The State of Things

I snatched a tid-bit of an email from a friend.  We were talking about two people who have up until recently taught in private schools, or environmental education.  Both are now teaching math in school districts where there are large numbers of students living in poverty.  My friend here is an M.D. working in one of the most poverty-stricken towns in the mid-coast.  He has one child still in private school, and one who just started at a public high school.  My daughter is still in a private school and will probably continue on that path in high school, yet I continue to work in the public school. 

Both comment on the depth and breadth of  deprivation in many of their students.  You know, disadvantaged kids are really... disadvantaged.  In the case of the M. person, he was sick of the kids coming to C. for their semester of envirowhatever at $20,000 for 3 months.   He had also taught at several prep schools.  He says it's by far his hardest job.  J. cannot assume his students have even eaten.  M. has over 60% of the kids on the free lunch program, apparently.   LePage would say that if we lowered that percentage then fewer kids would therefore be getting free lunches.  

What is the answer?  I also know that the M. district has a massive problem with narcotics.  Parents are in prison, or gone.  I met an 8th grader from this district at a Christmas party with Charlie who is living with her grandmother because her mother is a junkie.  The grandmother was describing the new principal at the school .... "She's kind of..." and her grand-daughter broke in, "a butt ... she's kind of a butt!"  They have to walk in straight lines everywhere, like prisoners.

Getting to the point where students are tuned in to literature and writing, geometry and the rest can be an uphill battle when they are just hanging on, surviving.

I'd like to think great books, music, the opportunity to tell a digital story would provide some solace, maybe even an opportunity for change, but first kids need to be in safe homes and have enough food.