I sometimes wonder what my life would be like if certain events never happened. What if I never met that person? What if my parents never divorced? What if I never got that opportunity? Yeah, I would most likely be a completely different person than I am today. The people I’ve met and the things that have happened in my life have shaped me into the person I’ve grown into. My life isn’t spectacular by any means but I do have the love of friends and family, a bank account with money in it, and a roof over my head. When I think about the life I have and how blessed I am to have everything that has ever come my way I can’t help but to think about the people who don’t have the essential things they need to get through their daily lives.
Growing up in a very small town I never really thought about children who grew up without the things they really needed. When I moved to Cincinnati those thoughts became more real to me. I am a special education major and in my third year at Cincinnati I was placed in three inner city public schools; one being a high school and two elementary schools. Of course I was terrified the first day I had to step foot into the high school. I still looked like a high school student and was worried I was going to get mistaken for one of them. I was also worried because every time someone asked me where I was placed and I said the name of the school they gave me this horrified look. I’m not from Cincinnati so I don’t know the reputations of the public schools and when I saw that face 90% of the time, I was a little scared. This high school was not like the one I attended, mostly because of the culture that was created. My high school was 98% White, while this one was 98% African American and I can say that was the only difference. A high school is a high school no matter what color the students are. The students still have the same issues except the students here have a little bit more on their plate than the students at my high school did…
I learned that fathers weren’t really looked up to because most were in jail. I learned that these students were not expected to go to college so when they had the dreams of going to a University their parents told them that they would never make it.
After about a week of being in the general English classroom I was placed in the MD classroom. Which in high school is much different than general ed. I fell in love with most of the students and started spending my Fridays with them practicing gymnastics. We practiced their routines and got them ready for the Special Olympics. The last day the students received their medals for excellence. It was definitely a day I’ll never forget because as soon as they got shiny gold placed around their necks they ran over to me to show me what they had won. I was so proud to be that person.
At the end of this experience I realized that this high school was judged from the outside. The people who thought of it as a “bad” school had never really been on the inside and definitely didn’t get to know the students like I did. I knew I would be able to teach at an inner city school. Before I was placed anywhere the thought of my future classroom reminded me of the classrooms I grew up in, but after my experiences my vision has changed completely.
While at the elementary school I was basically a tutor to two fifth graders who were struggling readers. Our goal, as teachers, was to raise their reading level by one full grade. I got three hours with each of the every week. My female student was absent most days of the week for being sick. She had a really bad type of asthma. So I ended up spending my full six hours a week with my male student. I tried to incorporate books he would actually want to read and things he was really interested in. Because the school was so small and there were about 40 of us sped students trying to find spots to work with our students we ended up sitting in the hallway with a desk between us. On this day I brought in the story of the three little pigs from the wolf’s perspective . It is actually a really funny little book about the wolf just wanting some sugar to bake a cake for his grandmother and his allergies were so bad he accidentally ended up blowing all the pigs houses down… The student really loved the book and he read each page aloud to me. I got really excited when he would laugh at the pictures because he was actually enjoying reading! After he read the book I asked him to write a short persuasive piece about which side he was on. The wolf’s or the pigs? He wrote about a full page and just as he was finished this woman who was probably in her early 30’s started walking towards us. She was probably about 8 months pregnant and looked like she was about to kill something. She looked right at my student and screamed, “Where have you been!” Right then I knew it was my students’ mother and I scooted back in my seat a little. The other sped students who were teaching with their students heard her scream and looked in my direction and I just gave them a look back that meant, “I have no idea what’s going on??” From the fight the mother was having with her son I learned that the night before he never came home. He stayed at a friend’s house (a friend he wasn’t supposed to be hanging out with) and never called to say where he was. His mother had not seen him since the day before when he left for school. Don’t get me wrong this mom had every right to be pissed off. She was worried about her son. But the way she was handling the situation was not working. My student sat in his seat with his head down. His eyes were watering but there was no way he was going to let a tear run down his cheek. I could tell he was so embarrassed to have his mom yelling at him right in front of me. She yelled, “You live in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods, and you don’t think to call me??!” “Do you want to go to prison like your father?!” “You haven’t seen your father since you were seven and you won’t till you’re sixteen! Is that what you want for yourself!?”
When I heard those words I started to hold back tears. I was just sitting there in my chair looking up at his mother, homeroom teacher, and English teacher. They were all yelling. They all said how irresponsible he was. How he never does his homework. How he’s lazy. I couldn’t even stand to look at my student because I knew I would burst out into tears at that exact moment. I just kept saying to myself, “Oh my god, Brittany. You can NOT cry right now. Seriously?! These teachers are going to look you up and down and say well she could never teach here. She couldn’t handle this.” I held back my emotions and kept it all together. From then on I realized why reading wasn’t really important to my student. He was not worried about how many books he had to read or when to get his homework done. He was worried about never seeing his father again. Worried that this new baby coming along was going to take his Momma somewhere else, with her new boyfriend. I was genuinely happy to know that she was worried about him that day. But the words that came out of her mouth opened my eyes to what these ten year olds were really going through when they stepped out of the classroom.
This next fall I start student teaching at an elementary school with first through third graders. I will be in a special education classroom. I am so excited and extremely nervous for this experience and just hope that I’m ready for everything that is about to be thrown my way in about a month. I want to write those experiences down as well.
Thanks for reading : )
Miss Myers
