When teachers cry, it’s because the school secretary has delivered bad news. You see, one day your student is laughing at herself, tramping through the hall in her sparkly boots. The next she’s screaming, “I hate you!”, in your face. Another – she’s crying but can’t express why.

And she won’t do her math and she breaks pencils…But you love her. She hits Susie and yells at Johnny. Her eyes spark. She cannot yet grasp how she is perceived – loved, no matter what.

You don’t give up on her. You search for ways to connect and reach her – and all her classmates.

Then – maybe after three or six months of school and realizing she’s in safe territory, she begins to know she’s loved. Your smiling, and she’s smiling (well, more than before, anyway).

Then THAT day comes. It’s always sudden and sharp, a knife to the heart. In two words the school secretary delivers the blow, “She moved.”

He moved. They moved. Gone. Students you pour your heart into and wish you could change the painful circumstances for just vanish one day.

That’s when teachers cry.