Say "Hello" to my little friends...
These are the little darlings that I teach twice a week, after school, at another elementary school. They remind me of the kids my mom taught. She taught at Whittier, not their school, but the stories she told about her students were similar to the stories these kids tell me. Of the four, only one was born and raised in the United States. Only one speaks English most often at home. All four speak another language regularly. One won't speak English out loud, but he will whisper it. Two have immediate family currently incarcerated. Only one lives with both parents. One isn't sure where his siblings are because DCFS moved them to foster homes. All four receive food assistance from the Target truck once or twice a month. The list goes on and on.
It would be enough to make me shut down and give up, but they don't. These little scrappers show up every week, smile, laugh, tell me jokes, genuinely try most of the time, and against all odds, they keep going. Sometimes they drive me crazy...like when one of them can't remember how to read the word 'how' for 10 seconds, even when we have read it 20 times...and sometimes they make me want to take them home and spoil them rotten...like when they hand-draw a Valentine because there wasn't any money to buy them, or when they insist on sharing their candy.
I'm still not sure why I agreed to take the extra job. It just felt like something I ought to do. I'm sure they are teaching me more than I am teaching them. Funny little scrappers...Maria, Klaw, Paw, Martin...fight the good fight.
