I heard a stunning statistic yesterday. One of every ten high school students in the city of Washington DC will be incarcerated during at least part of their high school years. One of every ten. 4,500 kids a year that are put in jail.
Let me explain what, first of all, this has to do with me, or this blog, or anything at all.
I want to work in a prisons. Not as a guard, or administrator, but as a teacher. There are programs in a lot of juvenile justice facilities across the country to educate juveniles while they are incarcerated.
Right now, I work in an elementary school in Anacostia as a tutor in an after-school program. Last year I worked with kindergarteners, which was a little rough at times but not so bad. I mean, they're six years old. At that age, breaking up fights is easy. Just pick the kids up and hold them away from each other until they cool down. Or tickle them until they're laughing and smiling again instead of throwing punches. I work in third grade this year, and it's a little more difficult. I can still pick up kids, which I do when I have to, but they can put up a much bigger fight. And their fights with one another end a lot more frighteningly than kindergarteners' do.
A lot of the other tutors I work with seem amazed at just how poorly our students behave. I will admit, I am slightly stunned myself at times, but I kind of knew what I was getting myself into when I picked this site. When one of my six-year old students told me I was a faggot last year, I was shocked, but not surprised. When he took out a pair of scissors with the intention of stabbing a classmate who had angered him, then I'll admit I was surprised then. No knowledge of how "bad" a neighborhood is could have prepared me for six year olds who try to stab one another.
There are so many problems in my school that I don't know how to fix. I'm not sure how to respond to my students' hyper-sexualized culture, when girls start shaking their booties like professionals, and one of my male students tells me he is going to take my bra off. I'm not sure how to respond to the sub-culture of violence that prevails in their homes and continues in school, where teachers often turn a blind-eye towards kids as young as 6 or as old as 14 throwing fists, biting, scratching, hitting with any blunt objects they can lay their hands on.
I'm not sure how to respond. So I respond by loving them. A teacher came in to a classroom as another tutor and I were cleaning in preparation for our kids to arrive. It was the worst shape I have ever, in my entire life, witnessed any room. There were papers everywhere, a globe that someone had put their foot through, and discarded homework folders scattered on every surface. She apologized, and then she told me something that stunned me. The students that belonged in that class during the day were a combination of 4th and 5th grade students. They've had 4 teachers since their school year began in September.
In two months, 4 teachers.
She is the fifth, and is remaining there until the 22nd, just temporarily, when she will be replaced again by another "permanent" teacher. She said that when the kids get really bad, all she has to do is say "you're going to make me leave" and they collapse into begging. "Please don't leave! They all leave!"
I can't imagine giving up on kids that easily. Some of their teachers have walked out on them in just a couple weeks. Sure, they're rough. They're a mess, really. But that's why you teach, right? To help kids? To teach them, and guide them. Why would you leave the children who need you the most?
My tutoring program has a fairly poor retention rate for tutors. A lot get shocked or frustrated into leaving. But I'm staying, because one of every ten students in this District ends up in jail. Some of those are my kids. I'm petrified that I'll walk into a jail classroom and find one of my kids' faces looking at me. So what can I do?
Honestly, right now I don't know. But I know what I can't do- and that is abandon them the way so many other teachers have abandoned them. And I can love them. Every child, no matter how many times they might call me a faggot or insult me because I'm white, no matter how many times they hit other children, or run down the hallways screaming, deserves to be loved, and hugged, and told that they're special. And frankly, that's all I've got. The only way I've figured out how to calm down an angry child is to hug him and pick him up and spin him around and tickle him until he laughs.
I want to teach in jails because I don't want any children to ever think that they've been given up on.
"A ship in harbor is safe - but that is not what ships are for. ~John A. Shedd, Salt from My Attic:
No comments:
Post a Comment