Let Me Walk With You

When I was growing up, my school was sandwiched between two farms. Other kids who attended school in the city were often bewildered by its remote location. They used to comment on our frequent power outages, joking, “They closed that school early again because of a power outage?! A cow falls over in the field at the farm next to them, and their power goes out!” 

Due to its rural location, my school had a robust bus route through multiple cities for its students. One distinct memory stands out from when I was in third grade. At the start of the school year, my bus stop moved a block away from my house. With my mom occupied caring for my newborn brother, she was unable to accompany me to the new stop.

Thankfully, an eighth grader named Kayla lived nearby and took it upon herself to walk me to school every day without hesitation. She even set up a walkie-talkie system (this was before cell phones were common) to let my mom know we had safely boarded the bus.

Each day, Kayla walked me to school, no questions asked.

Child psychologist and Canadian author Jody Carrington writes in her book Feeling Seen: Reconnecting in a Disconnected World, “What if we started to understand that we are so powerful in supporting each other instead of in competition with each other? Regardless of the unique features we each have, we have this shared responsibility of walking each other home.”

This concept of walking each other home reminds me of Kayla, who walked me to school each morning without asking anything of me in return. So, in turn, I ask myself as a teacher: “How can I help my students walk through the emotions they might feel on any given day in the classroom?”

I can lead by example. I can show them and practice what Dr. Carrington describes as “the on-purpose feeling of all the emotions down to our core and understand that indeed there are no bad emotions.”

When I personally reflect on these concepts of leading by example and walking with someone, I think of Jesus and His time here on earth. He told His disciples, “Come follow me” (Mark 1:17). Jesus, leading through example, asked His disciples to walk with Him.

We can never know, as teachers, what sort of realities our kids are facing at home or what they are feeling when they walk through our doors. However, I do know that we can be the big people in their lives, leading through Jesus’ example, who they can trust to walk them home with no questions asked.

Author

Jennica Santomin-Wixwat

Jennica, BEd specializing in English, teaches elementary at West Coast Adventist School in British Columbia, Canada. She also teaches high school English at Fraser Valley Adventist Academy. She is in her fourth year of teaching and finds that the best parts of teaching are the relationships she forms with her students and fellow educators.