Home Visit #1

It has become a priority to me to visit the homes of each child in my class. I have learned in the past that I actually take a glimpse into the life of a child more clearly then I ever could in the school setting. I will be posting about some of them as I continue through the year. My first, however, was this week! What an experience.

Emotionless is the name I give this child. After having him 2 years as a student I've maybe seen him show any kind emotion a total of about 12 times. Wednesday I learned why.

Emotionless is one of 5 children. He is Hispanic and sometimes doesn't understand his mother because his English is better than his Spanish, and sometimes doesn't understand school because he still isn't fluent in English. So identity even through language has been lost. This boy lost his daddy when he was 2 to what I'm thinking was gang activity. His only dream for when he grows up is to not be a gangster. When he was younger he would say "I want to be a fireman" but now that is too unrealistic and babyish for a 9 year old like him. This baby boy (a man in his eyes) and his mother are actually stuck in depression. At home, Emotionless actually talks about killing himself and to the school, mother has talked about killing herself.

Now tell me politicians and law makers how this sweet, depressed, lifeless child is supposed to make AYP. How is he to perform like many other kids in the US who have a cultural identity, who have their daddy, and who aren't fighting the urge to just die. Please, come sit in his living room with me and tell me how this is to happen.
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Guns, Drugs, and Sex

Yes, this is how the climate of our building has been described in the last couple of weeks. We made the news on Monday with the drugs! We had a student in third grade bring marijuana to school. Here is how I found out about it...

Tuesday Morning 8:45 as students are arriving...
New Kid in my class: (mind you he has been completely depressed since he got here). "Mrs. Mucci! We were on the news last night!
Me: No way, how exciting...what about? (I should have known to stop the conversation before it started)
New Kid with enthusiasm: A kid brought drugs to school!
Speechless I followed with...well that's unfortunate...but that would never happen in here RIGHT?

Pretty lame response but what else was I supposed to say if I wasn't even sure it was true?

I then ran next door to ask another teacher if this was truth and sadly it was.

The gun part is also true. We had a 4th grader bring a real gun to school a few weeks ago and there never was a staff meeting on either of these...

Communication and openness and the way issues are addressed in inner city schools is so sad.

Oh yeah, the sex part, this one is kinda funny.
A 4th grade teacher, we'll call her Ms. F said to me...did you also hear about the notes being passed by my students in the lunch room?

The note said..Janie, did you see the kids having sex in the back of Ms. F's classroom?

Ms. F with a chuckle: I know a lot goes on in my class that I may miss in my old age, but I think I would know if that ever happened!

In the end I concluded that MTV has taken over our school, we have all the makings of a music video except for money!
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Discrimination is still very real...

This week we were reading "A Picture Book of Rosa Parks" as my read aloud. The vocabulary words gave us some rich discussion. One in particular struck a cord with me. You probably know as well as I do that discrimination is still very much a reality. Here are some of the things that came out of our discussions this week.

When talking to them about Rosa Parks and the way things were, my students asked about schools...
"Were Mexicans allowed to be in white schools?"
"No they were also considered colored"
"So Blacks and Mexicans didn't go to school with whites?"
"That's correct"
-All of them took a moment to process this...looked around the room... then one said..
"Almost like our class"
-sadly they are correct, I have two white kids in my class and one is Slavic-

When learning the word discrimination...
-I explained what the word was and used a silly extreme example to make the point-
"Mrs. Mucci, I have a real life connection to that. I was at the park with a friend and we were talking to each other, then this kid came up to me and said 'why do you black people always talk like that, you keep saying ain't and stuff. Don't you know how to talk.'"

Many other vibrant conversations came up through the discussion but thought you might like to ponder these.
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