***Alright, folks, you know the rules. Join us all in humiliating the crap out of yourself every Thursday by sharing some completely tasteless, wholly unclassy, “how many readers can I estrange THIS week??” TMI story about your life. Or hell, about someone else’s!
This week I am going off the beaten path a bit. Typically, TMI Thursday posts are funny. I will warn you this is not such a funny post.
Ten years ago I did my student teaching. It was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. It was also one of the hardest experiences of my life! My student teaching took place in the inner city. Now, comparatively speaking the school I was placed in was not as bad as some of the other inner city schools but for me it was an eye opener. I will admit I lived and still live a fairly privileged life. My husband has joked, “Lucy, you grew up in a glass house.” My kids claim they lived in a bubble. The most I have come to roughing it is when my husband and I first married and we struggled as a young couple building our lives but never did we have to live in a bad neighborhood or fear for our lives.
Student teaching opened my eyes to an entirely different world. Of course, I knew that people lived in poverty. I read about it. I saw it on television. I saw it portrayed in movies. I studied it in school and would cry in many of my sociology classes but I never really came face to face with POVERTY.
In all honesty, when I began student teaching I kind of ignored my surroundings. I went in and did my planning and teaching and drove right back to my little safe world. Then one day it all changed for me.
My students decided to give me TOO MUCH INFORMATION and this changed me forever.
In all honesty I can’t even tell you how it all happened but the students began questioning me on how I could even relate to them? I decided to not try and fool them and I agreed. I gave them my background and admitted that I grew up in a neighboring suburb and did not know their lives but had studied about the city. They laughed. I laughed. I sounded ridiculous. The girls told me I sounded worse trying to ‘fit’ in and I should just be me. They understood. They liked asking questions about me and my life and then they wanted me to learn correctly about them. They wanted to share their stories. So, I let them. We took a break from history and I asked them about their life. It fit the lesson that day. The problem, I wasn’t prepared for the brutal honesty. Here are their stories.
Student 1: A young lady explained to me she had 3 babies at home and it was hard for her to do all the homework she got during the day. In addition, most nights she worked until Midnight because her family needed her extra income. She was doing everything possible to stay in school and not get pregnant again and she was going to be the first one in her family to get a high school diploma.
Student2: A young man he worked two jobs to help his family and he was going to be the first to graduate if he could stay in school but his parents were thinking of yanking him so he could get a full time job to help the family make ends meet.
Student3: Another young lady with a child, working and hoping to graduate.
Student4: Moved with his mom from Chicago and was very proud of his mom because she was no longer doing heroin but he was afraid that him being in school might cause her to slip because he pretty much kept her clean.
Student 5: Moved from New York City to be safer. He pulled up his shirt and showed us his gun shot wounds and knife wounds and said that since living in Ohio he had not been shot or knifed and his brother was killed in NYC so he was hoping to live and not overly worried about graduating High School, although that would be nice.
They loved teasing me and one young lady use to say ” We have got to get the GHETTO in her” and they would all laugh. They were my eighth period class and by far my favorite!!!
These were the kids I was teaching American History. I got in my car and I cried the entire way home. These kids didn’t need American History. These kids Knew things about life way more than I ever wanted to know. That day I got TOO MUCH INFORMATION but you know what? I needed that information. It has forever changed me. I still haven’t figured out a way to change the world but I do think about it all the time. I did apply for a job at the school but they had a hiring freeze and the principal could not hire me. I didn’t apply for those kids, I applied for me and maybe someday I will figure out a way to give back.
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That is very eye-opening. It sounds like these movies I’ve seen – of course, Freedom Writers, but there was also one with Michelle Pfeiffer in the 90s. It was called something like Dangerous Games, or something of that sort. It was kind of like the Freedom Writers of the 90s. Both movies were very good. I hope you are able to help people. That experience will probably always stay with you. I can only imagine how it must’ve been to hear their stories.
Oh, I do know those movies, gee, not quite as ‘romantic’ as those movies. I didn’t find a way to move the kids but I did connect with them and they forever changed me!
Wow. Yeah, I know from experience too kids just don’t have it easy in those areas. I don’t speak about it on my Blog, but I was a social worker for DHR briefly (about 4 months)… I had to investigate child abuse and neglect. It was VERY hard to do and not get emotionally involved and I spend many nights after work worrying about the cases I had and trying to help them, but the system really doesn’t care about them individually – just the numbers on paper.
I couldn’t even imagine such a job, yikes
I once got accused by a former employer that I wanted to “save the world”…nope, I explained to her, I just want to make the world a better place for those children in my corner of it. We can’t change/save the world, but we can do what we can to make it better, especially for children, in our little corner; and if we all did in our corners of the world, imagine the change!
Working for children is such a blessing and is so eye opening. Just being a part of the world is often enough to impact them!
Deep down I know that sometimes you have no idea how as a teacher you might reach just one child and that is an honor but sometimes I just wish to do more, you know the dream and they just really reached me!
In High School I wrote this play to teach young children about fire safety and then helped put it on. While talking to them about their lives I learned so much and seeing what the play and talking to them did for them helped push me to keep writing and striving to change and help every way I could.
It is amazing what you learn from kids when you LISTEN!!!!
Wow, lady. Maybe not changing the world, but you’re definitely doing some good out there.
Ah, thanks, that is sweet, sometimes you just feel you want to do more! Especially when you get my age (lol)
It puts it all in perspective when we see people with lives so different from our own. I can see how it really would have affected you!
It forever changed my life!
Oh No. My heart just broke when I read about Student4. How sad for a child to feel responsible for keeping a parent off drugs.
I know, can you only imagine? I was stunned by their stories. You hear about them, you read about them but coming face to face was hard.