselors and principals and hopefully other people I can go to if I'm at all suspicious and need a second opinion.
However, there's another side to this. There are definitely cultural differences in standards of raising children, but the school system has more specific ideas of what families should look like. For instance, I have met some kids who live in the inner city of Baltimore who are often left home alone, even though they're too young. Their parents don't always know where they are. They don't all have very good hygiene. These are all things that could count as neglect cases. But let's say I end up teaching in an area like this. Do you really expect me to call Child Protective Services on all of these families? That would be more harmful to the kids, and the last thing I'm trying to do is break up families.
Man, teaching won't be easy. Unless I end up at some rich private school where the kids' parents have already taught them everything they'll ever need to know. But, I don't think that's exactly where I want to be...not that I see myself as some crusader for urban schools or anything. I'm not trying to act like I'll be some amazing reformer of a poor, failing classroom, and the children will fall in love with me and ace all their tests because I connect with them on some amazing level that only young, white, female teachers like Michelle Pfeiffer can do.
That's another thing that bothers me, while I'm on the subject. We talk about poverty all the time, and name all these terribly depressing statistics. It's not they're not true, and I think that we usually do it in an effort to understandhow hard it is for poor families. But it gets to a point where we're creating this tragedy that's not always there. We can't act like everyone with a low income is depressed and unhappy, and they need teachers to come give them this amazing education that will one day set them free. Of course we want to do everything we can to give kids opportunities to succeed in school as well as rich kids do, so that they don't have to live in poverty. But the inner city is not all bad, and not having a car is not a terrible thing. Having things and money is not all that great either. Give kids a little credit; they just might be enjoying life as it is. Yes, we should learn statistics so we can understand where people are coming from, and the problems they face, but we cannot look at our students as victims, or they will never learn anything.

Okay, I'm done.