As the start of school draws closer, pictures of kids in hallways and classrooms fill my mind. Crowds of kids. Yet, as the year goes on and we get to know them, we see beyond the crowd of faces. We see struggles and strengths, ways of approaching their work and their friends, their challenges. We know their individual voices. Each one of those young people in a crowded hallway or classroom has an important life to live.
Even when a student is ornery or disruptive, even scary in belligerence, it might help to think of this story of two Palestinians protecting an Israeli policewoman in a confusingly dangerous situation. And what one of them says about why he did it.