The one thing about class sizes I've learned over the past ten years as an educator, is that the more kids you have doesn't necessarily make you a better teacher. (I'm sure I'll be quoted in some Republican-led website that bashes unions.) It gives you less papers to grade, yes, and it makes your management style look better when the class silences themselves in 10 seconds rather than 30. But the one thing that class size does is it makes a teacher realize how much more work they really have. At 30 or more, a teacher can overlook the cracks that unfold around a student simply because there isn't time to fully digest the situation. Paperwork is filed, calls are dodged, administrators are placed on various levels of defcon alerts, but the simple fact is, if a kid can go an entire week without being suspended, it means you've reached them. The kid who is chronically absent is forgotten by the time the papers are passed out. And the students with the suspected and undiagnosed learning disability? Where did those papers go I was trying to complete?
Recently I've been relieved of the overcrowding. Down to 24 students is nice. Teaching one grade is even better. I find the off-topic voices and can trace the eyes lingering off much faster. It has also magnified their issues. One quarter down and I'm barely finding out about kids bounced from homeless shelters. The emergency forms of others have already become obsolete by the time I try to reach them. Conferences are around the corner and I have but a fraction of the parents I want to see. And it's always the parents who I've met with before--the smart ones are their kids. The achievers. They want more homework. Challenge them, they tell me. They're the kids who attend school 90% of the time.
The biggest challenges I face are a copier machine that doesn't work. Honestly. There isn't much that grabs my attention these days. Reward kids, pump them up, help them find themselves. Each year brings new obstacles and mixtures of plots and themes that have played out in previous episodes. The frustrations are sometimes adult related (oh, I could write a book about that one) and bureaucratic. I listen to the presidential debates and hear nothing of how their policies will help the parents, the ones I desperately need the support of.
I can play the class war that's evident on the news. Rich v poor, the job producers and unemployed, the victims and the middle class. The amount of taxes one pays won't amount to much in the long run. What's fair? I always tell my students life isn't fair. Hell, they know this just looking around at each other. We're reading novels that feature a distinct vision of our future. One is a utopia where every aspect of your life is controlled for the common good. One is a dystopia where you are forced into coercion. The difference between the two are the costumes.
Both are fantasies. Perhaps I'm teaching about these societies to draw attention to today's wrongs. Perhaps it's my way of saying the world, as beautiful and broken as it is, continues to devolve. I was reminded that even the Isrealites demanded a king to rule them like every other nation around them. Saul, the one whose ears felt the please, felt as if he had failed. God reminded him that he had not. They didn't turn from Saul, they turned from God.
And next week I'm supposed to vote? It's becoming a harder decision to make these days. No one inspires me to do more in my community. Neither one of them gives a radiance of approval. I'm reminded that humans are imperfect. They never keep their promises. Will any administration bring jobs back from China? From India? Why electrify the borders when my fellow brown people are doing much of the grunt work? They are today's dangerous men, like the Chinese working on the railroads in the Old West. I once read that Asian workers handled much of the nitro glycerin needed to blow holes through mountains. Imagine how much blood was spilled for progress? How much blood is spilled for our progress now?
Women feel like the right wing is at war with them. Attacking Planned Parenthood isn't the way to diminish the numbers on abortion. I'd love to see less of them, but no one is attacking the root of the problem. It's too late for that now. The word rape is tossed around so much, I'm waiting for my son and little one to ask awkward questions.
Muslim fears are perpetuated online. Some of the videos can be frightening when you view them in the middle of the night. Exposed in the light of day, they are nothing more than distractions. You think my parents care? My fifth graders are consumed with illuminati conspiracies, Halloween myths (does it mean you're worshiping the devil if you trick or treat, Mr. Cordova?), and what they can buy in school store. The faces change but the questions remain. And desperately they cry for more. I don't have enough arms to hold everyone together.
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