I am a failure

I feel like a complete and utter failure in life right now. It has been 3 years this this happened and I still feel just as horrible as the day it happened.

In my first year teaching elementary school I was assigned a class of 2nd graders. I went into my first official teaching job with so much hope and excitement.

The students were great, my only difficulty with the class was that I did have a special needs student in it. I’ll call him Joey(false name for obvious reasons). I was told he had a developmental disability but functioned well in a normal classroom before my first day.

And he did. He struggled some socially, he couldn’t talk very well and didn’t really seem to know how to interact with any of the other kids. He did well on his class work all things considered and I always tried to help him individually when I could.

But a few weeks into the new school year, something felt very off about Joey. He would come to school in dirty clothes and sporting bruises on his face and arms, sometimes I could see some on his legs if he wasn’t wearing long pants. He did not know how to eat with utensils, only his fingers and he would eat his school lunch as if it was the only meal he got every day.

I brought this up a few times to my fellow teachers and even the administration, but they all told me that it was from his disability. That he was clumsy and sometimes would hit himself when he was upset. But in my class he was not clumsy at all, very well coordinated actually, and even when he was upset about something he was always calm and quiet.

I brought it up several more times but was always met with the excuse that his developmental disability was where the behavioral setbacks and bruises were from. I was told that reporting it would just be a hassle to everyone and put his family through the ringer for no reason.

I eventually found out his grandmother was his legal guardian. She never showed up for parent teacher meetings or anything else. Calls to home always went to voicemail and were never returned. Joey rode the bus so I never saw them at the start or end of the day either.

Well one day Joey wasn’t in class. Then the next day he was absent again, but I was called in to meet with the principal before my class started. He told me that Joey’s grandmother and mother were both under investigation for child abuse and that Joey was now in protective custody.

I was heartbroken. All this time I had been right, but hadn’t done anything because I was told not to. But it only got worse as details came out about what had been going on in Joey’s house.

At home Joey was getting locked inside his bedroom which had no furniture or toys in it. Just a boarded up window and an empty closet. He slept on the floor with no blanket and was not allowed to go to the bathroom. He wasn’t allowed to talk at home or he would be locked in the basement of the house with the lights turned off. He wasn’t allowed to eat at the table and was only given their leftovers when they threw them on the floor for him if they bothered to feed him at all. Both his grandmother and his mother treated him this way.

He didn’t have any disabilities at all. He just was never spoken to at home except to be abused and was punished if he tried to talk.

I spoke with the authorities about the case when they asked me for any information and of course they asked me why the school didn’t report his bruises... didn’t report how skinny he was.

And what could I say? That I was a new teacher and all my superiors told me not to? That’s not good enough. That little boy suffered every day and all the signs were there but I did nothing. I could have done something but I trusted other people over my gut instinct. I failed to save my student.

I wish I could see him again. To hug him and tell him how sorry I am for failing for him. How much I hope he finds a loving forever family after this. That he can overcome this and grow up to be a happy man some day.

I can’t even look at myself in the mirror without feeling disgusted. I resent the administration at this school for advising me against reporting it. And now every time I go to work I feel sick to my stomach. I am a complete and utter failure as a teacher.