This blog is about what it is like to teach in a ghetto school, and more specifically what it is like for a substitute teacher to do this.
The school where I am a substitute teacher is fairly large -- 2000 students ? -- and has a student body about 80% African-American. Perhaps another 15 percent are Hispanic, and the remainder is divided between Asaians and Caucasians.
Make no mistake about it, it is a ghetto school. Most of the students come from poor families, many of them one-parent families, and most probably families from which no one has ever been to college. The kids wear what I have come to regard as a "uniform."
The boys wear extremely baggy jeans with embroidered pockets and sometimes embrodery decorating other areas of the pants. These pants are worn very low. One can usually see an expanse of brightly colored underwear showing at the top of the student's butt. The pants are also so long that the wearer unavoidably walks now and then on the cuffs, which quickly become ragged and frayed. The tops are usually very loose-fitting, sweatshirt-like jerseys. In short, the boys dress "gangsta-style." It is clear that most students who wear other types of clothing are considered "out of it" nerds.
The girls usually dress in very tight-fitting jeans, lots of costume jewelry, and tight T-shirts that show off how sexy they can be. The variety of hairdos is nothing less than staggering, with lots of braids, lots of weaves (artificial or real hair from someone else, hair added to what the wearer actually possesses).
In visiting some African-American friends a month ago, I was told that the school is so "ghetto" that they would not allow their own children to attend it, and instead sent them to private school.
This, then, is part of the setting of the stories I have to tell.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
well, in about your age you are still active as a teacher. congratulation for you!
http://mesotheliomaupdates.net/
Wow, I come from a VERY small school, and here it's the exact opposite. If someone walks by dressed like that everyone's like WTF? There's probably 500 students in our school, and about 25 seniors. In all. (They all drop out to work somewhere)But I could NEVER imagine all of that happening here.
I read in the local paper a few days ago that the drop-out rate of students in this city's high schools is around 35%. There seems to be very little one can do to teach or convince a certain core of students that there exists a connection between education and the kind of life one leads out of school. Maybe a few of the dropouts will see the light later in life, but I would bet that not many of them do.
Check out the blog entry I will be writing later today here Maria, my experiences with her during my first year of substitute teaching, and her ultimate fate.
Love to read your articles. They are real life stories. Your are one good man.
Hello there!
I think it is amazing that you dedicated your life to young people by establishing yourself as a sub while their 'official' teachers are absent. I must say though that as a young student myself that I do not appreciate being labeled, and this my friend is what you are doing not only to one person but a community of adolescents.
In Africa, they call them "ghettos" because of the tragedy of poverty and distress.
The young men who attempt being 'manly' with their baggy pants and fake fronts are small boys in their hearts because maybe they've had no one to look up to as a father figure.
Maybe you should invest in some one on one time with various students and get personal. They could be hurting. Right now, they don't need judgment; they need comfort or maybe just someone to smile at them.
The young woman of your school are apart of a generation who think that they possess no self worth. So...to get attention, they flaunt their bodies.
Delve deeper than what the eye can see. A life is worth so much more than it's getting nowadays.
I challenge you to reach out because if you don't, then who else will?
It's going to be hard, but then again, life was never fair.
I am grateful to C.K. Martin because he has raised very important points worthy of lots of discussion.
I'm not sure what he thinks I am labeling, but when Black friends of mine say they will not send their own children to the school where I teach because "it is too ghetto," then I doubt if I am off the mark in labeling it a "ghetto school."
(The term "ghetto," incidentally, does not come from Africa. It comes from a walled neighborhood in Venice called The Ghetto where for hundreds of years Jews were confined to live.)
C.K. Martin's insights into what these kids need is right on the mark.
As far as reaching out to the students, I do this all the time. For instance, I just got off the phone after speaking with the young man who just came out of juvenile hall and is confined to his home, probably for the next eighteen months, except for church and school. I started my conversation with him by saying, "I know you are intelligent, and I also know you are a good kid, so now that we have that out of the way, we can talk about the future." His mentor and I will be starting a program of activities for him, my part involving reading and writing every single week at home.
I am not paid to do this -- it isn't work time, for one thing, and I wouldn't require being paid.
I really don't need to be admonished about reaching out to these kids. I do it all the time. Another example concerns a large, Black kid whom some people regarded as hopelessly dyslexic and slow. When I discovered that he was fascinated by fossils, I gave him my old college textbook about invertebrate paleontology. He read all 400 pages ! I then gave him a book called "The World Without Us," a fairly recent book about what would happen to the earth ecologically if mankind simply vanished. He read that one, too.
I think the negative reaction to my calling this school a "ghetto school" is really a harmful form of political correctness. If you're going to fix a problem, you have to admit that the problem exists.
The race of a person does not determine who they are or where they've come from. Your black friends need not be black to make such a statement. The point is is that we as a whole society have conformed to "labeling". We don't actually realize what we're doing until someone points this out.
"Ghetto" may not necessarily come from Africa, but it is still a term used to describe hardship.
It's great to know that you are rising up to meet others needs, but if you do not love these children wholeheartedly, it will mean nothing.
I do agree with said statement that, "If you're going to fix a problem, you have to admit that the problem exists."
What I wasn't aware of was that you had to stereotype a community of actual beings just to address an issue.
C. K. Martin, whose comments immediately precede these, has said some interesting things. However, I believe that this 16-year-old young lady has jumped to some unwarrented conclusions.
Let me provide a more precise explication de texte. Among C.K.'s statements are the following:
"The race of a person does not determine who they are or where they've come from."
I have never said such a thing.
"Your black friends need not be black to make such a statement."
No, but if other Blacks call the school "ghetto," then this must mean something, and NOT that my Black friends are out of touch with reality.
"The point is is that we as a whole society have conformed to "labeling". We don't actually realize what we're doing until someone points this out."
You're young, you're idealistic, and you haven't had much experience. I bet if I knew you better I could finds dozens of ways in which you, yourself, label people. Categories ("labels") are necessary if one is to function in life. I'd be interested to know what kind of school you attend.
"It's great to know that you are rising up to meet others needs, but if you do not love these children wholeheartedly, it will mean nothing."
C.K., I'm a pragmatist. What matters is results. If I save a kid from going to California Youth Authority for 18 months, and if I instill some serious education in him so he can have a decent life, then I have succeeded. Contrary to what you state, it will mean a whole lot. I don't need to love him wholeheartedly in order to achieve something worthwhile. And while we are at it, how many teachers do you know who go to bat at court for their students ?
C.K., I like many of these kids a lot more than many other teachers I encounter. But I like them on a selective basis, just as you like certain people and don't like others.
I am no more a saint than you are. For instance, I don't love the kid who threatens me physically, and I don't love the kids who sell dope to the other kids.
"What I wasn't aware of was that you had to stereotype a community of actual beings just to address an issue."
I have hardly stereotyped "a community of actual beings." If you continue to read this blog, you will discover that I treat individuals as individuals, not as stereotypes.
And I do want to say that some of your insights are very interesting and valuable, and I want to thank you for contributing to the discussion.
July 23, 2008 2:57 PM
Post a Comment