I teach 3rd grade. One student always drew ugly pictures of me. She drew my big teeth, wild hair, and wrinkles. Other teachers laughed, “She’s mocking you!” I kept them anyway.
On the last day of school, her last drawing made me freeze. She drew me with her. She also she wrote on the back: “This is you being nice to me when no one else was.”
I later learned she was being moved between foster homes that year. School was the only constant she had. And apparently, I was the only adult who smiled at her every morning.
