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Current mood:  sad
I am going on my seventh month of teaching Kindergarten at a public school. The place I teach at is a "failing" school. This means test scores are low, and some even go so far as to say that there is something wrong with the children who attend my school. I readily agree. There is something wrong, but not with the children. Most of the kids in my class are on welfare, they have school provided breakfast and lunch (which for some are the only meals they might eat all day), they live in homes that are missing one or both parents, homes where there are not any literate adults, homes with parents who's highest level of education is third grade, homes that have three or four families living in them at the same time, and homes that are void of things like books, backpacks, and for my kindergarteners even crayons to complete their homework assignments. One day it was 48 degrees outside and I had a student show up in a T-shirt because he doesn't own a jacket. Over half my class started Kindergarten speaking only Spanish. Only three of my kids knew their alphabet. Only six knew how to write their name. In the upper-middle class white suburban world I grew up in this would sound ridiculous, but it's the cold hard truth. It's the beginning of February and now all my students are not only understanding, but they are speaking English in the classroom. My lowest student couldn't recognize a single letter when she started. She now knows 7 uppercase and 9 lowercase letters. She can read 5 words. I call this a victory. I think this is outstanding progress. The district says this student is a failure. She's only five years old. I've lost six students already this year. Two left the second month because the school is "failing" their parents have the option of sending them to a "better" school, no questions asked. I lost two more because they moved to new cities. This was sad, but I got to say goodbye, and I know they will be happy where they are going. My last two simply disappeared. This might sound strange in an age where all you have to do is pick up a cell phone and it seems as if you can reach anyone, anywhere, any time. But not my kids. They were just there one day, and then they were gone. Just like that, vanished. You call home, and there's no answer. You wait, but still they don't come. You worry, but still you don't get any answers. Miguel never returned after Thanksgiving. The school told me that this is normal. A lot of kids go to Mexico for Christmas. After winter break his square on the rug was still vacant. I talked to his aunt, and she says she thinks maybe his family went back to Mexico for good, but even she's not sure. All their things are still at the house. Maybe he'll be back in the spring, but I'm still waiting. Three weeks ago Alfred disappeared. He came into my class late, in November. He was six and had never been to school before. Last year no one wanted to take him to get vaccinated for school, so he couldn't start. For all the days he was in school, he has been absent an equal amount, and tardy twice as much. I'd call home and set up countless meeting with his aunt, but she'd never show. Then one day he was gone. Just like that. No one knew where he was, or when he was coming back. Friday I heard his mother came and took him in the night, and that was all. She has three girls at the school, but she left them. Someone said they'd gone to L.A., but no one knows for sure. These kids just disappear off the radar screen, and that's the end of the story. One day they're here, the next their gone, time goes by, and eventually they get dropped from my attendance sheet. The other teachers say that this is common at this school, the office says it's just one less kid for me to worry about, but I still have a piece of tape on a carpet square with their name on it and a cubby hole full of papers that they'll never come back to get. This is the part that the college doesn't prepare you for. Credential programs don't teach this in a class. I lay awake at night and wonder if they're ok, if they are getting enough to eat, if they have a place to sleep, if their safe wherever they are. I guess I have to reconcile to the fact that I'll probably never know. I just have to wait, hopeful for the day that they come back, or I get a request to forward their file to a new school. This is not a "failing" school. There is not something "wrong" with these children. These children are amazing. I cannot imagine living the life that many of them lead at the age or five or six and still being expect to learn at school, yet they do. And yet they still do not get credit for what they accomplish, because by comparison, they are still far lower academically than the privileged children that live across town. Some of my fellow teachers say that I will get used to it all. After a while you stop being affected by what goes on around you. They say I will learn to build some distance between myself and my students, that I will learn not to get so attached. I hope not. I surely hope not. When I was getting my credential someone told me to always remember that you cannot help every child, some of them you just have to let go. To that I say: if you go into teaching believing that you can never help them all, then you never will.
9:28 AM
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