By JESSE SCACCIA
In a post last week I introduced the One Adult: One Child Challenge. The idea is each of us will reach a hand out to a forgotten youngster in our community. One Adult + One Child = A More Beautiful World.
My “child” is named David. It has been five years since David was in school, and he’s just now trying again.
“Every day it is a challenge to get into the van to go to school,” he told me. “But it is something I need to do for myself.”
David’s front teeth were rotting, so recently the dentist at the clinic pulled out his top four front teeth. This is bad enough aesthetically for any 18-year-old, but it becomes a real complication when that 18-year-old is trying to learn how to read.
“Pat,” he says.
“That,” I respond.
“Pat,” he says.
“Tthhhat,” I say.
“Pat.”
We are spending a half hour every day reading Neslon Mandela’s autobiography, A Long Walk To Freedom. At some point there was a reference to a cat, and I asked, neither here nor there, if David believed that cats really do have nine lives.
“Yes, very much I do,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because I’m on my fifth life myself,” he said.
There was the time he got ran over by a truck. Another night he was stealing hubcabs when the car owner showed up, gun pulled. “I could hear the sound of the bullets whizzing past my head,” David said with a whistle (his whistling is actually improved by his toothlessness).
The other two near death experiences were from overdosing on drugs during his time on the streets, and the time his sister’s boyfriend hit him over the head with a pole while the boyfriend’s friends held him down. He was 8, and they beat him because he had complained about having to look after his 5-year-old nephew.
“It was my sister’s own child,” David said, still confused by the scene that left him in a coma for two weeks.”Her own blood.”
David and I have been reading together for about a week now. Though I’m a trained English teacher, it’s something anyone can do. We sound out words together. I tell him definitions. We relate what we’ve read to our own lives. If I do end up making a difference in David’s life, it won’t be because of my skills or intelligence: it will be because of my time.
In last night’s section Mandela talked about how a mentor in his life told him he was destined to be better than the illiterate mine workers that were so common in South Africa at the time. “You are meant to be a counselor to kings,” the man told Mandela. “You are not going to be illiterate.”
And we all know what happened to Mandela from there.
After David and I finished last night, he opened up to me. He said how he doesn’t always feel good about himself. He sees everyone else knowing how to read and write, and he thinks he’s worthless. “I just wonder, what good am I to anyone?”
My response was obvious to me, if not to David. “What you’re doing now is braver than anything than I’ve ever done in my life, and is probably braver than anything you did on the streets,” I told him. “You’ve already become a hero to me.”
Again, I challenge you all. Whether you are a teacher, a parent, a college student, the butcher or the baker, find a lost kid in your neighborhood. Even though you have no relation to the child, even though no one will be there to praise you, even though it isn’t part of your job description, take responsibility for him or her. Take the Challenge, and the life saver in your narrative just might end up not being you.
Thank you, for this most impassioned and all too urgent plea! There is, in fact, plenty of blame to go around, and then some… Alleged adults who have neither clue nor care as to being responsible parents- ALL parents should be required by law to take parenting classes. Teachers, and their unions, who have done absolutely nothing to expose, denounce and overturn this insane “No Child Left Behind” charade. And the WORLD’S GREATEST country where, as you so righteously point out, we now have to beg complete strangers to save our own children!
Stan, in my 5 years of teaching in the Oakland Unified School District, I have not once come across a parent who wasn’t trying the best they could. Not once. Not all parents were perfect and many did things I don’t do as a parent (and visa versa), but everything was out of love and concern for their child – always. A lot of times our middle-class American values interfere with our vision and we are limited in what we can see as love and caring. It frustrates me to hear parents always being blamed by teachers (I hear it often) when we live in a world where access to resources is inequitable to begin with.
As far as NCLB, it ALL of our duty: principals and other administrators, parents, neighbors, and regular citizens to do something about it, not just teachers and their unions.
And reaching out to kids is not a novel idea. In many communities in the world, this is a normal way of life and is not done by individuals, but by communities of people who take care of each other young and old alike. Most teachers, I would hope, are already doing this – making sure those one-on-ones happen, staying after-school to work with struggling readers, meeting with small groups over lunch to get to know more about their students’ lives.
Jill, I’m not here to assign blame, although as I stated- there’s plenty to go around, and then some. Nor am I beholden to white, middle class virtues- not my background. But I have seen people who have given up: teachers, cops, parents, administrators, politicians, and yes, students. I can’t blame the latter- they’re children, they didn’t make this mess but will ultimately have to take responsibility, at least for themselves, and somehow against all odds, hopefully not repeat it. As a rule- that generally doesn’t work out very well.
When I moved to the left coast, many of my teacher friends in Harlem wanted to know how different it was teaching there. My answer was always the same, any ghetto anywhere begets the same problems. And you always have the heroic few who go the extra mile, those who do the minimum and go home, and those who don’t have a clue or have simply given up. The children, of course, are the pawns. We all know that the least experienced teachers are usually sent to the “worst” schools, where those schools are, and who they serve. It’s no coincidence.
I think teachers and parents should both receive training- and be held accountable. We all need to pass a test to drive a motor vehicle- why shouldn’t we be held responsible to adequately train for the most important commitment any adult can undertake- raising children. ALL parents (that means all socio-economic classes) should by law be required to take parenting classes- period. I’m not saying parents don’t perform miracles each and every day. And I’m not challenging the depth and sincerity of anyone’s love, but we all know how that word, and it’s subsequent behavior, can be twisted, hardened or rationalized. And Grandmoms everywhere (god bless ‘em) can’t always rise to the occasion!
And yes, it was everyone’s responsibility to deal with the travesty called No Child Left Behind- just as it was everyone’s job to dethrone a prior administration that sanctioned the murder of thousands of innocents in a country that did us no harm- an administration that actively sanctioned the torture of children! But as the professionals supposedly dedicated and committed to the children that we serve, I still think that teachers, their administrators and their unions should have lead the clarion call to expose and eradicate that self serving sham of a so called educational program.
Yes, “It takes a village to raise a child,” here, Africa, anywhere. I just think it’s a measure of how desperate these times have become when so many of the “village elders” have shirked their responsibilities for so long and left the weakest to fend for themselves. For so long that we must plea for the kindness of strangers…
Stan, t
Though I still don’t agree with all your points, I do think they are much better stated this time around. Thanks for clarifying.
Jill, for the record, I’m always a tad leery of any “ditto head” who agrees with “everything” someone might say. My observations are based on my experience working with “ED” kids- what some would consider “aberrations,” and others, just more obvious examples of the “norm.” I’d have to side with the latter. And rest assured, I’m in no position to have any of my “suggestions” taken seriously by anyone in power.
In fact, in my last year of teaching, I couldn’t even get anyone to listen when I had a student who obviously needed a much higher degree of service then what was provided in my ED classroom. He presented a severe danger to both himself and others, and I said and wrote as much to anyone who’d (hopefully) listen. My 17 years of experience working with said population on either coast did not matter, the fact that this student had already beaten two of his fellow classmates bloody (amongst a plethora of other incidents) did not matter. When I finally grabbed his legs as he had two thirds of his body dangling out a 3rd fl window and wrestled him to the ground kicking and screaming- I was accused of grossly incompetent classroom management skills. The fact that I had been a teacher-mentor never came up.
There are simply way too many horror stories out there that people simply don’t want to acknowledge or address- let alone correct. Our educational system is severely broken, has been for decades- and it makes our economy look healthy in comparison. I am not ignoring the successes made by teachers everywhere, everyday- ironically, they and a handful of dedicated others are carrying the load for those more devoted to covering their own butts.