Our Sanctuary

Our Sanctuary

Many children in the nations of this world call their schools homes because it is the only place they feel safe. Sometimes home is elsewhere in the comfort of others. Barry, author of “The Sanctuary Of School” writes about her experiences as a child as a seven-year-old who felt lost and alone when she arrived home where her parents were and felt at home with her classmates, teachers, crayons a place Barry felt she could express herself and be noticed by someone. Home can mean many things it can mean the warmth of others, a place, a person, an object it can mean anything that brings safety and carries us back home because among all things school was Barry’s sanctuary.

To begin, Barry is a child that lives in a home with her parents, relatives, and brother there is rarely any room left for them. Both children spend nights on their couch watching tv with the sound off observing the characters by mouth movement. Barry can easily slip away any time of day and no one would even notice. She is a child that feels invisible among her family members and parents. Lynda Barry says, “in an overcrowded and unhappy home, it's incredibly easy for any child to slip away.” An unhappy home is an injustice of this world children deserve all the wiggles and giggles this life can offer. Barry lived in a constant environment that felt shallow and unhappy from the lack of attention she and her brother deserved.

Secondly, I can’t exactly say I walked right through the same footsteps Barry had to but I can say I know what that loneliness can feel like. As a child, my parents married too young and we lived in a beautiful home I call home now and it always has felt like home however sometimes home can refer to something else. And for me home sometimes wasn’t there when my father went away and struggled to walk away from alcohol. And sometimes my mother would slip away when she felt away from her parents. I had to learn how to become independent at a very young age.

Unfortunately, many other children of this world are often neglected by their parents and are left completely alone. And the education systems don’t allow aftercare for children that can help them develop in a safer environment. I have seen for myself what these children go through when I used to work for a daycare I saw the way parents talked to their children and left them there with no care in the world. And that is why I love Mrs. Claire LeSane in this story because she doesn’t ask questions she only comforts children by using art and helping them create something for themselves with their hands as Barry says, She believed in the natural healing power of painting and drawing for troubled children” as we can see Barry admires her for everything that she does as a teacher there is great power when two great minds collide as a child and teacher.

In conclusion, we live in a world where children are neglected and Barry and her brother were children who were not noticed Barry found herself at home when she went to school and she wished the education system would do much more for her she wanted someone to fight for her she wanted her sanctuary to fight for her. I was a child who sought the presence of both parents at the same time not in sections or different times just the comfort of them both there at the same time. I found comfort in the classroom where I was able to play and read. I often found myself underneath words. Mrs. Claire brought Barry comfort and safety under the warmth of paper and crayons. A teacher and a school can mean the world to a child yet the education system can still manage to strip away those possibilities. “Mrs. LeSane asked us to please stand, face the flag, place our right hands over our hearts, and say the Pledge of Allegiance. Children across the country do it faithfully. I wonder now when the country will face its children and say a pledge right back.” Every morning children across the country rise and stand for the flag and their country and there is such pride in doing so however when your own country is not pledging and rising for you what difference does it make if you don’t pledge for allegiance right back? We must find our sanctuary a place where we find ourselves at home.

Works Cited

Barry, L. (1992, January 05). END PAPER; The Sanctuary of School. Retrieved December 15, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/1992/01/05/education/end-paper-the-sanctuary-of-school.html?searchResultPosition=2