Helping a Student in Distress

Photo of me in my classroom where this story took place.

While I was working at a high school as a band and choir director, I had a student who had moved to the U.S. from the Philippines. She was a senior and was 19 years old. She was in my choir and was quite close to me as far as student-teacher relationships go. She had lots of friends, and always had stories to tell me. She was beautiful and popular among the kids, and got good grades.

One day, this student came to me in distress, saying that she was pregnant. She hadn’t taken a pregnancy test, but she knew. She had been sleeping with a boy with no protection, and she could tell in her body that she was pregnant. I told her that she needs to take a pregnancy test and needed to tell her parents if it ended up positive.

She did not know how to get a pregnancy test, so privately (my office door was shut this whole time), I told her to go to the CVS across the street and go to the pharmacy section and she will find them. I showed her photos of pregnancy tests so she could locate them. I told her not to worry, that the cashier doesn’t care what she is purchasing, because she was embarrassed.

The next day, she said it was positive. I told her, “if you don’t tell your parents, I will.” So she told them, and although they were not planning to be grandparents yet, they supported her. As time went on, they prepared a room in their house for the baby, and bought all of the supplies they were going to need. The boy that she slept with was no longer around.

Not long after she found out it was going to be a boy, she miscarried. It was absolutely devastating to her and her family. They had gotten excited for him to arrive and fully accepted the new lifestyle they would have. She was so devastated that she went back to the Philippines for a while. When she came back, as soon as she saw me she ran up to me and hugged me like it had been years. She was crying out of pure excitement to see me. For the rest of her time in high school, she came to me every day with stories before class. Sometimes she even came to my classroom for lunch, because I always kept it open for the students.

There were many students who came to me with their life issues. Even though it took a toll on me, it was one of my favorite things about my job. Building relationships with the students and seeing them get through challenges was extremely fulfilling. The fact that a child would trust me with their deepest secrets made me feel like I was a superhero.

Thanks for reading my blog post! If you resonated or have a similar story, I would love to hear it.

I’ll see you on the next blog post and on my socials!