This post is gonna start a little differently. If you're a regular reader of this blog, and procrastinate much like I do by, well blog-surfing, you may have checked out "the colon chronicles". This is a link to a blog of a girl I knew in Chicago through capoeira (hence the portugese sprinkled through her site), who was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer a while back and managed to pull through some truly nightmarish times, and has done so with some amazing good humor. Unfortunately, some more are still ahead for her, as the medical bills have piled up. I'm perpetually a step away from being a financial disaster, despite a steady paycheck and as-needed help from a wonderful and supportive family. I can't even begin to imagine how hard going through that kind of experience would be, even without the financial ramifications... anyway, her website, www.cancer-sucks.com, has a donation button on it, and I wanted to do a quick plug for her. This is sort of an anonymous favor (and how awkward to do it in blog form, right?)- I never knew her as well as I wanted to back in Chicago when we both might've had the time, and have only been following her story from afar through friends and internet updates for the last few months. I doubt she knows her blog is even linked to my blog, if she even knows I have one. She's just somebody I've grown to admire greatly for her attitude and strength, from a distance, and I think she deserves some good karma at this point. So check it out, and try to help if you can.
I got another resource student today. Haven't met her yet. I have to write something like 10 IEPs in the next two weeks. Fun! (And so of course, I procrastinate by writing here instead...)
I rarely get to meet with my resource kids consistently, though, as they all seem to be suspended so often that they're rarely in school more than a few days in a row. LJ has decided to come see me even when BJ's not there. Yesterday I went to go meet with an eighth grade girl that I hadn't actually gotten to talk to yet. LJ came with me (his teacher was hoping he'd cut, but he showed up while I was at her door, so she asked if I could take him instead so he didn't disrupt her class). Jabberwock is the girl's teacher, and told me she had warned him that when it got nice out she was going to stop coming to school. Academically, she's doing fine (it's amazing how many of these kids have no business in special ed...), except in one class where she doesn't seem to be getting along with the teacher, so we started talking about cutting class, and school, and why they do it. She and LJ knew each other already, so the conversation got pretty open pretty fast.
My resource kids don't seem to think of me like a teacher, exactly... they tell me stuff I know they wouldn't think of telling other teachers. I can't tell if it's because I'm young, or because I'm very honest with them, or what. But it gets to the level that I sometimes remind them that I'm obligated to report certain things. LJ, for example, has brought a bookbag to school twice in the last week. Now, LJ never brings a bookbag to school- the school supplies he evidently needs (like condoms) fit in his pocket. He's a smart kid- he knew more than BJ did on the tests I gave him, and BJ did pretty well- but he's pretty comfortable with his future as a high school drop-out, so why bother? So when he brought a bag to school, the logical assumption his teachers made was that he brought drugs or weapons to school. He made a joke about it to me (prompting a "I have to report certain things" talk) but then encouraged me to search it. My assumption, following that, is that he brought something in, unloaded it quickly, and knowing that the administration knows I have a relationship with him and would ask me about him, gave himself a cover by having me search it. He also started telling me about his gang, the initials of which he has tattoed on his arm. He and Alexa started giving me a rundown of the local gangs (among other things... hence Alexa's question, the title of this post). I'm still trying to learn details of the gang that tagged my car. I asked him about them, but he didn't seem to know much, or not much that he would admit. His gang, at least the kids I assume are in his gang, that come to visit me, know what my car looks like- they can't get over that I drove to BJ's house after school. Evidently home visits are out of fashion these days. In the back of my mind I think I felt nervous that they would check the car out and see another gang's symbol and make some kind of connection that would get me caught in some drama. But maybe it'll work out the opposite way; they all obviously like me, so maybe it'll be like I have some loose protection of two gangs, should I ever need it. Friends in low places, right? He had talked to me about the gang before, but I was too slow to put together the pieces. I didn't really make the connection, although I had suspicions, until another teacher asked me about another student we both have, a 7th grader, to see if he was in a gang, because another kid in her same class who got stabbed last week is, and she wanted to know if they were in the same one. Jellyroll, from my class, told me he was there when the stabbing happened but I haven't gotten the chance to talk to him about it. I can't imagine him in a gang, but then I've learned my lesson about never saying never about students- and he was, after all, the kid that brought the cap gun to school. I don't know why it's taken me so long to make all these connections, but it only suddenly hit me today how common gangs are in my school and how many of my kids are in them. It's a little disturbing, actually.
Speaking of disturbing... Jamie (formerly referred to as Dae), Huffy, Gecko, and two other kids (neither of whom have nicknames yet) got suspended for beating up Jellyroll in the bathroom. I'm so disgusted I can barely stand it. Only one actually did it, but the rest guarded the door so Jr couldn't get out. It makes me so angry... Now he has to leave the class, too, and of the group I think he's the only one who was truly sorry for his roll in beating up Squirrel. He was my new secret favorite, the one with a conscience, and he was a really good student on top of that. The fact that they were all his close friends at the beginning of the year just makes it worse. The kid who actually beat him up is just nuts. I don't really even blame him, because I think he just truly has no control over himself at all and really should be hospitalized, but the others...
I'm starting to feel like I've run out of emotion. I'd like to be really angry and upset, but mostly I'm just tired of it. I hugged Cyrus when I found out he wasn't a part of it. And it makes me sick that I'm thankful when one of my kids isn't participating in group beatings. I want to be hugging him for perfect test scores, or winning football games, or showing excellence in some way. And while I rationalize it by looking at how far he's come- to stay out of trouble, when it's all you've known and been in, all your life, and is all that is expected of you, and all your friends are doing it, during the most peer-motivated period of your life, is truly remarkable, and a sign to me of strength and growth and maturity- but it still makes me sick to think that there's a possibility he'll never be held to higher standards and expected to grow to his full potential.
I got a loose job offer, last week, for an electoral organizing job that in many ways is exactly what I want to do and an incredible opportunity. But I feel racked by guilt at the thought of leaving my kids, and my school, even though a few months ago I was ready to do it out of spite and anger and frustration and thought I made the decision for good. I told a couple of the kids there was a possibility I wouldn't be there next year, mostly Cyrus. Cyrus told me if I left he had no reason to come to school. It'll be an ongoing conversation, but I tried to explain to him that the best thing he could do for me was to show me that he could succeed without me, because I'm not always going to be there for him, even if I want to be, but that I will always love him and will know that he really is the person I know he can be if he is his best even when I'm not there. And that that, actually, is the test. I know he'll be his best when I'm there, because I'll make him, but if he'll do it for me even when I'm not there then I'll know he really truly has become his best, both for me and for him. It was a big knife in the heart; it's not that he doesn't have other reasons. He's popular and athletic- he's quarterback of the local football team, which he's on with Jamie- and the girls all think he's cute, which I know from notes I find scattered through the classroom, and I know he's dated at least one girl in the room this year, who is also pretty and popular and happens to be really smart. But I guess he understands there's a level of superficiality to all that, which he could get anywhere. Having a teacher that loves him and believes in him he might not be able to get somewhere else.
I had a long conversation about this with Ems. It's a problem a lot of TFA teachers have, that they want to be that teacher that makes a difference for every kid they see, and the reality that they are not it for every kid is really hard to deal with. I'm pretty comfortable with it. I didn't come in with that illusion. First of all, a lot of my kids don't need that role. For all the awful situations some of them come in with, a lot of them come in with really loving, supportive families or communities that fill that role in their lives. And for some of the rest of them, there's just a personality conflict, or lack of spark, or whatever. No one can be everything every child needs. I've got more than a few kids for whom I am just not what they need or are looking for right now. And that's fine- if there's someone else they relate to better, because they don't like women, or young people, or me, or whatever, I try to point them toward people they might relate to better. But every once in a while, there is a kid that there is just that bond with, where they need something really intensely and you have it to give. I had it last year with DJ, and with Bouncer, and C. This year, that kid in my class is Cyrus, and to a lesser extent Jamie, and definitely with some of the kids, mostly Maria and Anita from after school and a couple of other random kids. Not that I don't love all of my kids, or that they don't need something, but I don't think I'm necessarily that one teacher for all of them. For Cyrus, I am. And it's fairly obvious to most of the kids in my class, I think. It's not favoritism, and it doesn't seem to upset them in any way. Most of them wouldn't even open themselves up emotionally enough to have that kind of bond, so it's not something they really get jealous of. They don't need it, they don't want it. But they see it and recognize it. And it's really hard to let go of those kids, not knowing if they'll ever get this vague amorphous thing that they need ever again or if what I've given them has been enough. I'm going to be the most annoying parent ever, some day, I'm sure, because I'm afraid even of letting go of my students. Not that Cyrus helped with the comment today...
Another cheery day with the future of our country.
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