We're All Fugitives

Have you ever ran from a group of U.S. Marshals like your life and freedom depended on it?  Yeah, me neither.  But I did watch The Fugitive last night.  And it got me thinking about the importance of having the right people believe in you.

For those of you who haven't seen The Fugitive (may God have mercy on your souls), it's the story of a Chicago doctor who is wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife, escapes imprisonment, and spends nearly the entire movie scrambling to figure out how he can prove his innocence before being caught by the U.S. Marshals.  Han Solo, I mean, Harrison Ford plays the lead role of Dr. Richard Kimble and Tommy Lee Jones portrays Deputy U.S. Marshall Sam Gerard, the man in charge of hunting down Kimble.  

Throughout the movie, Dr. Kimble relies on former colleagues and friends from his past life to help him piece together clues and information in order to figure out how he was framed and by whom.

Each step of his journey to proving his innocence, Dr. Kimble is helped by someone who believes in him in spite of his circumstance.  They look beyond the conviction.  They look beyond public opinion.  They look beyond the media.  And they do this because they believe in their friend.  

Their belief in Dr. Kimble compels them to do things they wouldn't do for just anyone, let alone a convicted murderer.

Believing in and supporting someone who is faced with seemingly insurmountable adversity is one of my favorite themes from this movie.

Why?  Because I have 16 students in my second grade classroom who are fighting against the odds every single day.

They're fighting to escape the grasp of poverty.  And not just poverty that means you're poor.  We're talking about deeply-rooted, cyclical poverty.  The kind that affects generation after generation.  The kind of poverty that causes a kid to grow up oblivious to the possibility of escaping it.

People don't just happen to overcome this type of poverty.  They need people who will believe in them and support them even when the rays of hope are dim.

Despite all of the help Dr. Kimble receives from his network of friends and colleagues, he still needs the support of one very important individual.  Deputy U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard.

There's a turning point in the final scene when Dr. Kimble realizes Deputy Gerard is no longer out to get him.  Instead, Gerard believes him and believes in him to the point of wanting to help see Dr. Kimble through to the finish line.

This week at parent-teacher conferences, guess how many of my students had their father show up?

One.

That means 94% of my class didn't have a father show up for conferences.*  To be fair, I understand some may have had to work, may have been at home watching the kids, etc.  So taking that into consideration, I looked at how many of my students realistically could have had fathers show up.  The number rose from 1 to 7.  Better, but still not great.

*Pointing this out is not meant to discredit the role a mother plays.  A mother is every bit as crucial to the development of a child as a father is.  It's simply looking at the absence of fathers.  By the way, 14 out of 16 mothers attended conferences.  Go moms!

In the movie, Dr. Kimble didn't expect his colleagues or Deputy Gerard to prove his innocence for him.  He was going to do that.  He just needed them to believe in him and help him along the way.

My students don't need their fathers or anyone else doing everything for them.  They want to learn and succeed.  They just need people in their lives to believe in them and help them along the way.  

We all need people in our lives who will believe in us in order for us to succeed.

Over the course of your life, who has impacted your life by believing in you?

Now ask yourself, who could say my name if asked that very same question?