Educationally Defiant

Three weeks into summer school. I've had an interesting year, probably one that I'm learning the most about myself and the "system." The first few years I taught summer school, we were working with fourth graders who had not passed the OAT, so we had sort of a mission and a goal at the end when they were to retake the test. About 5 years ago, the state stopped offering this, so summer school ended up being basic remediation for struggling students going into 5th grade. A few years ago, they offered a computer lab version of summer school, which ended up being a criminal waste of time. No wonder I was not asked back the following year, I'm sure the district analyzed the results and wondered where all the money went.

This year, among my crew of 10 kids, more than half require small instruction, individualized teaching time, special needs and constant monitoring. After one week of wondering why the kids weren't trying, the school tutor realized she was to be in my room to offer intervention and help for them, and that has changed the climate. I certainly found myself with some of my patience whittled down to small broom threads and I began to rely more on frustrating redirecting, which with a kid who is defiant, ends up being more foolish than endearingly purposeful.

Of course, I then begin to question the axiom, "Am I qualified for these types of students?" Aren't they much like the ones I have taught before? What's so different, and why I am I so willing to throw up my arms and claim it isn't my responsibility? I begin to ask questions with the teacher assigned to my room, and we begin a revelatory conversation about the nature of labeling students and whether they are a product of their environment.

Is it fair to assume that educators place a label of emotionally disturbed African-American kid simply because he refuses to listen to instruction and is highly disrespectful? Think he's allowed to be at home considering his large family, a single mom and a culture that promotes selfishness, misogyny and violence through their music and movies? The same kid who refuses to listen in Pickerington is labeled autistic. He too lives with a single mom, listens to country music and goes to every doctor's appointment. Kid A gets cursed out by his parents, has older siblings that do drugs or hang out at the house all night. Kid B sees his dads on every other weekend, likes to be on the computer all day.

Then, because of this disparity in race, districts and state policy makers nationwide are working hard to label fewer kids (or at least to balance the ethnicity of those being taken to intervention), therefore maybe hurting a kid who truly needs help. Case in point, a child who was born with a drug-addled mom, received no form of human touch for several months and who ends up being adopted to an exhausted single mom who doesn't know what to do with his social awkwardness and lashing out at school.

It reminds me of a scene this weekend. I set up a fly trap outside my garage to prevent garbage pail flies from entering the house through the garage. I go out and see that during the storm, the trap has fallen and I realize that a bird has become snared within it's tangled snake-skin. I lift it and see that the bird is awake but perhaps not fighting any longer, tired perhaps from fighting. I place the tape in the trash, begin to think about a dead bird rotting in the garbage and take it out. I begin to wrestle its wings from the sticky substance, it flaps, gets tangled even worse. In my attempt to peel him free, a few feathers fall. I took a napkin and grab the small bird firmly, free him from the trap and place him on the ground. It hops frantically away, chirping protestingly. If only I could stop wrestling with the trap, limp away quietly and vow to live another day.