| SEARCH OnWEAC |
|---|
By Cindy Reitzi
Several years ago, I became a books-on-tape fan. While I’m a sucker for murder mysteries, I also confess to a horrified fascination with survival sagas – no, not climbing Mount Everest and living to tell about it – the living-through-your-childhood survival memoirs. Like with fiction, I ponder motive and what resilience will sustain the main character through this ordeal called childhood; I wonder when the heroes’ trials will end, what assistance they’ll receive
(if any), and how they’ll emerge, not unscarred, but alive…and free. Trouble is, these are not fantasy stories and neither are the lives of some students.
Digesting “The Glass Castle” (Jeannette Walls) and “Angela’s Ashes” (Frank McCourt) made me intensely grateful for a full stomach, clean clothes and shoes, indoor plumbing, and safety … sometimes away from those “near and dear.” Walls’ experiences digging through the school garbage cans for food, avoiding lunch with other children because she had no lunch, and eating margarine because there was no other food at home, made a compelling case for free/reduced meals in schools, at the very least.
I’ve never gone hungry. I’ve never had to forage for food. I’ve never felt deprived or insecure about this most basic human need. But subbing as an elementary school aide, I met several students who could have written their own survival memoirs.
"Tyler” was a skinny, polite 3rd grader I looked forward to working with every day. It soon became apparent that he and his brothers didn’t have an easy life and that meals were sporadic. He was frequently ravenous, so I started bringing him food. I’d slice out thick chunks of bread, layer it with, oh, an inch or two of filling – turkey, ham, probably some cheese – throw in an apple, maybe a carton of yogurt, and bring this for his “snack.” He did have free/reduced lunch but he still seemed hungry all the time. The more I worked with Tyler, the larger the portions grew. Call me a soft touch. He always inhaled it…and always thanked me. (Eventually, I was asked not to bring him food -- liability issues, no doubt).
Stories about Tyler’s home life started to leak out from visitors. One generous woman went to the home to take Tyler and his brothers out for breakfast after church one Sunday and found only a can of corn to eat in the whole house. Eventually the boys were taken away from their biological parents, who were arrested for drug-dealing, and someone found out the boys were locked in their rooms in the evenings while the parents entertained “clients,” making bathroom breaks difficult.
Eventually, an open-hearted foster family took in all the boys so they wouldn’t be split up. Whatever their faults, Tyler’s parents did raise nice boys … for someone else to parent.
At the same elementary school, I met students at lunch bunch whose parents may not have had easy access to a laundromat. (In extreme cases, school personnel encouraged students to bring a change of clothes – or provided them– so the staff could launder their clothes at school.)
Their winter coats were dirty, so I offered to wash them since kindergarten had a washer-dryer unit off the room. I chipped in laundry detergent next time I went down and everyone was happy. Warm from the dryer, I brought the coats in, took out my sewing kit and started mending a rip. Students gathered around me like I was a campfire. Staring, one girl asked, “Could you fix mine, too?”
“Sure,” I smiled.
Another high school student I met had alcoholic parents. Apparently, his weekends consisted of stepping over passed-out parents, and when they were awake, physical abuse and parental rejection. Come Monday, he was usually an angry young man. He did learn to trust his teachers and social worker and to focus in school. Eventually, he also found a foster family and a girlfriend who tempered his anger with love. Even though he had more on his plate than the average adult, he still worried about more mundane teen concerns, like fitting in. Designer overalls were the fashion, and he was wearing an off-brand, so he kept his hand in his pocket to hide the label. He explained his dilemma. His foster mother had bought him the pants and he was truly grateful, but, in a highly fashion-conscious school, he was also afraid he’d be ridiculed. He never breathed a word of this to her, mind you.
“Oh, that’s easy,” I said. “Go down to the sewing room in Family and Consumer Ed. and get a seam-ripper. Pull the seams, rip off the label and no one’s the wiser.” He lit up. Problem solved, and he didn’t have to hurt his foster mother’s feelings.
Sometimes the art of teaching is filling in the blanks. While these students shared one chapter out of their memoirs with me, I’m still on the periphery, reading the dust jacket. Permanent school staff, usually low-paid but vital personnel, do get to know students better (if they don’t move). Too often, they fill societal cracks in schools with simple acts of decency for the troubled – or, more optimistically, the “resilient” – students, who struggle with lives not of their own choosing.
Posted May 29, 2007