Its not often that I get upset about anything...... I guess that people would describe me as easy going and generally looking at the upside of life.
With all the problems I handle on a daily basis in my role at college its important that I keep a stable perspective offering solutions and ideas on how the students can move forward with what they are dealing with right now.
Since returning from Spain in August and moving back into the college I have noticed the high incidence of home related problems among the students. So much so that when a good student in one class started to miss class I took the responsibility of enquiring what the problem was. The student informed me that her mother had very severe arthritis and on some days needed someone in the house to help her with mobility.
As I coordinate the health and social care course and most of the students are going to move into either a medical or care related environment it is not unusual for them to be involved in or have had experience in a caring capacity so this situation that the student found herself in was not unusual.
As time moved on I noticed that the student missed a full week and once again the reason given was her mother being severely ill.
On one particular day this student arrived into my class with an orange form from the social services. She told me that since her mother was unable to work and also since she was spending a lot of time looking after her then she could get some kind of carer allowance to help with their financial situation.
As the coordinator of the course could I please sign the form to say that she was a student on the course and also was a carer for her mother.
Kathy being Kathy signed the form and thought no more about it.
As the weeks unfolded the student disappeared from the class. We could not contact her by phone either mobile or home number and realized that she had dropped out of the course.
Unfortunately for this student I have a good relationship with the students I teach and so they tell me things that perhaps they would not usually pass on to other adults.
It was then that two students in the class told me the truth.
She did not live with her mother, her mother did not have arthritis and she bragged to them how she had got 1000 pounds out of social services and was using it to go off on holiday to Spain with her boyfriend.
So hence my title to this article “when compassion is kicked back in your face”
Of course I should not have been as trusting and should have checked up on everything she said and for that I get smacked over the knuckles. With the course and subject matter I teach I talk to the students about their values, beliefs and their personal development. I guess I got to this one too late.
As the week unfolds we will be reporting this to the social services as benefit fraud and hopefully they will get onto her case.
As for myself…..its not often something upsets me but this did. Not that she fooled me but just that she lied to me for weeks and played on my understanding nature to scheme on a way to illegally get some money for her and her boyfriend.
What she did not count on was the students telling me what had gone on. I guess it’s a classic case of a nail in the coffin of “losing faith in human nature” but its important that situations like this do not make us cynical and yet to be honest it left a very bad taste in my mouth.
I ask myself the question at 58 years old….. should I not have learned by now that just because I place a high value on honesty, integrity and not sharing other people's business , telling the truth and keeping promises I've made, etc.... I seem to just expect that everyone else would naturally do the same.
Of course, by now, after many years teaching I do know ... that this is not the case, That in fact, those of us who feel this way seem to be in the minority when it comes to the high value we place on honor, trust and integrity. Yet it is very important to me that I continue to act in the way that feels right to me despite being totally disappointed in the way this student behaved.
I am not going to dwell on this scenario that has happened. I will keep reminding myself that just because I place a high value on certain things, doesn't mean that I have any right to expect that everyone else will do the same.
This is a difficult inner conflict with me as I believe that one aspect of the concept of honesty and Intregrity is that genuine Love and caring cannot exist if there is not first Trust.
If I cannot feel a level of trust with the people whom I come into contact then no basis for a relationship is in place. If an elderly person in a care home cannot trust her carer then there is no moving forward.
This incident that happened is a lesson in itself on why Honesty and Integrity are so very important.... This should be the norm and not the exception.
This student has got her money for her holiday.
After two weeks the holiday is over.