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Once upon a time there was a teacher.
She struggled to do right by her students, but her training had been incomplete and spotty, and sometimes she failed them. However, she kept learning and trying new ways to teach because her love for her subject and for the students themselves was pure. (Well, pure for the most part. Sometimes she had trouble connecting the subject to the students' lives in a relevant fashion, and sometimes the students drove her to distraction with their questions, demands, "bad days" and even celebratory moments. Such is life.)
This teacher worked for years with a majority of students who came from poor and disadvantaged families, students who'd been abused or neglected, and students with learning difficulties of all kinds. It took a long time (and a second, more comprehensive teacher training) to be able to recognize that none of the students were "bad kids." She realized that NO kids are inherently "bad", but that some students travel through life encountering so many obstacles, roadblocks, and people telling them, "You can't" that they were perpetually in a state of frustration. And of course, people in a state of constant frustration generally cannot learn well. Nor do such people tend to have a positive and hopeful attitude, or kind and polite manners.
Then this teacher moved to a different part of the state, where many things were different. In this new town, schools had adequate funding to maintain necessary scholastic resources and facilities, and moreover to attract talented and dedicated teachers - and keep them. In this town, the parents have the financial resources to keep their children healthy, fit, protected, and encouraged their children toward high achievements, big dreams, goals and plans for the future.
The children in the schools our teacher now found herself in, seem (compared to her previous students) incredibly polite, discreet, and well mannered. They are also (almost unbelievably, compared to her previous students) self-confident and secure in themselves and in their own potential to make a difference in the world and to succeed in their own lives.
***
Sometime around a year ago I believe I wrote a post about this comparison. I resented the privilege these students lived in, grew up in, were supported by, to the precise degree that I loved and ached for my Children of struggle. Children of privilege, (I felt) had so much to take for granted. For awhile I believed they were arrogant and self-centered and uncaring about the world (though I had little evidence to support the first and third assumption. As for the second, to exist is to be self-centered; it must be so).
I don't believe this anymore.
They are children. Children nearly-grown and planning toward their futures, but children. Insecure about their place in the world some of the time, putting a brave face on things some of the time. And flamboyantly confident some of the time, in the bulletproof way the young can be across the face of the planet.
Yes they are privileged. No, they don't yet realize their privilege, or the extent to which their security and unhampered opportunities for growth have given them a leg-up on the rest of the world, and sometimes they are going to seem obnoxious or oblivious to peers who have had to strive and fight their way into their potential and their future. But, but... these are as open and hungry for knowledge and meaning and SIGNIFICANCE in their own lives as any students I have ever met. I had a moment today, talking about Poetry and Poets with a class of AP Senior English, and they all, *all*, felt like they were utterly open hearted and deeply interested, ready to learn and stretch and grow.
These Children are no more "bad kids" than the previous Children I taught. These Children are just lucky enough to have less in the way of their achieving their destiny, their potential, of making their future in the shape they choose.
I'm embarrassed to admit how I tarred them with the brush of my own misguided opinions, but I'm hoping I can do better in future now I can see The Actual Students more clearly.
She struggled to do right by her students, but her training had been incomplete and spotty, and sometimes she failed them. However, she kept learning and trying new ways to teach because her love for her subject and for the students themselves was pure. (Well, pure for the most part. Sometimes she had trouble connecting the subject to the students' lives in a relevant fashion, and sometimes the students drove her to distraction with their questions, demands, "bad days" and even celebratory moments. Such is life.)
This teacher worked for years with a majority of students who came from poor and disadvantaged families, students who'd been abused or neglected, and students with learning difficulties of all kinds. It took a long time (and a second, more comprehensive teacher training) to be able to recognize that none of the students were "bad kids." She realized that NO kids are inherently "bad", but that some students travel through life encountering so many obstacles, roadblocks, and people telling them, "You can't" that they were perpetually in a state of frustration. And of course, people in a state of constant frustration generally cannot learn well. Nor do such people tend to have a positive and hopeful attitude, or kind and polite manners.
Then this teacher moved to a different part of the state, where many things were different. In this new town, schools had adequate funding to maintain necessary scholastic resources and facilities, and moreover to attract talented and dedicated teachers - and keep them. In this town, the parents have the financial resources to keep their children healthy, fit, protected, and encouraged their children toward high achievements, big dreams, goals and plans for the future.
The children in the schools our teacher now found herself in, seem (compared to her previous students) incredibly polite, discreet, and well mannered. They are also (almost unbelievably, compared to her previous students) self-confident and secure in themselves and in their own potential to make a difference in the world and to succeed in their own lives.
***
Sometime around a year ago I believe I wrote a post about this comparison. I resented the privilege these students lived in, grew up in, were supported by, to the precise degree that I loved and ached for my Children of struggle. Children of privilege, (I felt) had so much to take for granted. For awhile I believed they were arrogant and self-centered and uncaring about the world (though I had little evidence to support the first and third assumption. As for the second, to exist is to be self-centered; it must be so).
I don't believe this anymore.
They are children. Children nearly-grown and planning toward their futures, but children. Insecure about their place in the world some of the time, putting a brave face on things some of the time. And flamboyantly confident some of the time, in the bulletproof way the young can be across the face of the planet.
Yes they are privileged. No, they don't yet realize their privilege, or the extent to which their security and unhampered opportunities for growth have given them a leg-up on the rest of the world, and sometimes they are going to seem obnoxious or oblivious to peers who have had to strive and fight their way into their potential and their future. But, but... these are as open and hungry for knowledge and meaning and SIGNIFICANCE in their own lives as any students I have ever met. I had a moment today, talking about Poetry and Poets with a class of AP Senior English, and they all, *all*, felt like they were utterly open hearted and deeply interested, ready to learn and stretch and grow.
These Children are no more "bad kids" than the previous Children I taught. These Children are just lucky enough to have less in the way of their achieving their destiny, their potential, of making their future in the shape they choose.
I'm embarrassed to admit how I tarred them with the brush of my own misguided opinions, but I'm hoping I can do better in future now I can see The Actual Students more clearly.
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