Child Soldiers

So, after about six months of teaching I think one of the hardest things a teacher faces is that blank look on a child's face when they simply don't get it. It doesn't matter how many explanations you've gone through, how many different ways you've tried to teach it, the problem remains - if they don't get it what do you do??

This question sounds simplistic: you teach it. That's what your job is. But believe me, it isn't that easy (which is what I was trying to say in yesterday's post, albeit rather uneloquently). Yesterday it was the How To Essay, today it was public speaking and math. No matter what the topic, when those blank eyes stare back at you (at least for me) it's like a little pit of despair opens in my stomach...how can I help you??

This happens a lot with one of my students, AM (the one who struggles in cursive and math) and who I am beginning to think must just understand the world differently than I do - in a way she reminds me of CJ (the boy with possible undiagnosed autism who left in the middle of the year and who I remain convinced simply views the world differently, not any less rationally - for a therapist's perspective on autism presented in novel form I recommend The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night) except that her struggles are much more obvious; if CJ suffered he suffered silently, AM wears her frustration like a very tight jacket, practically writhing to get out of it when it hits.

In my post on fighting with students, I mentioned previous fights - one of the most memorable was with AM. One morning, in the course of teaching, I said something that upset her (I can't remember exactly what it was - I may have told her we needed to move on and I didn't have time to do whatever she wanted, read something, etc.) and it was instant freeze out. I have never had the silent treatment administered so effectively. She simply refused to speak with me for the next 2 hours. This was different from JY's pout, which was much more age appropriate; AM's silent treatment was chilling. To think that so much silent anger (whatever happened between us was not something particularly significant in my view, but obviously not so for her) could radiate from such a little package was very revealing.

AM is adopted. I have been told that she does not get along well with her mother, and I have seen for myself the less than friendly interaction between her and her 6th grade brother (although how much of that can be chalked up to brother-sister relationships generally I don't know). In class, she is constantly seeking attention and often resorts to physical and verbal antics to get it (she was the student who crawled across the floor when the high school students were here working with my class, not something that usually happens in class, although the other day JY did completely bemuse me by lying flat on the floor on her stomach and flapping her arms and legs, I never got a satisfactory answer for that behavior...), continually falling out of her chair, dropping notebooks and pencils, etc. She also makes a practice of telling me I think she's crazy, or I've said she's stupid (she takes pleasure in asking "Am I crazy" when I'm talking to another student, and then claiming my affirmative responses to that other student as a response to her question) and saying she's going to poke her pencil in her eye or kill herself (as I'm writing this, I'm wondering whether I should be taking those words more seriously; should I consider those words a serious threat? My instinct is that they're not, just frustrated words from a frustrated girl, trying to get a rise out of her teacher - we've talked about the seriousness of suicide and I don't think that's what she means, but I don't know - do 8 year olds kill themselvs?? I think AM has too much zest for life to want to leave it.) But those 2 hours of silent treatment from this spitfire of a little girl (she was the student running her International Festival group) made me wonder just what she feels, or rather, how she views the world and her place in it.

Anyway, the fear of rejection (?), failure (?), abandonment (?) I sense makes those times when she does not understand something much more difficult. She responds by claiming she's stupid, then rushing to do a problem and accidentally pushing her books off her desk or making more mistakes because of her rush, then using those incidents to reinforce her negative self image. And I struggle to help her understand, to try to understand myself what it is she does not see, to control her frustration, to reassure her. And to appease the other students, who are clamoring for attention and help, and want to know why I'm "only helping Amika". What can I say: "Amika is only on question 1, she doesn't get, you are on question 10 so back off"? Clearly not. So instead there is a caucophony of voices raised in an ugly chorus of "teacher, teacher, TEACHER!" And if I do leave Amika to help another student, she takes it personally, convinced of her own incompetence and my uninterest.

Rereading this post, I realize it sound like AM and I struggle all day, every day which is completely untrue. AM is a wonderful little girl, full of laughter, pranks, and a passion for life. She's pint-sized but potent. Which just makes these episodes of frustration that much harder - it is hard to see this self-assured little girl struck down by a math problem or a cursive p. Every time we have a frustration episode, I breathe a sigh of relief when she asks me to read with her, or comes to show me a picture she's drawn, or tries to make me laugh. She's still there; she hasn't given up yet.

I just hope for her that day never comes. But my experience with AM makes me wonder about all those other little girls and boys out there dealing with so much (adoption, divorce, a single-parent household, abuse, poverty, etc.) and their valiant attempts to be kids regardless. The ones who succeed are miracles and the one who don't - well, what can we expect? All I can think about is those students in Queens going to school in leaky trailers.