Originally published in TEACH Magazine, November/December 2015 Issue
By Chelsea Rhodenizer
This past year, in a small Midwest community, we lost a student to a drug overdose. We have lost many more to drug addiction, and although we haven’t attended their funerals, they are no longer the students we once knew, while some are unrecognizable.
As teachers, we become so wrapped up in curriculum and testing that we lose sight of some of the other, maybe more, important things, our students face on a daily basis.
Chelsea Rhodenizer is a biology teacher at a small Midwest school district in the United States. She and her mother continue their relationship even as her mother continues to battle addiction after 5 years of sobriety.
