Over my 15 year teaching career, I have had far too many students with heartbreaking stories. No child should have to experience what these babies had to endure. There was the boy whose mother was a prostitute who was murdered in a hotel. There were the sisters who witnessed their father kill their mother and then himself. There are the far too many to count kids with addicts for parents. There was the kid whose mom called him an asshole in front of me. With all of them, I have tried my best to be both sympathetic and empathetic, without giving up my own comforts and life, because I know how it easy it would be to try and take on their burdens.
Today, I gave a student a ride home. He is a special education student with a reading level around 3rd grade. I've been trying to work with him, but he has been very reluctant. He is a very nice young man, who occasionally acts far too impulsively and immaturely. He has no parents. Well, after giving birth to a series (4 or 5) of babies, his mother lost custody of them. I haven't even attempted to ask him about his dad, though I will. This young man with a big cheery smile has raised himself. Sure he's been in foster care and boys' homes, but as he told me today, he has taught himself all the survival skills he currently possesses. That doesn't make me feel very good.
He does not live in Hamtramck (where I actually teach), but in Detroit. He has not always lived in this current location, but this looks like it's going to be home for a while. He usually catches a ride or the bus, which is a hell of a ride. I think that he said he had to be on the bus by 6 a.m. if he is going to be on time for the 7:50 start. As we drove to his street, the main street became rougher looking, with fewer and fewer open store fronts. I was too busy chatting and driving, but I did not see anything that resembled a major grocery store. When we approached his street, he warned me to be sure to go slow, because there were huge potholes and sure enough, there was a construction barrel in the middle of the street, sitting in a hole about three feet wide and a half-foot deep. I didn't count, but at least 90 percent of the homes were abandoned and boarded up. He told me that he never goes outside in this neighborhood because some crackhead will start harassing him. When he gets home from wrestling, he goes in the house and watches t.v. Homework doesn't happen because his skills are too low and he lives alone - no adult supervision. This is the first year that he has been my student and he did not start off in our system. He is supposed to graduate in June. What will he do? I want to wrap him up, bring him home, and make sure that someone finally looks out for him. I can't, but he will be my project for the rest of the year. He cannot leave high school with so few options.
He's just one kid. Now think about a city like Detroit where the poverty rate in through the roof. How do we let our babies down like this?
7 comments:
What a heartbreaker. So he's not in the foster care system anymore? I work with foster kids, the teenagers are the hardest cases to deal with because either they've been in the system for years, bounced around from house to house, relative to relative, group home to group home, or they just come into the system and you know you only have a limited amount of time to help them before they age out and are thrust into the world on their own. That said, there ARE programs for teenagers in the foster care system to teach them job training skills, money management, interviewing skills etc., and they usually work together with companies that are willing to hire the kids on a contingency basis. I'm sure the system in Detroit is overwhelmed and broke, but it might be worth getting him hooked back up with them instead of letting him fend for himself. It seems hopeless, I know. But just the fact that that kid is old enough to drop out, but he gets himself on a bus at 6:00 AM to go to school means that he's motivated. And that puts him way ahead of most of the others.
I didn't understand fully, but it seems that a case worker may have put him in this house to learn how to live on his own. But, there is no one there to give him any guidance. I'll have to talk with him more - he's taken a shine to me and I think I can point him in the direction of a few programs.
Thanks Laura.
And, I don't know if it's different from state to state, but here in NC they don't necessarily age out of the system at 18. They can voluntarily remain for a few more years and get the benefit of a living allowance and Medicaid as well as the peripheral programs available to foster children.
Oh, I'll be sure to check into that.
Amazing what the world does to people - especially kids. I don't work in a city - rural district - so I haven't seen some of the really scary stuff, but I've seen plenty of kids let down by their parents. It's frustrating too, because the 5 or so hours you may have to affect their lives is nothing to the 12 or more hours they have after school that is shaping their lives. Keep up the good work! Sounds like you're doing all that you can and more. I'm impressed.
- www.MisterEdie.blogspot.com
its good of you to offer your time and patience...im sure he needs that support and guidance very much!!
Mister E and Artistic Logic - first of all, thanks for stopping by.
It is amazing what the world does to kids. I have a few more teachers wanting to look out for this kid because he is such a sweetie. We'll do what we can.
Thanks for your support.
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