I'm a teacher. But there are days, like today, when I wonder why. The results of an English quiz taken by my fifth-graders were depressing. Despite my best efforts, the world of pronouns remains a mystery to them. How I wish there were a way to make the study of our language as exciting as a computer game, so the glazed   looks would not appear in their eyes at the mention of the word "grammar." I remember my husband's words: "Why don't you quit? You'd probably make more money by doing something else, and you wouldn't have papers to grade every night." Tonight I have a stack of papers to grade, which I promised my students I would return tomorrow. But a friend, whom I haven't seen in a year, is visiting from Belgium, and I told her I would keep this evening free. Sitting in traffic behind a distant stoplight, it's hard not to replay the day. A voice reports the body of a local youngster, missing for weeks, has been identified. This missing child has had a deep effect on my students. They wondered, "If it happened to her, could it happen to me?" My children had found the answer themselves. They got out their pencils, markers and made cards. Cards were written with words of compassion and love for a mother and father they didn't know. Cards were filled with red hearts, golden crosses, flowers and angels. Their cards, intended to comfort others, comforted the children themselves by leading them past the anxiety, back into the world of security   that should be theirs. And then I remember why I'm still teaching. It's the children. They're more important than a lifetime filled with quiet evenings and more valuable than a pocket filled with money. My classroom, a child-filled world of discovery, of kindness and of caring is the real world. It's time to call my friend. I have promises to keep. She'll understand. After all, she's a teacher. The students' attitude to the missing child's parents might be that of   _  .
doubt unconcern sympathy tolerance