stories

Every day I am learning more about why the achievement gap exists. This story isn't even mine, but it requires sharing. My roommate is teaching 8th grade English at a NYC public school in the Bronx. Over the past three weeks she has faced immense challenges in classroom management; students fighting, swearing at each other, not participating. But she has been strong, stronger than I have needed to be. She has waited a full eight minutes without speaking while a student sat in silence in stubborn refusal to participate. Today I enforced the law for the very first time, interrupting a fun, whole-class activity because my students were on the brink of mayhem and demanding that they sit in their seats and complete an independent assignment instead. It was my toughest moment thus far, and still it was nothing. I came home proudly with my story, but by comparison it isn't even worth sharing. My roommate today had a lengthy talk with a particular student who was not doing well in her class. She was patient and understanding but tough, working out a deal with the student through which she could increase her participation scores through helping the teacher with tasks in class. While this student was distributing materials in class, my roommate saw her showing a tiny bottle to another girl in class and laughing. After class, she demanded to see the bottle and the girl told her it was nothing, just lotion.

"If it is lotion than you can show it to me," she responded. When the student finally turned over the bottle she found that it was a small bottle of liquor. My roommate told the student she had no choice but to turn it in to the principal and the girl was truly upset. For the first time, my roommate said, she wasn't grinning.

Later, the principal said that she needed to be expelled from summer school, so they might as well just pass her to the 9th grade. The reason this student was in summer school in the first place was because she needed remediation before she could be promoted. Now that she brought a bottle of alcohol to school, she was told to discontinue her summer school and just go to 9th grade. For her punishment, the school gave up on her and sent her to high school unprepared. Thus the achievement gap continues.