Well, this morning I woke up at 6, got dressed, and lay back down to wait for a call. Around 9, I decided that it wasn't going to happen, so I gave up and started to go about my day. I sat down at the computer to work on Illustrator and check my e-mail. Just before I was about to dail up, my phone rang. I had an assignment. Woo-hoo! (Especially great, because even though I started at 10, I get paid for a full day.)
It turned out that I was with the same class that I was with on the week of MLK Jr. Day. That time, I was subbing for the Special Education teacher that works with the class. Today, I was subbing for the regular teacher, and got to meet the SE teacher. Turns out, she is the sister of someone I worked with at my old job. Small world.
The class was very hyper, and so many of them acted out constantly. There were at least five kids that were almost impossible to control. Mainly, they were craving attention, and it didn't matter whether it was positive or negative, so long as you took notice of them. They were prone to be angry, and constantly on watch for unfairness, rule breaking by others, and assorted slights. There were agruements over steaking and accusations of stealing.
None of them trusted things to go their way. For the math class, there was a system of rewards for work completed correctly, stickers and small prizes. These were several students that had their work ready to be checked over for their prizes as the class was over. It was time for recess, so I stacked their work up and told them that the teacher wold look them over and hand out the prizes during math class the next day. None of them believed me. The little girl who had, back in January, asked all of the questions about the King assassination was particularly doubtful.
These were first graders. It made my heart ache to see that much anger and doubt in children so young. Had life already cheated them so much that they had learned its cruel lessons by 7? Yesterday I had a very troublesome first grader. The teacher told me that this was already his fourth school. His family was evicted so often that he moved from school to school. She said that when I would get upset, he would say, "I don't like this school. I'm going to go to a different one."
I cansee where they are headed. They seem destined to become the sullen and quarrelsome middle and high school students that I see so often. Students who seem to live in a state in-school suspension, and are likely to drop out with 4th grade reading and math skills. I see them growing up and turning out another generation of first graders with names that are not spelled the way they are pronounced and anger in their hearts.
Poverty is the enemy of these children. It is the roadblock that stands in the way of the education they are entitled to receive at the schools they attend. The cycle need to be broken, but how?
