Life Turns Upside Down

A lot has happened in the last week, but let's start from the beginning. Last week I was settling into a schedule. I showed up to work at about 8 and spent the mornings working with students for remedial reading and math sessions. I was just starting my second round of sessions with the different student groups when the Standard V teacher, Miss Laura, got really sick with the flu. Then, I became Miss Julie the substitute teacher.

Friday was a 2 beer day. In other words, it was a day from hell. Friday, Miss Laura, the teacher, was absent so I had to sub for her along with Mr. Noel. Thank God for Mr. Noel. I probably would have blown up if he wasn’t there to add some bit of sanity.

This class was out of control. There are several problems that make this class a big mess. First of all, there are 33 of them. I don’t think I ever had a primary school class over 25. The class is so crowded that these kids are practically touching elbows and breathing down each other’s necks.

Second, many of them have no discipline or accountability. The school is trying its best but many of these kids have a horrible home life. They are immigrants whose families came to the area with the prospect of employment in the tourist industry. What this really means is that the parents are uneducated and many are illiterate. The families are big and live in slums. Many are single parents trying to raise 5 or more children. I was talking with Miss Grace, the principal, the other day about the family structure in these households. She was explaining that a common pattern is that a woman will have a kid(s) with some man who will eventually leave. Being an uneducated person, this woman will then go find a new man to support her, and subsequently ends up having kids with this new man. Now you have a step-dad that may or may not accept the child from the previous relationship. This opens the door to an abusive relationship. This isn’t meant to demonize men. There have been plenty of cases of the mother abandoning her kids. These kids have nothing to look forward to because they go home every night to poverty and in many cases abuse. They have no role models who can demonstrate the importance of getting a good education.

Many parents aren’t engaged in their child’s education. Why should they? Education hasn’t helped them at all because most don’t have beyond a primary school education, if that. My parents always knew what I was studying in school; they kept an eye on my grades and held me accountable. These kids don’t study at home and don’t see a reason to study at school. The kids run the streets at night. The boys are starting to get involved in gangs and the girls are on the prowl for older men who will pay them money for their ‘company.’ Unfortunately, some desperate families encourage their daughters to partake in such activities to put food on the table.

Finally, these students are at two levels of education. Some students have had consistent schooling, while others have had breaks where they couldn’t attend school. Most can read but others are illiterate. Most have Spanish as a first language but they can’t read Spanish, only speak it.

Now on to my day…

Teachers here teach the entire day, 8:30-2:45 with no breaks. There are no “cafeteria supervisors.” Teachers must eat lunch and be responsible at the same time. Even with Noel’s help, I did not have a chance to go to the bathroom all day.

I was on my own until about 9:30 when Noel was able to come. He was a God-send. The students, who have no respect for authority, only marginally respect me. They’ll obey just long enough for me to turn my back. Noel has known these students for several years and they know that he doesn’t tolerate mischief. It doesn’t hurt that he’s 6’4’’ with a loud, deep voice.

Language Arts class was an hour long social gathering. I have yet to grade the assignment but I am expecting poor quality, even though I went over every answer in class (talking over the students of course).

Math came next and there was a subtraction post-test. They were fairly well-behaved. At the end of the test, the students were supposed to take out the math workbooks and work on some word problems. The problem was that there are not enough books for each student to have their own. With sharing books comes talking and then the whole class is a social hour again.

Then a police officer came in to talk with the students. Recently, students have started playing this game called “BB Bridges,” or something like that. The rules are that if you say a word with the letter B in it, then someone else playing gets to hit you. Kids that are playing signal that they are playing by crossing their index and middle finger. On Thursday, someone got seriously hurt when he got hit in the head for saying a word with the letter B. The police officer came in to say that this game will not be tolerated. He also talked about how it is illegal to display gang signs in San Pedro and how you can be arrested for doing so. The most common way is people hang a colored bandana outside their pants. People commonly carry a bandana (or “rag”) around to wipe off sweat. The act of hanging it out of your pant pocket has a different meaning. He also talked about some obvious things like the illegality of graffiti and carrying knives (it’s illegal to carry a knife after 6pm because it’s obviously doesn’t have a work-related utility at night). After the police officer left, some boys in the back exclaimed, “Boring.” Then another problematic child starting trying to make the hand signal for the Bloods gang (he failed miserably at it, by the way). Noel brought the police officer back to speak with these boys.

Lunch is at 12 but Noel and I decided that we would go to lunch when all the students were ready. We sat in the front of the classroom until the kids settle down and showed respect. Kids asked when we were going to lunch and we told them that we would when everyone showed us that they were ready. They just sort of shrugged it off and went back to social hour. 10 minutes later they realized that something wasn’t right. Finally, Noel told them all that they had to sit in silence before we’d go to lunch. 5 minutes turned into 8 or 9 due to some uncalled for outbursts. We ate lunch and returned to class because the students used up their “recess” before lunch instead of afterwards.

On to DEAR (drop everything and read). Or should I say, babysit kids that act like 6 year olds. I spent the whole time telling people to leave their neighbor alone and to open their books. It was chaos. One boy harassed another girl asking her to show him her “big breasts.” I had to assign this kid lines to write. “It is inappropriate to ask girls to see parts of their body.” 150 times. Like most kids, he tried to cut corners which made the task harder.

Off to social studies. The teacher didn’t have much planned for social studies other than to copy some notes down. The diligent ones finished in 5 minutes. The rest took 30 minutes.

Spanish. Finally the last class. Today’s activity had 3 parts. I got the class quiet using the class standard of counting to 5. As soon as I opened my mouth to tell them that I would only explain the instructions 1 time, all of their mouths opened and they went right back to talking. I explained the directions once and even wrote them on the board. Of course, every other student complained that they didn’t know what to do. I chewed many of them out because I had already explained it and it was staring them in their face written on the board and in their book. It doesn’t help that many of these Spanish speakers can’t read Spanish. So I have a pile of half finished activities because the students could have cared less.

To top this off, I was in the office expressing my frustration with Miss Francis when she gets a phone call and runs out of the office. 5 minutes later she comes back. Two fathers had gotten in a fist fight over an argument that their 6 year old sons were having. How are these kids ever going to learn when their fathers start throwing punches at each other?

So here I am venting. In all this I’ve learned that I like teaching at the university level and to small groups. There, I’m actually teaching and not baby-sitting. I will never be a primary school teacher, even if it is in the relatively well-behaved Wilmette Public School District. Miss Laura is a saint. She has expressed her frustrations many times to me and every bit of it is justified. Even for a decent pay-check, I don’t think I could go into that classroom everyday for 6 hours of hell. I feel bad for these kids. I hope everyone of them can make a positive change and turn their life around. It’s not too late. I wonder how many of their parents, while searching for work, have wished they had learned how to read, write and do math. If so, they should tell their kids so. It would make a world of difference. The Standard V class will probably be completely different in 2 years, as the first batch of Holy Cross students that started in Infant I make their way to the upper division. These students will have had a consistent and quality education. I’m excited for that day to come.

The weekend was wonderful but unrelated; I’ll come back to that later.

Monday comes and Mr. Vernon, the school director, joined the Standard V class. I would like to start out by saying that Mr. Vernon is one of the most relaxed, even keel and loving people I’ve ever met. What I didn’t know until now was that he was in the U.S. Navy for 4 years. Military school started on Monday for the Standard V students. It will continue until the students show improvement by improving their classroom behavior.

The class rules:

1. Silence. All the time unless given permission to speak.

2. Upon entering the class, students stand tall next to their seats before being told to sit.

3. 10 push-ups for every minute a student is late to class.

4. Push-ups for speaking out of turn, talking back to teachers or showing negative attitudes.

5. Students march everywhere in single file lines.

6. Students eat when told to eat and eat in silence.

7. Physical education is no longer playing soccer but doing jumping jacks, sit-ups, push-ups and wall sits.

This may sound harsh but it’s only temporary, hopefully. I also think it’s necessary. This particular group of children has been problematic for over a year and at this point requires more dramatic consequences to make a point. The end goal is for these children to get an education in order to keep them off the streets. In all reality, there are only 6 or 7 students that are truly problematic. The problem is that the rest of the students tolerate it and join in. If this teaches them anything, I hope it shows them how when people tolerate others’ poor behavior it hurts everyone, whether that’s their class or their community at large. For example, communities that show intolerance to crime by enacting a neighborhood watch program usual experience lower rates of crime. I would love to (and am starting to see) these students stand up to the disruptive ones to condemn their activity, not applaud it. That is more effective than any amount of push-ups.

Today was day 3 of military academy. Mr. Vernon is out of town and Miss Laura is sick with the flu, so Mr. Noel, Mr. Shane and I have been the drill sergeants/teachers. I have definitely seen an improvement but they definitely have a long way to go. Students are concentrating more in class and are actually handing in completed assignments. However, they are still struggling with the basics, like standing in a line without talking. Today, after horsing around in line for 20-some minutes, they finally got their act together as the sweat starting to roll down their face in the hot sun. Hopefully it won’t take them as long tomorrow. In the end, I hope they will learn that life is easier when you don’t cut corners and do things correctly the first time.

As necessary as it is, I hate being a drill sergeant. It’s totally out of character for me. Those of you who know me well know that I like to smile and rarely raise my voice. I was spoiled teaching at the University of Colorado. There, when I opened my mouth, everyone closed theirs because they knew what I was about to say would be beneficial to hear. Those were the days….