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The Price of Education and Teaching: Part VII

Justice ignored

By Martina R. GallegosPublished 7 years ago 4 min read
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The three days I'd spent doing observation in what would be my future classroom, were just foreshadowing the rest of my teaching career.

A few days after I'd settled into my classroom, a teacher approached me and I asked if I'd switch classrooms with her. I told her I couldn't because I felt I'd moved in and out a couple of times: once when the previous teacher had emptied the classroom, and then when I went over and got rid of materials from at least two different teachers; the students had already had three teachers before me. Anyway, this teacher told me the principal had 'given' her the classroom; obviously, that wasn't my problem, and I told her I wasn't going to move unless administrators asked, and nobody asked.

One of the first things I did with my students was to build mutual trust and their self-esteem. It seemed nobody had treated these young students like worthy human beings, and nobody had ever pronounced a word of praise in their presence. Once we resolved these issues, classroom management came rather easily, and students looked happier and acted friendlier among each other because my second goal was mutual respect and support. This aspect also raised their self-esteem because students learned to help each other.

A person from the district told me this group 'had been hand-picked.' I could see that because I was also told by another teacher that everybody had to 'pay their dues,' and I guess this was the beginning of 'paying my dues;' I was getting the most difficult, unruly students that nobody else wanted, and this practice continued throughout my teaching career. The rationale was: Ms. Gallegos knows how to work with difficult students; this student needs a motherly figure; she speaks his language; this student is unmanageable;...

Some teachers had special privileges/rights; they could send students back to me for being incorregible; they rejected students because the new students were second graders and not third, and one of those students ended up in my class, no questions were asked nor explanations were given.

From the moment this new second grader set foot in my classroom, I noticed something that worried me, and I let the office staff know right away. They asked me to give her time to 'adjust.' I'd ask every new student to do something special with a buddy to make them feel comfortable, and this time was no exception, but the student refused to do or say anything, except that she spent all day crying in a corner of the classroom. As with any new student, I walked out with her after school to make sure family members were picking her up; it turned out she was going home with cousins who were also in our classroom, but nobody had told me or mentioned anything about who'd pick her up. I called home, but nobody answered the phone.

Again, I notified the office about my observations and concerns regarding this student but got no response, so I waited to see mom next morning.

The following morning mom came to drop off her daughter but was in a hurry, so all I could tell her was that her daughter was having a hard time adjusting, cried and cursed a lot, and was scaring and disturbing the class. She told me she'd talk to her daughter and left. The student started her rant and continued all the way into the classroom; she refused to take her seat and ran out of the classroom; some people saw and tried to stop her but let her go; I stayed with the rest of my students, and office staff called to let mom know what had happened.

Every day her behavior kept getting worse and worse, and the rest of the students began to express fear and even anger towards their classmate; the principal would walk by the classroom to the restroom and would see the student screaming and ranting but would never do anything. Suddenly, the student started telling me she was worried about her dad who was in Rosarito, BC. She said the cops had set him up and put drugs in his car, and that now he'd have to go to jail.

She also said dad had told her if she didn't go to school, he'd stay in Rosarito.

She'd started getting verbally abusive toward students and me and would call me names while we walked in line to the classroom, but mom never said or did anything; that's when I felt she was dumping her daughter on me to deal with, so I asked to see her Cumulative Record; as I'd suspected, I found some notes indicating she'd had some problems at her previous school.

She'd bitten someone, causing them to bleed. Her 'punishment' was to miss recess for one day, and according to mom, her daughter was very upset about the 'harsh punishment' and didn't want to go to school anymore.

During Parent Conference, mom told me she had two teen daughters who she 'wanted to give away to Welfare;' she wanted them to take her daughters away because she couldn't stand having them around. I began to understand the family dynamics and my student's desperate need for help, but neither one would let me help, and neither union, site, or district administrators listened to my repeated requests for help.

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About the Creator

Martina R. Gallegos

Ms. Gallegos came from Mexico as a teen; she went to university, and got her teaching credential.She graduated with her M.A. June 2015 after a severe stroke. Works have appeared in Silver Birch Press, Lummox, https://poetry309.wordpress.com

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