I am not Mother Teresa. I offer what I said to Ruthie as proof. I should only hope to do one thing as great as any of the millions of things Mother Teresa ever did. They drink, they smoke pot, and they throw a lot of parties, and yet...I liked them. I don't approve of how they live their lives, but I liked them. I like everybody. They just didn't like me. I kinda got kicked out.
The way you're always sneaking around, I'm surprised you don't know already. In fact, that's what your nickname should be. Sneaky. Not Snooky, but Sneaky.
Yeah, but why do you think he was teasing you? Maybe he was trying to point something out to you. Good night, Sneaky! [turns over and goes to sleep; Ruthie's eyes fill with tears]
[to his Social Studies class] I don't feel safe at school, and I'm tired of waiting for everyone else to make our school safe for us. You know, every time there's a shooting, we hear that the shooter was someone who felt that there was a score to settle, and it's always someone who felt they had to shoot someone to get even. You know, that's a weird concept. Some calls you a name, so you kill them? But the name-callers are relentless. You know they are. And like a pack, they engage others in their hunt to destroy the already vulnerable students. They're torturing people. And you know what? We allow it. We hear them, we don't speak up. Or worse, we hear them, we join in. If not in the hallways, on the internet. The teasing that isolates one student or a couple of students from the rest of us has to stop. And I think the only way it's going to, is if we stop ourselves. The issue is not who's to blame. The issue is who's going to take the responsibility. Why don't we claim responsibility? I mean, after all we're the one with the really power here. We have the power to change people's lives. We have the power to save people's lives.So I say we claim that power. Seize the day. You know, there are always going to be cliques in high school, there are always gonna be the popular students and the not-so-popular students. There are always gonna be winners and losers, teasers and the teased. But I think it's time for the mean and the cruel to be silenced by our insistence...before they or any of us is silenced by a gun. You know, because we don't know who's on the brink. We can't know who's merely threatening retaliation, and who's actually is capable of carrying out a threat. What we do know...is that we can make a difference.
Matt will probably go away next year to medical school, and Lucy, being Lucy, could end up back in New York, and Simon's probably gonna go away to college. So why shouldn't we rent the room to Robbie when it's finished?
I'm trying my best. I am--but I just seem totally unprepared to deal with this stage of your life. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to do. I'm lost. I'm completely lost. And you, my dear, are completely....
Nuts!? Is that what you were going to say? Because the problem is not that I'm nuts. You want to know what the problem is? More specifically, do you want to know what your problem is? Your problem is that you feel sorry for yourself and and the person you should be feeling sorry for is me. Yes, I am a nut! I'm the one who let that guy in here. I'm the one who had to deal with him until the ambulance got here. I'm the one who had to go to the hospital and deal with him because you didn't. And then I'm the one who got hauled off by security. So, if you want to feel sorry for someone, feel sorry for me!
Why! Because you feel sorry for her. Dating is difficult enough without dating someone who's got a complicated life. And you're too young for those complications....way too young.
The first year that I knew you, you were just like this. You in no uncertain terms told people of what you thought and that was one of the things that attracted me to you, that and the fact that there was never any predicting when you were going to tell someone what you thought. I remember you let my dad tell you like twenty seven times how to put a diaper on Matt before you told off the The Colonel like, like I'd wanted to tell off The Colonel my entire life.
Pretty much. But you've mellowed over the years. And now you're back without warning and it's a beautiful thing. I love you. I've always loved you. And I'm always gonna love you, till death do us part. Even if it kills me.
Well, it's not the teaching really. It's being around kids. You know how much I've always loved having children in my life, working with them, helping them. You know, in a couple of years, Sam and David, they'll be in school. Ruthie's doing great. Simon's in high school. Robbie and Lucy are in college, Mary's in New York and Matt's going off to medical school. So...our kids need me, but they don't need me. If I teach every year, I'll have a new batch of kids who I'll need to help the way I helped our kids. It's the perfect job for me. All I have to do is take what I've been doing at home for the last 20 years and put it in the classroom. I can do it. I think I'll be good at it.
