Mid March

We are 9 weeks away from the end of the school year and I have never seen so many stressed out kids! As our expectations grow for them, they feel the pressure and react. My Algebra Readiness classes are doing Algebra at the most basic level. It's simple stuff, but they know these lessons are the prelude of the song they'll be singing in math next year. They await Algebra, dreading it because so many have before them, and knowing that it is a requirement for a High School diploma. Questions about their competence, their worth are in their faces; "will I make it? will I pass? will I graduate from High School?" So many worries!

I am pressured also. State testing hits my school in April and every day I am encouraged to prepare my students. I used to give a power point presentation about the importance of test scores and how they are the one measure that will shape your high school career. I don't do that anymore. Raising my own kids I realized that what you scored on the state tests makes no difference what so ever. Grades matter. Work ethic matters. Perseverance matters. Resilience matters.

My daughter and I were sitting at the table at home talking about her high school friends. She told me about a guy she had grown up with who had started drinking when he was younger, a freshman in high school. I asked her what he was doing now and she said he was still in college, and still drinking. She sounded like she didn't hold much hope for his future. I asked her what was wrong with him. She said she didn't know, couldn't quite figure it out, but four years after leaving high school, he was pretty much still the same. She asked me, "What makes a kid evolve away from that negative stuff we all thought was so cool in high school?"

I don't think its a student's scores on the state test.

Simplistic, huh. State tests have their use. I don't think students should have to take them every year and I don't think so much emphasis should be placed on them. They are a moment in time, a one shot deal, a day in the life. Every student approaches them differently. I've seen students seriously approach the tests and those who have made cute patterns when bubbling answers.

So this March, when your kids come home from school overwhelmed with test prep activities, take it easy on them. Make sure they know you'll love them just as much regardless of how they score. Tell them to take their time, do their best and not to worry about it. And remember, its those other lessons learned, whose only tests are quality of life, that matter most.

Home teaching-the unknown in our educational world

I work as a home teacher sometimes when I need a little extra money. It's a difficult second job, because of the circumstances surrounding students. You get a name, a condition, and sometimes an Individual Education Plan. I chose to do this now to save some money to help my daughter finish college. I promised to pay 4 semesters of University. She took care of community college.  I will help her with the University tuition. The fees have gone up so much, the money I had saved for this purpose was not enough. And with the pay cuts of the last two years, I had to do something.
So, again, I home teach. I usually teach girls. Its easier for me to go into the home of a young woman.
Over the years, I have had a variety of students. One year, I had an 8th grade girl with sickle cell. Because her body was changing, she was subject to attacks where her blood vessels would squeeze together and she would be in constant pain. We enjoyed each other's company. She was staying at her grandmother's house. Her uncle would carry her to the kitchen table and she would be waiting in her pjs and a robe for me. (She was in too much pain to walk.) I almost cried whenever I saw her, dark circles, hands folded on the table, measured breathing to process the pain. I would ask if she wanted me to come back another day. And she would say no, touch my arm, beg me with her eyes to stay. I taught her for  a quarter. She got better and I was privileged to see the change. She played in the Spring Concert, went on the Water World 8th grade picnic and promoted to high school.
Long before that year, at another school, I visited UC Davis med center to teach a girl who had had a baby at the age of 13. Mom's boyfriend had raped her. She had not told anyone until the last stages of the pregnancy. The baby was born healthy, happily; but my student had become paralyzed from the waist down during delivery. It was a terrible, scary event. Traumatized and afraid of being a mom, she was not able to focus on school related tasks! But we tried. I was there the day my student told her mom she was going to give the baby up for adoption. (Her mother wanted the family to raise the child) One day I went back to the hospital and she was gone. Her family had taken her and disappeared. The baby was adopted. As far as I know, she never returned to an Elk Grove School.
This year, I have a girl who is at the Children's Receiving Home of Sacramento. The County is trying to reunify her with her mother. Her mother lives down the street from my school. If this reunification is successful, she will attend a school in our district. I drive about 20 minutes each way to see her. We have had about 15 sessions and they are all very different. The girl is bipolar. One day she is depressed, one day she is happy. I never know what I am getting. But we have blown through the 8th grade English curriculum, that girl is smart. We work in the dorm where several other girls live about the same age as my student. My girl is tall, terribly skinny, and perpetually sad. She and the others who live in her dorm are society's throw away kids. Abandoned by family, all they have is us; teachers, social workers, and others who work in Social Services.