Still Dealing with Culture Shock

Sometimes I don’t know how to describe it.  This week our union meeting was more hysterical than usual because our governor is calling for mid-year cuts in education.  Teachers’ jobs are gonna get chopped.  I’m a new teacher, I don’t have tenure.  You do the math.

And yet, I refuse to live my life based on fear, so for me, the meeting was a lot of blah-blah.  One of my colleagues and I chatted about it afterward.   She wondered if she should just move to a suburban school.  I admit, I’ve thought about it—in many ways it would be easier, or at least the challenges would be different (dealing with parents livid about 30-page coloring homework assignments?)— in the end, I love this job, these students.  In fact, the more I do this job, the more I love it, but there are definitely growing pains.

I grew up in such a different place and time than these kids (rural Nebraska?  Hello???).  I continue to live a different life than they do.  The issues are complex.  My students are so incredibly needy and at the same time, they act like the world owes them everything. 

We have a field trip to a museum coming up.  The museum is free, but the bus will cost $4 per student and the kids have to bring in the money.  I had kids angrily tell me (the day after the permission slip went home) “I AIN’T GOIN’!”  I started to hook into the anger and begin my little this-is-part-of-the-curriculum-it’s-not-optional  lecture, when I caught myself and began to peel back the layers.  Why not?  “Cuz my mama say she don’t got the money.  She got to pay the cable.”  Ohhhhhh.  Tell your mom to write me a note.  We can work something out.  Just like that, the anger dissipated.  (I AM learning.  It’s just a slow process.)

This week, we also had a cool assembly come to the school.  The message was great, but the guy selling the message was also selling yo-yos.  (He used it as his hook.  It was very effective.)  At the end of the assembly, he informed us that the program was not paid for by any outside funding, that it comes to us free of charge, but that he makes his living by selling the yo-yos.  They ranged in price from $6 to $15.  FIFTEEN DOLLARS FOR A YO-YO???  In MY school?  Pul-eeeease.  And yet, the kids were all excited about them, talking about which one they were going to get.  Inside, I was STEAMING.  I couldn’t help it.  I stood in front of the class, and told them, in no  uncertain terms, that we have a field trip to go on and if ANYBODY who told me they didn’t have money for the field trip comes in with a yo-yo, there’s gonna be heck to pay.  THAT went over well.  (I told you…my learning…SLOW process.)

I still have great difficulty reconciling my two worlds.

When I do anything in my own children’s suburban school, I am struck by the order, the manners, the QUIET.  My school seems so chaotic to me.  The constant struggle, shuffle and NOISE of my school still boggles my mind.  While I don’t come home in tears anymore, they are still plenty of times when I am frustrated or confused or just downright EXHAUSTED by the culture I serve.  I try not to be judgmental.  Really.  I do.  I make a contentious effort on a DAILY basis, but it’s damn near impossible.  Strike that.  It IS impossible.  When it comes to not judging, I’m an epic failure.  I see what goes on in the school and in the students’ lives.  I think about the lives my own children live and how they are so much more protected (and not just by me).  There IS a difference.

The things my students have to deal with are horrendous.  They are hungry, sometimes they are homeless, often they live in fear of physical violence.  (Just yesterday one of my favorite little guys, Bartholomew, told me that a SWAT team had come to his neighborhood to apprehend a neightbor.  I know it’s true.  I saw it on the news.  I said, I know you’re gonna say “no” to this, but weren’t you scared?  He admitted he was terrified.)  No adult should have to experience these things; I wonder how the children survive.  I am shocked by the things I hear and see.  I had to talk to Child Protective for the second time last week (I didn’t call them, but they wanted to talk to me about someone).  This is not ok.

My world is not like that.  I’m not hungry.  I have a home.  When my kids get sick, I don’t have to take them to the emergency room; we have a pediatrician and insurance to cover the visit (at least so far).  I have a car that can get us there.  My children are getting an outstanding education.  I have lots of education and for the most part, I comprehend what goes on in the world around me.  When I don’t, I know how to ask the questions and have the problem-solving resources and stamina to figure it out.  I know it’s a different world.  I can’t help thinking it’s better.  Isn’t it?  Isn’t this world better than one that lacks structure/stability?  If it’s not, why do we hold those things up as the standard?  And is that a judgment that is ok to make?

I never explicitly say, the way you live is wrong, there is a better way.  But  implicitly, isn’t that what I’m doing?    My job is so much more than teaching the basic fundamentals of “reading, writing and ‘rithmetic.”  I am teaching my students about OPTIONS.  I hope my students can avoid drugs, violence, teen pregnancy, etc. and go on to get a solid education and fulfilling, stable jobs.  I want them to live lives full of promise, hope and dignity.  I hope I am modeling this for them.  I tell them every day how much I love my job and them.  And yet, I still have difficulty reconciling it all.  Who am I to say what’s better?  Am I just projecting how I would feel?  Are they happy with their lives?  I guess I can ask the questions.  And I can show different options.  But in the end, THEY are the ones who have to make the choice.