Letter: Teacher recounts story of ‘true gift’ for Christmas
To the Editor-
Although I have been retired for a couple of decades, I am still working. I have been subbing for a few years and would like to share with you an event that happened a week ago.
A student I’ve worked with for several months always told me that “I can’t do that” no matter what the project was. My response was, “Could you say ‘I will try?’” Over and over again, I received the same response. “I can’t do that.”
A week ago, after giving directions for a new project, the student came over to me and said, “I CAN DO THAT!” I had to ask him to repeat his words because I couldn’t believe what I had heard. “I CAN DO THAT!” he repeated.
I told him he had given me the best Christmas present I had ever received. His response was to BEAM and SMILE. I was beaming and smiling, too. His classroom teacher told me he had been empowered by that one sentence.
You may say, “Where is she going with this story?”
Well, I decided that this small story was the preface for my thoughts on what is happening in Stevens Point regarding the unsheltered population.
“You can give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime.” Therein lies the problem we seem to have made for this population. We are simply making it impossible for them to learn to steer their own “ships of life.”
We hand over food, motel vouchers, and clothing, albeit with good intentions, and use lots of angry words that polarize the community. And that it is our responsibility to make their lives better with absolutely no idea that we are chaining them to their destiny by not having any expectations, responsibility, accountability, or obligations.
It is insanity to think that when you keep repeating the same actions/words you will get different results. They will forever be chained to the cart that takes them nowhere. It is no different than being shackled to the ideology of others, not of their own choosing.
Now, let’s talk about teaching them skills that will remove the shackles/chains of dependence. Those that seem to think there is but one way to deal with this are called enablers. When you start taking care of yourself you start feeling better, you start looking better, and you start to attract better.
It all starts with you. We cannot change others. We have the ability to change ourselves. Having expectations that it is more helpful to keep them shackled to us is their biggest problem. If we had incentives to teach them how to handle their everyday lives, they would soon find the way to independence and success.
So far, I don’t see that happening with the direction this city is taking.
Changing the zoning isn’t going to help them gain independence and success. Give them the most wonderful gift of all, an education to make good choices and not be chained to the enablers who make all their decisions.
Give them the chance to say “I can do it.”
Ruth Pfiffner
Stevens Point