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Location: Upstate, South Carolina, United States

I think that the Meredith Brooks' song, "Bitch," summarizes me rather nicely. Or, if you prefer, X. dell says I'm a life-smart literary scholar with a low BS tolerance...that also works!

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Second Grade

Since I'm out of school and my kids are not, I tend to do volunteer work for the classes as needed. This week, I helped out with the second grade today (Ari's class), and on Friday I help out with the K-4 crowd (Jared). I had promised to come in today last week...before I knew that my daughter would be facing a cold, asthma, and a migraine. Yes, at 5a last night my daughter simultaneously had a migraine and asthma going off. I gave her her medicine, a hot cloth for her forehead, and her asthma inhaler. I put her in my bed, but then I did the wise thing and crawled far away from her. When she has her migraines, she has touch sensitivity so I know better than to lay a hand on her. In fact, I worried that the cloth might be a bad idea. However, she wanted it. At least she didn't throw up this time, although I saw her clutch her stomach a lot. By this morning I asked her several times if she could handle school, and she said yes. We have three weeks left before school is out, and she can miss ONE more day. Period. If she misses two, we get to explain ourselves in front of a Family Court judge. SC laws are insanely stupid. My daughter can't miss more than ten days of school for any reason, even though she gets sick and has straight A's. Somehow it's our fault she has a weak immunity system. Well, I guess genetically it is, but still! She's GETTING STRAIGHT A'S!!!! Does it matter if she misses 11 days of school?

The kids crawl all over me when I'm there. It's flattering, actually. Today the overwhelmed teacher had me help them with their writing assignments. Their writing is awful, but hey, they're in second grade. I felt rather useful, and they seemed to appreciate my sense of humor.

The story they had to read was called "Abuela." Abuela, as a lot of you I'm sure know, means grandmother in Spanish. The story had a lot of phrases and words in it that were Spanish. Although I am glad they are having this exposure to the language, I wish they'd TEACH IT in the school instead of referencing it. The older these kids get, the harder it'll be for them to learn any language. Then why do we start teaching kids foreign languages in high school? Yes, yes, I know of some schools that start language classes earlier, but the majority of them still wait too late for the foreign language exposure.

It made me sad to see the Spanish words because...well, I don't speak Spanish, but I should. My mom made me take Latin, but Spanish is my heritage. My mom spoke Spanish before she spoke English, you see, and her mother was straight from Mexico. However, she never bothered to teach any of us how to speak her language. I'm 25% Mexican and nobody would ever know because I'm So White I Glow and I can't speak Spanish. Sigh. I KNOW I could learn Spanish because I heard my mom sing Spanish songs around the house, plus I heard it spoken a lot in Florida (where I grew up). I can reproduce Spanish sounds easily. It's really too bad I fell in love with a Frenchman instead of a Spaniard! I could do this language easier than French. Anyway, I mentioned this information to Ariana's teacher, and a little girl named Anna perked up, listening intently.

Anna amazes me. She was born in Equador, I found out, and she started the school year not speaking a word of English. By October, she was passable. It's May and she speaks and writes better than a native. She's EIGHT and she was sitting down and reading Huckleberry Finn during reading time. This child is bright. In fact, the teacher pointed out that Anna, my daughter, and my daughter's boyfriend (yes, she has his picture and everything...his name is Mark)are the really smart ones in the classroom. Anna's eyes went wide when she heard me talking about my mom, and she whispered to me, "I only spoke Spanish once, but now it's becoming harder for me to use it because I use English so much!" I told her that happened to my mom, too, and now in her older years she reads a lot of Spanish just to get back what she once had. And then Anna stuck to me for the rest of the day. This gorgeous little girl with her dusky skin and her wavy pulled back raven hair decided we had something in common, and that made her happy. Later on, I delighted her even further by telling her that my best friend was half Ecuadorian. I told her that my friend's mom was from Quito, and she said, "Oh! I've BEEN to Quito!" I'm not surprised since it's the capital.

Meanwhile, my own daughter was obviously exhausted and found it hard to stay alert in school. I had to give her two inhaler treatments (usually she has to go to the nurse for it). My poor daughter also had one of those "gosh it sucks to have my mom here" moments because they were working on a story, and I made her go back and do some prewriting. She tried to freewrite it like her mom does, and it was fast becoming unwieldy and disorganized. Still, it was really cool to be in the classroom and see what happens there. I am beginning to understand more and more why the students come to me on the college level with no skills, too. It's either that the teachers are constantly having to shift their focus to meet whatever random "standards" the state has that year for that grade level, or the parents are assholes.

What do I mean by the parents are assholes? Take child A, for example, who was passed through Kindergarten and first grade when he shouldn't have been. He won't work. He won't do anything. Somehow, though, when the teacher wants him to fail second grade because HE NEEDS TO since he has NOT LEARNED THE MATERIAL, the parent has a fit and says no way. It's the school's fault. It's the teacher's fault. It's not her child, and her child WILL be passed. Whew! You gonna wipe his ass for him when he graduates from college too, woman? Why not let your child learn some responsibility! Try that for a while and see what it does!

I feel badly for Ari's teacher, though. She tries SO HARD but there are just too many kids in that classroom. I was desperately needed for help. They got a lot accomplished today, and that's because she had the assistance she needs on a regular basis. Who says more funding couldn't help? Get these teachers of the younger ones HELP, and these kids will GET the individual attention they need. Oh well.

Poor Ari has passed out on the sofa since we came home and is snoring away. I hope she feels better by tomorrow...after all, we can't have Big Brother Government dragging me to family court because my daughter's sick too much, eh? Bleh.

13 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Class size is a huge problem in education. The legal limit is 35 in high schools, but I often had 36 or 37; and there were always 2 or 3 ESL students who had no idea what I was talking about in English, much less French. Yet, I had no time to work with them individually because I was absolutely overwhelmed by the sheer number of people I was trying to teach. (Fortunately, some of our Vietnamese kids DID already speak some French - so it was easier for them. Well... fortunately for THEM, I guess.)

We desperately need more parents like you who are willing to get out in the schools to help, instead of forcing their kids to be passed when they aren't ready and that kind of thing. I think the problem is so much bigger than funding... And while you've definitely heard me defend Bush on some issues, No Child Left Behind is a farce. A very harmful one.

Okay, off my soapbox now. Hope Ari's feeling better.

2:53 PM  
Blogger Lisa said...

I used to love helping out in class when the boys were younger...watching the progress of the kids etc. My oldest son was hopeless having me there...he never left me alone! My youngest basically ignored me lol

Hope Ari is feeling so much better with her asthma and headaches now. Both my boys are prone to getting migraine headaches too, especially my younger one. He's now 15, and got some kinda tough boy image going on...but one of his migraines will bring him to his knees and he can end up in tears. When that happens we're at the docs looking for a shot of something.

3:48 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Never trust a Spaniard dear. Remember Princess Bride!
Inigo Montoya: I hate waiting. I could give you my word as a Spaniard.
Man in Black: No good. I've known too many Spaniards.

Anyway, SC law sucks. Sure you don't want to have Rob take on the SC supreme court and make them change it? Law is his thing so the way I see it, might as well make good use of him.

As far as School and passing a grade, that is real hogwash. Back in France, we fail kids all the time, and if a parent isn't happy, he can shift the kid from the school into another and see if They will take him :p
I guess the parents are just as stupid though.

Student A reminds me of myself. I was in the exact same situation except it was English and not spanish. It took me 6 months to speak, read and write French back then.

I don't know how Ari's class is, but by second grade, all kids are sitting at desks and can't move from there and the teacher is at the front and teaches from her desk. She then walks around and helps the kids who have problems. Even back then I had at least Two hours of homework every night, class from 8.30 till 4.30. We didn't go to school on wednesday but we did on saturday mornings.
Seems very different....

4:22 PM  
Blogger X. Dell said...

*Shakes his head in disbelief*

First of all, I can only imagine that some tough-talking politician decided that any more than ten days amounted to malingering, and bullied the passage of that really asinine law in order to claim that he was "for education." As far as I'm concerned, if they really wanted to do something about education, they'd keep their noses out of it.

Secondly, it's hard to fathom why the inflexibility of the law. The school, the principals, the teacher should all have the authority to waive the rule instead of clogging up family courts with this. Don't family courts in SC have anything better to do?

4:43 PM  
Blogger Juanita said...

Oh my! You poor thing, what a crazy day. I'm sure that teacher was happy to see you.

7:32 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

I honestly can't imagine how teachers handle it. I usually go to the classrooms once a year for an environmental education project (I don't have kids myself) and I'm amazed at how big the classes are! I'm also impressed with how well the teachers manage it, I do understand and respect their summer vacations more now though because of it!

7:55 PM  
Blogger bornfool said...

We have a similar law in KY. It makes no sense. When my sister lived here they told her that she would be thrown in jail if my nephew missed one more day of school, and he had Doctor's excuses for most of his absences. How's throwing the mom in jail going to help?

6:50 AM  
Blogger X. Dell said...

I'm no lawyer, Bornfool, but that KY law almost sounds unconstitutional.

7:12 AM  
Blogger Grant said...

When I was in grade school, the school passed students without the parent's insistance because they didn't want to fool with them.

They should tell those parents that if they want their kid to pass, they should invest a little time like you do.

8:42 AM  
Blogger Canoes under my shoes said...

Ha ha ha ha ha! I think I'd welcome jail time. Three hots and a cot!!! Ha ha ha!!!

Teachers are amazing creatures. I am not promoting myself since my biggest group is something like 5 students at a time. I specifically did NOT go into classroom management b/c I can't do the crowd management thing.

Can Ari take any medicine for her migraines or is she SOL until she grows up?

11:41 AM  
Blogger Kira said...

Angie--No Child Left Behind mainly makes standardized testing the goal rather than learning. It also doesn't provide means for some of the rules it establishes to come to pass. It's a piece of shit. Yes, Ari is feeling better now! She had a good night's sleep after a two hour nap, and that is apparently what she mostly needed. I wish that for the second graders, the manditory cap on a classroom was 15. They just need too much individual help for the 20 to 30 kid classroom sizes that are common in her school in all grades.

Lisa--Ariana was hosed from the beginning about migraines. I get them. My dad gets them. My mom gets them. My sister gets them. It's like the family joy! Ari doesn't cling to me when I assist in her classroom, but she DOES have to "touch base" with me here and there and proudly show that it's her momma who is with the class that day. I rather like that :)

Alex--French schools suck the joy of learning out of education for children, but they sure learn a hell of a lot. It's at the uni level that you guys can't compare to ours. The gradeschool/highschool (college, lycee) level is much better as far as what it teaches, but how many of your guys come out going WOW I LOVE to learn? They work you to death and the teachers don't enjoy teaching. That's sorta sad, love of my life...

X.dell--I think the logic is that since it's against the law for a child under 16 to NOT attend school, there then has to be a state regulation to determine how many days present make it so that the student is "there." I remember when I was little, the state miminum was 20 days, not 10. I still failed to meet that requirement two years because I was a sickly child (pneumonia four times, bronchitis regularly...where do you think she gets the asthma from?). However, I went to a private school, and they logically said, well, she's getting fantastic grades and we already skipped her a grade, we shouldn't hold her back due to the absences nor penalize her for them since they are all illness related. I was told that even if I got my doctor to sign a chronic illness waver, the school would still be required to throw me up in front of family court after ten days' absence. FC would probably throw it out, too, so yeah, that's a waste of taxpayer's dollars. She's obviously not a child suffering from educational neglect...sheesh.

Juanita--yeah, she was! I might go back for a day next week since she was so relieved to have the help.

MR--well, you and I know that the pay teachers get is not equal to the effort put in (even if your school pays much better than mine!). Summer vacation is the only way to make it worth it, in my opinion :)

Amanda--I think we're usually like #47 in the union on the education list. Go us! And with the low pay and lack of respect (plus lack of back up help from administration and other resources for teachers thrown into low income, low resource schools), why would a talented person go into teaching? Personally, I can't teach the little ones because they'd learn how to say "fuck" in three different languages by the time they were through with me :)

BF--I have no idea how that will help. They end up blaming the parents because the kids are minors, but that only works when the parent isn't making sure the child goes to school. What are we supposed to do when our children are sick, then? Take them barfing to school so the whole school is out? Oh, wait, that just might be the answer....

Grant--that's the essence of it sometimes. Who wants to deal with a problem child a SECOND time? I'd just make them put the child in the other teacher's classroom this time, stating that obviously I couldn't do the effort :) I DO know the teachers at some schools have influence on who goes into their classrooms, so why not?

Laura--Ariana is stuck with junior motrin as an option, but I DID find out that if she's starting to have a bad headache that might turn into a migraine, it DOES stop it for her. I also have some anti-nausea meds for her if she's barfing since her migraines involve vomit. I don't think they generally use the stronger stuff on kids her age, though. I think she has to get older. Basically, when I gave her the warm cloth and the motrin, it enabled her to survive and stop wimpering, but the pain didn't really go away.

5:27 PM  
Blogger A* said...

Kira-

Maybe if you all make a little jaunt to the RTP area I could teach you Spanish and your Frenchman could help me with my fractured French. :)

Much love to Ari!! I hope she is feeling better.

8:58 AM  
Blogger Kira said...

Yes, Ariana is feeling much better now! That seems like a good deal, A*...although I warn you, I have language phobia so teaching me spanish might give you a migraine! haha! Alex is only too happy to speak French here in the US since he doesn't get to do it so much, so we can have a language exchange program :)

4:40 AM  

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