Smiling Faces Make Happy Places

It is truly amazing the impact that can be made on someone just by smiling at them. It seems that just showing someone your teeth can encourage and affirm even the most troubled people. I have witnessed this quite often in the past week and a half as the new school year has begun.

The school I teach at has a huge range in the social-economic status of its students. While some students are driven to school in H2’s on 22's from their mutli-million dollar mansion, others walk in the cold to their bus stop from home, which is a trailer park in the woods (which, ironically enough, is going to be torn down to build more gaudy mansions.) While the difference in the lifestyles between these two types of students is great, their continual need for acceptance, encouragement, and love is not.

Regardless of the amount of money their parents have, each of these students desperately seeks to be affirmed and uplifted in their lives. A middle schoolers world is full of negative images (just think what these kids see every day on Myspace) and this is coupled, for many, with absentee parents, which should be their main source of companionship.
It is time they we (their teachers, pastors, and even community members) need up the ante with our love for these students.

Obviously our society, and many of their parents, has failed them. I am not going to stand by and not be part of the solution.
So what to do? I’m starting with smiles. It’s not much, I know, but it’s a starting place. Hopefully, these smiles will be the foundation for which a (responsible and uplifting) relationship will begin.



P.S. What a shame that people in positions like mine have taken advantage of innocent kids to the point where I have to include responsible and uplifting before the word relationship to not sound like a wiredo. Lame.