I’ve
noticed over the past weeks that there are some students who are hard to read.
They hate you one minute, swear at you and do everything in their power to get
under your skin, and the next minute they’re asking sweetly if you can help
them and practically jumping up and down because you came to their game. At
times they seem bipolar but then you realize there is more going on with these
students than meets the eye. I think the mark of a good teacher is the ability
to see and recognize each student’s need for attention and love, especially if
they don’t get it at home. I’m not convinced students really want to act out. I
think the students just want to be heard and understood. As teachers, we need
to ask who our students are. Here is what two of my students have to say:
“I am from Chi-city
I am from all over Pilsen
I am from some parts of Oakley
I come from where gun shots never
get caught
I come from where everything you
pick up is a weapon
Where mistaken identity is made from
I come from where it smells like
weed every day
Where it smells like fresh bread
when the factory opens
Hearing people screaming for help
Soundin’ like “Whoop!,” kids getting
beat by a belt. “
“I am from Chicago. Seeing people
wander the streets and men carrying cargo.
Hear the sounds of gun shots,
opening the door shops,
sirens from the Chicago 50 cops.
Smellin’ fresh from the panederia,
clean clothes from the lavenderia. “
* panederia = bakery; lavenderia =
laundromat;
On a
slightly more upbeat note, I was really encouraged this week by one of my
students. He is a boy who failed seventh grade and is now receiving special
education services in our classroom. At the beginning of the year he wasn’t
turning in any of his homework, he hardly paid attention in class, and I
honestly wasn’t sure what to do with him. I kept entering grades into the
computer and would cringe every time I had to give him a zero. He was failing
at his mid-quarter progress report.
Well one
day when I got on him for not turning in a form he was supposed to bring for
the office. He told me he had it, but it
was just in his locker. I went out with him to get it and as he was going
through his locker and I noticed some half-finished homework assignments he was
passing by. I asked him why he wasn’t doing his homework and why he didn’t at
least turn in what he had done. He told me he often didn’t get home until late
or he would just forget.
Anyway,
for the next few days, I kept reminding him in the halls when I saw him to do
his homework and bring it to be because I wanted to see his grade improve.
Sadly, I’ll admit that I really didn’t expect to see much change, but then it
happened. He slowly began to bring in his homework and gradually the quality of
his homework began to improve as he read and responded to the feedback I was
giving him. I congratulated him on turning in his homework and told him he had
to keep on his work. I even stayed after school for an hour one day during the after-school
program, to make sure he did the homework assignment. I sat right next to him
and didn’t let him talk to any of his friends or let them talk to him, since I
knew it was a long and difficult homework assignment worth a lot of points. I
even made him read it out loud to me so I knew he understood it.
Then one
day as I was entering grades I realized that his F had turned to a D. I was so
excited! It was as if it was my own
grade and I had received an A+. As soon as he walked in the door, I went up to him,
congratulating him on raising his grade.
I told him to keep up the good work. A day or two later, he raised it
again to a C. I was ecstatic! And the icing on the top of the cake was that he
wrote this for his vocabulary sentence, “I was aghast to find out my F in
reading had been raised to a C.” He’s such a mellow guy that he doesn’t really
ever show his emotions. He only half smiled when I told him the news, but the
fact that he wrote this showed me that it did matter to him and that’s what I
wanted. I wanted him to take responsibility for his learning and to do his
best.
This kid
is not stupid by any means. He is a great thinker and one of the sweetest guys
you’ll ever meet. He has seen far more and been exposed to far more than most
boys his age, and he’ll tell you about his life as if it’s normal to have to
move because a gang thinks you keyed their car and they now want to kill you.
Gangs and drugs are everyday life for him, although he doesn’t want to get
involved in them. I want to make a difference in these students’ lives and show
them that someone loves them. That’s the main reason I wanted to work in a low-income school. I think that maybe I was
able to make a difference for this kid and if that’s the only thing I
accomplish this semester, it’ll still be worth it.
 |
| Mexican Folkloric Dance Company of Chicago |
Life
outside the classroom has been great as well. For our art event of the week, we
went to see a live mariachi band. I have to admit that I was not overly
enthused by the prospect because I imagined something different, but I really
enjoyed the music and dancing that night. There were nine different musicians
that took turns singing and there was also a group of fifteen to twenty dancers
that had an array of costumes. My favorite dance was when the men were dancing
with what looked like a scythe for farming and they flipped them around, jumped
over them, and slapped them together to the rhythm of the instruments. I enjoyed how all the dances seemed to tell a
story or show a bit of the heritage of the Hispanic people. Just as enjoyable
as the actual performers were the little girls dressed up and dancing in the
aisle. They were quite cute.
 |
| My purchases at the thrift shop |
We then spent
a couple hours stopping in small shops and half a dozen thrift stores just to
browse. I bought a dress and my roommate picked out a coat that fit perfectly,
and was on sale too! Pilsen is a neat neighborhood because of all the murals
along the streets and artwork hanging in almost all
the shops.
On the outside
of a pizza place, I saw a mural that also hangs in a restaurant in my hometown.
It was a fun reminder of home. I love to
see the heritage of the people displayed in that way.
Later,
my roommate convinced me to go for a run, which, as anyone who knows me well
knows, is a miracle in and of itself. I tend to avoid running at all costs so
after 23 minutes, I was glad to have made it back to our apartment. I have to
admit though that it was fun to explore another part of Pilsen I hadn’t before.
However, now my legs are very sore reminding me that I should probably exercise
on a more consistent basis.
