While I listen to my students struggle and misread words such as ran, cat and truck I think back to the days of learning this in first grade and try to think of how my teacher helped me get the concept straight for how sounds go together and why. I try to remember jingles such as "I before E except after C" and "change the Y to I and add ES" and while I am successful at remembering them, I can not teach the boys why they do this, or other rules and why they are true. Why is bike spelled with a silent 'e' at the end of the word while bight sounds the exact same for the 'i' yet, it is spelled so much different? I try to make things up, and surprisingly sometimes I feel like I may be right! Either way, I am having fun spending the day with these three gentlemen. Hopefully I will get some pictures of them soon, however, sometimes I just feel like a creeper teacher asking my three young BOYS, hey, you mind if I take a picture of you? That screams nothing except, "Get away man, get in your 15 passenger creepmobile and get out of here!" Maybe the time will come though!
Being with these boys for four months, I want to become a part of their life and learn as much from them as they hopefully can from me. We come from totally different worlds and this may be my only chance to learn about this lifestyle and their only chance at having a male figure in their life. Therefore, I want the best for these young gentlemen. Some of you may have heard through email or word of mouth, but the football season is currently on hold. To save my time of typing and yours of reading, I will just give little details. Their families don't have the money to pay for the season. We must come up with money to pay for buses, rent of fields and pay for the refs. However, our budget is reading right at the zero mark, therefore, today they were putting the axe down saying no football. I stepped in the way and said hold on, and have asked people I know to please donate and help these boys out. They have nothing! Today, I overheard one of the boys tell the other one that he hopes the rice and beans he ate at school keeps his stomach full until tomorrow when he gets his lunch again. "Why is that," I but in hoping to hear a different answer than I knew was coming. "Mista Isaac, I go to bed hungry every night!" If your heart does not break when you hear this coming from someone you work with, you are the tin man! Even he would melt at that! These kids deserve so much more, and to think that this is how the majority of the people are in our world just seems unimaginable to me. Why are we so lucky?
How much will I be able to help these boys this coming year? I wish I knew, therefore, I could strive to do more. After the boy took a full minute to add 30 and 6 to get the answer of 28, I told him to write it out on the board with an "equals" sign. He did this, but left the equal sign out, so I told him again, "Jude, put an equals sign." He marked a "+" there and looked at me slowly to approve. "Do you know what an equals sign is, Jude?" "No, Mista Isaac, I don't know!" (remember, these boys are in EIGHTH GRADE!) I just had to smile at how much work I noticed that I will be doing in the next four months. Because those boys are going to be learning in the mainstream classroom after I leave this place, and actually be learning. Not just sitting there getting more and more behind. I am going to make sure of it. Today, in the teachers meeting, it sounds like once I am gone, there is not hope for the one boy and the others will just be forced back in, and will just live with being behind. This is not an option for me!
Being thrown into this position with no teaching material or anything at first, just the words, "Teach them math and writing!," I feel like we have made giant strides. These boys did not want to do anything at first. Now, I have them begging me to write a paragraph on the board with mistakes so that they can correct it! In TWO days! THAT is the best feeling in the world. I don't care what anyone says!
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