insane clown party city.

B. is in the fifth grade class I'm currently observing as part of my last praxis class at Chapman.
While I was circulating during their English Language Arts, Brandon dropped his LA book multiple times, attempted to pick it up with his feet twice and worked more diligently on  a drawing entitled: PARTY CITY that depicted an insane clown posse clown, a man in a bloody shirt screaming out of a doorway,  a scream mask surrounded by broken bottles and bloody knives, an a giant sketch of satan peering horizontally from the edge of the page. Needless to say, B. and his attention were elsewhere.
At snack I attempted to chat with the girl who sits at B.'s center because I wanted to learn more about her for my final project. She is a sweet low level ELD student  and she was munching away on a frijole, huevo, salchicha torta that was bigger than her hands as she talked to me about her dad who works as a manager at Target.

While we were chatting, my other observation pupil gave us all tangerines he had brought from home.
B. ate his eagerly and told me he didn't have anything else to eat today, so I gave him mine too. I found a carrot cake Cliff Bar in my school bag and offered it to him. I gave him the disclaimer he might not like the flavor and his classmate was like: EW! Cliff Bars are GROSS!!! However B. didn't seem to mind. The main impression I got from this class is that their parents work ALOT. Which I was able to relate to, in a way. But it made me sad because they mostly felt bad their parents worked so much and so hard to provide for them, and all they really desired was to spend time with their parents and for their parents to get some rest. Really, this is what ten different fifth graders told me in their own words.

Their school is unique and they are getting a quality education, no doubt. However what their rigorous day lacks are the opportunities to be curious and feel inspired. Every minute is chock full of academic drilling and input. Which is how this urban school's standardized testing scores rival any suburban school in Irvine. However these kids aren't getting nurtured, they aren't be fed rich academic opportunities. The reading they do isn't for pleasure or literary value, it's merely to dissect and conquer comprehension in preparation of State Testing.

So I feel like I can relate to B. and his grotesque drawing. Clearly, the kid's on the cusp of developing a talent but there aren't many opportunities during the school day to allow B. to flourish. Not to mention, B. and his classmates require a level of compassion that the teacher doesn't really have time to dole out. I think she's doing a good job for what she's required, perhaps there's a level of interaction I miss out on when I'm not there. One of the aspects of being a great teacher my mom always exemplified was her capacity to care and inspire. Granted this was nearly ten years ago when she was in a classroom before NCLB and Prop 227, but she has always taught at a low income school, with a minority making up the majority of the student body but she still found unique ways to show she cared and to give her students quality experiences, not just academic drills.

I'm not proposing an idyllic education of storytime and hippie art. But kids like B. need more inspiration, they need to feel like someone is paying attention so they will wake up and feel accountable for their education. They need someone to tell when they're bummed out on feeling hungry. And maybe he needs someone to talk to about why he's drawing pictures of satan and bloodbaths during English Language Arts, and for someone to show him an art or animation book that might expand his repertoire.

I also think I will always have granola bars and apples to give during snack when my kids have hunger pains.