Rainbows and Butterflies

I'll be honest.  My kids don't know when to stop.  When to stop yelling.  When to stop being disrespectful.  When to stop arguing.  When to stop fighting.  They just don't know how.

But what I do know that if you truly show them that you care for them, that you respect them, that you will be there for them until the end of time, they will stop.  They will stop for you.  They will blindly follow you and do what you ask them to do.

It has taken a lot of time, energy, and full on student vs teacher matches for me to get to where I am right now with my students.  I have them.  They know me.  They respect me.  Most importantly we're finally able to pick up a book and learn something without having to worry about certain students causing commotions in classroom.  I'll be honest there are still a few stragglers but it's gotten a lot better.
I'm not saying my classroom is now rainbows and butterflies.  We still have some days where my voice level reaches far above the normal level of a teacher.  But we now have more days were we actually get things done.

I have learned that in order to make this happen you have to put yourself in their shoes.  Most of these kids barely get three meals a day.  They carry weapons in their backpacks to stay safe during their walks home after school. They have issues at home that we can barely fathom.  They are the parents to their younger brothers and sisters because no one else at home cares for them.

These kids demand to be treated like adults because to be honest they ARE adults.  The fighting, the yelling,  and the arguing all comes out due to the fact that these kids, these babies have had to grow up so fast because there was no other choice.  Would you care about studying for a test on an empty stomach?  Would you care about staying up in class when you spent all night taking care of a sick sibling?  I'm not saying all my students go through these obstacles.  But many do and those that do are the ones that are falling into the cracks.

I try.  I try to save them.  But trying only gets you so far.  And that's where I'm struggling.  I'm struggling to keep them afloat.  The most frustrating part about it is that no one fully understands your students than you.  Authority in the school walks all over the kids.  Yelling, arguing, disrespecting them as if they weren't human.  My kids relapse.  They take their anger out on me and we start all over again.
But as their only hope to survival you try and you keep trying.  You smile, you let them yell, you let them argue, and you keep hoping that one day it will all be worth it.

Like I said it's not perfect.  But that doesn't mean we can't stop trying.

Unfortunately rainbows and butterflies will never exist in education unless we stop running schools as businesses were profits matter more than teaching students what they really need to learn.

-Ms. P