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Blog Entry 29 of 31 Life Lessons Learned from Students

Hi, I'm Jerry. I live in the Pinery in Parker. I traveled to Columbia Middle School in Aurora for many years where I taught 7th and 8th grade language arts. Over time, I realized that students had just as much to teach me about life as I had to teach them about reading, writing, and literature. After I retired in June, 2005, I began writing this collection. I am currently on the seventh story, but plan on having about twenty stories in the finished collection.

Blog Url: http://denver.yourhub.com/~JerryLaPre

Mahryah

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Contributed by: Jerry LaPre on 7/13/2008

These stories end where they began, the year I taught Mercy and Mahryah.

Mahryah

The following year on the first day of school in my first period language arts class, I noticed two smiling girls sitting next to each other in the back of the room. One of them was Mercy and the other one was a girl named Mahryah. They were best friends and were inseparable.

Mahryah was Mercy's cohort in compassion and spirit. She was also a Christian who went out of her way to help people who needed it. She helped everybody, not just her physically disabled language arts teacher. Students with learning or physical difficulties often benefited from Mahryah's kindness.

When I called her mother and told her, she said, "That's the way we raised her. That's what we expect her to do for others less fortunate than herself."

After having taught the most selfish group of eighth graders I had ever seen the previous year, this attitude from a student was a revelation. It was true, too. Once I got to know Mahryah, I knew if she helped someone, the person must truly be in need. I never felt that she took advantage of me just to get out of class. I trusted her implicitly.

At Christmas break, I was way behind in my grading and needed to take all student journals home in order to catch up. I was no longer physically able to carry them out to my car, so Mahryah offered to do it for me. She had to make two trips. Mahryah was constantly performing tasks like that for me. Most of the time I didn't even have to ask her, she just performed task after task all on her own.

Mahryah once asked me, "Did you like the kids you had last year?"

"A few of them," I replied, "they were real mean to me because of my disability. One of them told me recently that most of them thought they were better than me because of my physical struggles. They felt because they were superior to me they didn't have to listen to me."

Mahryah looked at me sadly and said, "I was in that class in sixth grade. I was glad when I flunked and had to repeat sixth grade because it got me away from them. They were real mean to me, too."

"Oh, Mahryah," I said, "they were just jealous because you're so pretty!"

Her face lit up in a huge smile.

In the spring, the movie Passion of the Christ came out. Mahryah told me that her youth pastor took her group to see it.

"I can't believe Jesus did that for me," Mahryah said, awe and gratitude showing in her voice.

"I know," I replied, "we're all so unworthy. We're greedy, selfish, and usually only thinking of ourselves." But you're an exception, Mahryah, I thought to myself.

Mahryah went off to high school happy and excited to finally be finished with middle school. She came back to see me once when she was in ninth grade. I wasn't surprised when Mahryah was one of the students who called me when Mercy committed suicide. We hugged and cried at Mercy's memorial service.

The compassion those two girls showed me is something I will always remember. Mahryah reminded me that reaching out to others and helping them in their time of need will always be the right thing to do.

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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Jerry LaPre

Parker , CO

Jerry LaPre has posted 31 blog entries and 1 comment since joining on 5/31/2007. Jerry LaPre 's average blog rating is 5.

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