Schools and safe places

The other day I was talking with my mom about the school my brother and I went to for lower school and whether we should have left it sooner -- or perhaps chosen a different school to begin with.  As it turned out, my brother and I left after fifth grade (for me) and sixth grade (for him) because that school had become a toxic environment, both in terms of bullying and in terms of the school's "progressive" views on learning and education.  But though that school, partly due to a change in administration, degenerated into a bad place for positive growth, it was, for our first few years there, a wonderful, warm environment that provided a supportive atmosphere, making school a safe place for children to explore and question and grow.  Though my last year at that school was horrendous in many ways, I assured my mom that the early years left me with a warm understanding of what a fine school can and should be as a nurturing and safe place for the innocence of childhood....

So with that conversation fresh in my mind, my experience at the school I worked at today was a sad look at just how badly a school can fail its youngest students.  As I sat in the car on the drive over, I looked at the notes our team (going there to audition children for a dance scholarship) had been given.  The notes bluntly stated that on previous visits to the school, the children were completely unmanageable, misbehaved the entire time, and swore a lot.  The "swearing a lot" note made me particularly wary because I had never seen a note about that for any school -- and frankly, I couldn't remember the last time I had seen a note that was so blunt about misbehavior, despite the fact that I had visited schools where I witnessed fistfights and once felt threatened by an eight-year-old.  I'm not sure what exactly I expected to find when I walked through that school's doors, but I think it was somewhere between Lord of the Flies and the running of the bulls (but without the animal abuse).

 

My expectations seemed like they might be fulfilled when we got to the room we'd be using for our auditions and the door to the stairwell across from it opened.  A little girl, around eight or nine years old, burst through the door shouting, "Suck my f*&king d#$k!" to the girl behind her.  They both looked at me, looked at the teachers in the hall, threw out some more obscenities, and laughed as they walked away.  The teachers said nothing, acting as if it didn't happen (or as if they knew it was a lost cause to say anything).  I'm used to hearing the occasional swear word from elementary school students, but I had never heard anything like that from such young children in school before.

 

But when we auditioned the second graders, I saw something else.  I saw them before they turned into the cursing, misbehaving kids who knew the teachers wouldn't try to control them.  I saw them when they still craved security and were trying to cling to the innocence that should come so naturally to seven-year-olds.   I was struck by what a massive difference existed between the second and third graders.  It was as if the two grades were from different schools.  When our last third grade glass proved to be perfectly well-behaved, I thanked their teacher, telling her quietly, "Your class is by far the best behaved third grade class we've seen today," and she said with a proud and knowing smile, "They better be."   Watching her in action, it was apparent that she hadn't lucked out and magically been given well-behaved kids; she simply knew how to deal with them and how to make them take responsibility for their actions.  And she had incredible patience and an unwillingness to give up.  But I couldn't help but wonder what her kids would be like next year when they moved to a class with a teacher who didn't have her skill and drive.  The only thing separating her class's behavior from the others' was her.  How long would the effect she'd had on them last once they'd left her classroom behind?

 

In the callback portion of our audition, we had one particularly quiet girl, whom I'll call Natalie here, and one particularly outgoing, confident little boy from the one well-behaved third grade class.  I had noticed when the boy took off his shoes that he wore pink and turquoise socks with Elsa and Anna from Frozen on them.  Whether he was wearing them because he loved Frozen and they were his or because his parents hadn't done laundry and they were his sister's, he wasn't the least bit embarrassed to show them -- quite the opposite of most kids who have mismatched or dirty socks or are wearing a sibling's or have a pattern or graphic on their socks that they weren't expecting to be seen by other students.  I smiled at his confidence and his comfort in simply being himself and hoped he manages to retain that as he ages -- something that, it seemed, might prove difficult at this particular school.

 

At the beginning of the callback portion, he came up to me and said, "I have to look after Natalie.  She's very shy.  Like very, very shy.  She gets nervous when she does new things.  So I need to look out for her."  The comment caught me off guard by its sensitivity and sweetness, and I assured him he would be able to do that throughout the audition.  When I looked at Natalie, I realized her grey leggings had holes in their knees and were extremely heavily soiled, as if they had been worn for months without any washings.  Her socks were equally soiled and mismatched.  Unlike the little boy with Frozen socks who was looking out for her, Natalie appeared to be keenly self-conscious of both her leggings and her socks.  And that self-consciousness of her clothes carried over to a self-consciousness of her entire being.  She seemed almost afraid of the other students -- afraid they might mock her or say something hurtful.  She seemed to have retreated inside a shell, fearful that her surroundings were too inhospitable for her to fully exist outside her own protective bubble.

 

The boy did his stated duty of looking out for Natalie, and no one made fun of her.  But I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if he weren't there for her...  What will happen next year?  Will that boy keep his strong sense of self and sensitivity when he's in an environment that doesn't foster it or that even seems to be indifferent or hostile towards it?

 

When we reached the lobby afterwards, I looked at the "I have a dream" drawings that students at the school had created and that were taped up to the walls.  Reading them, I realized that most of them said some form of "I have a dream that this school won't close," and it became obvious that the school must be one that is marked for closing by the city because of its extremely low performance.  By chance, my eyes landed on Natalie's drawing.  It said "I have a dream that people will stop using bad words because it makes me sad," accompanied by a drawing of her crying and an angry person next to her shouting. 

That's Natalie's experience of elementary school. 

 

My worst day in elementary school doesn't come close to equaling what she faces on a daily basis. My heart aches for all the Natalies, for all the children whose schools fail them and force them to give up the innocence of childhood which should envelop them at that age.