(no subject)
I hate that my first update in a while will be a rant, but I guess that's what LJ is for!
Work on Thursday started out great! I was in the high school classroom working with a girl named Iaesha, 17 years old and a high school junior. She wasn't too keen about getting through her work and kept complaining about having to read things like the assigned history pages and the science lesson. She kept saying it was boring and not what she wanted to read. Finally I asked her what she did like to read and she kinda looked at me like it was the oddest question I could have asked. But then she paused and said, "Well, I really like poetry." I said it wasn't my favorite, but I liked to read poems because they were short. And she said she hadn't thought about that but that she read them because "of all the emotions."
We kept talking about poetry and then she blurted out, "You know, Black Boy is a really good book. That's the only long book I've ever read." Now, I JUST read Black Boy the week before for my Ethics of Black Verbal Aesthetics class. I was thrilled to have a chance to talk about it, and also that she had read a book like it! It's not the easiest book to get through: it's very emotional, full of racism and difficult themes, and also 600 pages long! We kept chatting about it she made a comment about how the boy in the book could never keep a job and he was always fired. So I asked him if he ever liked any of his jobs and she said, "No. It wasn't what he wanted to do." So then I asked her if she thinks he was ever really fired for no reason. All of a sudden she got this look of realization in her eyes and a huge smile on her face and said, "You know, I don't think he was ever really fired. I think he kept giving his bosses reasons to fire him. He wanted to be a writer and not all those other sucky jobs." She made the connection between plot and meaning! I loved it, I was smiling and she was smiling cause she realized that she had done something with what she read. It was great.
I told her about Richard Wright's other books and that she should look at them. She said she liked that type of literature and that one of her other favorite books is I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. But then we had to get back to the work at hand and that was it.
So at the end of the day I went up to the high school teacher, Trisha, and told her how much I loved working with Iaesha and how she was a great kid. The teacher's response was, "Iaesha? Well, she must be very different one-on-one." I brushed that off and then told her all about what had happened when we were talking about Black Boy to which she first said, "Black Boy, what's that?" To which I cringed and told her who the author was and what else he had written. Then she said, "Well, someone must have read that to her or they read it in one of her classes." I tried to brush that off too and I told her that Iaesha had also read Maya Angelou and she said, "Everyone reads that in high school. She couldn't have read those by herself."
I just kinda took a breath turned toward the door and said I'd see her next week. I couldn't believe it! This 17 year old girl had discussed literature with me for a half an hour and her teacher just brushes it off and tries to say that she's not capable of doing such a thing?!? OK, maybe Iaesha hadn't read those books, but what matters is that if she had heard about them from someone or had studied them in class before, she still took the time to talk and LIKED talking about them. I think that's an amazing feat for a girl who has been moved from school to school and is struggling to graduate. There was a drive of energy within her when we were talking and I don't want that to go unnoticed.
I also don't want to become so cynical like Trisha. I know that she sees kids who can barely read come through her classroom door every day, but that doesn't mean that every single one is exactly the same. It's those types of assumptions that ruin these kids' chances at having a good academic career. If these jackass teachers will take a second to talk to their kids and find out what they're interested in, maybe the few months, weeks, days, that they spend in the receiving home will actually make a difference in their lives instead of reminding them that they're not worth people's time and that they're not smart or worthy in any way.
I don't know what to do about it, but I want to do SOMETHING!!!
Work on Thursday started out great! I was in the high school classroom working with a girl named Iaesha, 17 years old and a high school junior. She wasn't too keen about getting through her work and kept complaining about having to read things like the assigned history pages and the science lesson. She kept saying it was boring and not what she wanted to read. Finally I asked her what she did like to read and she kinda looked at me like it was the oddest question I could have asked. But then she paused and said, "Well, I really like poetry." I said it wasn't my favorite, but I liked to read poems because they were short. And she said she hadn't thought about that but that she read them because "of all the emotions."
We kept talking about poetry and then she blurted out, "You know, Black Boy is a really good book. That's the only long book I've ever read." Now, I JUST read Black Boy the week before for my Ethics of Black Verbal Aesthetics class. I was thrilled to have a chance to talk about it, and also that she had read a book like it! It's not the easiest book to get through: it's very emotional, full of racism and difficult themes, and also 600 pages long! We kept chatting about it she made a comment about how the boy in the book could never keep a job and he was always fired. So I asked him if he ever liked any of his jobs and she said, "No. It wasn't what he wanted to do." So then I asked her if she thinks he was ever really fired for no reason. All of a sudden she got this look of realization in her eyes and a huge smile on her face and said, "You know, I don't think he was ever really fired. I think he kept giving his bosses reasons to fire him. He wanted to be a writer and not all those other sucky jobs." She made the connection between plot and meaning! I loved it, I was smiling and she was smiling cause she realized that she had done something with what she read. It was great.
I told her about Richard Wright's other books and that she should look at them. She said she liked that type of literature and that one of her other favorite books is I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. But then we had to get back to the work at hand and that was it.
So at the end of the day I went up to the high school teacher, Trisha, and told her how much I loved working with Iaesha and how she was a great kid. The teacher's response was, "Iaesha? Well, she must be very different one-on-one." I brushed that off and then told her all about what had happened when we were talking about Black Boy to which she first said, "Black Boy, what's that?" To which I cringed and told her who the author was and what else he had written. Then she said, "Well, someone must have read that to her or they read it in one of her classes." I tried to brush that off too and I told her that Iaesha had also read Maya Angelou and she said, "Everyone reads that in high school. She couldn't have read those by herself."
I just kinda took a breath turned toward the door and said I'd see her next week. I couldn't believe it! This 17 year old girl had discussed literature with me for a half an hour and her teacher just brushes it off and tries to say that she's not capable of doing such a thing?!? OK, maybe Iaesha hadn't read those books, but what matters is that if she had heard about them from someone or had studied them in class before, she still took the time to talk and LIKED talking about them. I think that's an amazing feat for a girl who has been moved from school to school and is struggling to graduate. There was a drive of energy within her when we were talking and I don't want that to go unnoticed.
I also don't want to become so cynical like Trisha. I know that she sees kids who can barely read come through her classroom door every day, but that doesn't mean that every single one is exactly the same. It's those types of assumptions that ruin these kids' chances at having a good academic career. If these jackass teachers will take a second to talk to their kids and find out what they're interested in, maybe the few months, weeks, days, that they spend in the receiving home will actually make a difference in their lives instead of reminding them that they're not worth people's time and that they're not smart or worthy in any way.
I don't know what to do about it, but I want to do SOMETHING!!!