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Newark Public Schools

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August 22, 2001

Editor's note: Julie taught a summer school class of third graders in Newark, New Jersey--a city that continuously does poorly on statewide and national standardized tests.

Week Three - Looks are deceiving

Today I gave them a topic for their journals that was very simple, "What did you do on your Fourth of July holiday? Why do we celebrate on July 4th?"

Well, I thought it was simple. Plenty of kids --most of them, really -- went to see fireworks last night, but no one could tell me why. They didn't know why there is a holiday on July 4th. When I said Independence Day, it didn't mean anything to them.

At breakfast, I got into a conversation about this with them, and tried to pry the information out. But, when we got to the point when I said, "Ok, so who did we get our independence from?" Tyronne thought for a minute and then answered, "…China?"

Today being Thursday, we had prayer service after breakfast. Today went by a lot more quickly than the first one. Before service, I got into another conversation with my kids about Independence Day, and started to explain to them that our country didn't always exist.

Suprising thoughts from the kids

In the middle of my mini-lesson, Barry interrupted me with, "Ooh! Ooh! Wasn't there something about The British are coming; The British are coming?"

Barry is really smart, he knows a lot of random things. I think that he is just very scatter-brained, however, and just can't piece all the information together and keep it that way in his head. For example, when we talked about injustice the other day, and asked if anyone knew what it meant, he eagerly raised and waved his hand, and when I called on him, he said, "Um…is it something like a boycott?"

Now, this, at face value, doesn't make sense. However, if you think about history, you can understand how the boy could link the two words, because a boycott is a reasonable reaction to injustice.

In class, Barry can never sit still, in line, he can never stand still, and his stuff never seems to stay on his desk. It's always rolling off, under, and behind his desk. Then I find Barry stretched out of his seat, in strange positions, not paying attention, and when I call on him to find out what the heck is going on, he looks at me like a deer in headlights. When I am in class, it's disruptive, but really, as I am writing this, it's quite comical; children will be children.

Afterward, I took the kids out into the garden to finish the planting work we had started on Tuesday. Outside, we found the other 3rd grade class, and got them organized to plant. As always, with the rotation of planters in the garden, we had problems with kids cutting in line and fighting to go first.

After a few minutes of general fighting among the students, I felt a tap on my arm. I turned to see the one little Vietnamese girl. Her hands were folded, and she had a polite smile on her face, and a rectangular jade pendant hanging from her neck. She stood calmly as the second-to-last child in line.

"Yes, sweetie, what can I do for you?"

"Miss Julie, we're all doing the same thing anyway, right?"

"Yes, we are…you're all going to plant a few vegetable seeds."

"So then, it doesn't really matter where we are in line, right?"

"Right."

Where did this child come from?! She understood patience and the irrelevance of one's place in line if we were all going to the same place and doing the same thing. She was a little ray of sunshine in my day.

"What's your name, sweetie?

"Naomi."

"Hi, Naomi, I'm Miss Julie." I stuck out my hand, as I usually do when I meet kids from the other classes. "It's nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too," she squeaked, in her quick-paced speech. "What kind of tree is that?" she asked, pointing to a tree behind me.

"Uh…I'm not too sure…"

"I think it's a maple tree."

"That's possible…it might also be an oak tree…"

"No, I looked at the leaves. It's a maple tree, I'm pretty sure. You know the silvery tree out in front of the school?"

I wrinkled my eyebrows; I hadn't seen the tree she was referring to. "No, Naomi, I haven't seen that tree."

"Well, you should go look at it. There's a tree outside the front of the school, and it looks silvery white. Do you know what that one's called?"

"Nope…sorry, sweetie…"

"It's ok, I think it's called a white ash tree."

"Really, well, that's very interesting."

"Do you know why I think it's called a white ash tree?"

I smiled."Why?

She folded her hands behind her back, raised her chin and gave me this big grin. "Cause it's white."

As Naomi walked a few feet away to converse with another child, I stood in amazement. She had an insatiable curiosity and never stopped asking questions and making guesses. This is every teacher's dream student. She came back to me a few minutes later.

"Do you know why I think the tree is white?"

"Why?"

"Cause some snow came and fell on it and never melted away."

Body language vs. ability

Jack and I handed out candy as promised at the end of the day, and also handed out some more homework, this time on writing sentences and more subtraction.

As we handed out homework, I saw Latasha roll her eyes and drop her head to her arm, which was already resting on the desk. This made me upset. Whenever we begin to do something that remotely implies doing work, she complains through body language. She's smart, too, one of the smarter ones in the class. But, she really does lack self-esteem. I think it has to do with being over-weight.

Also, she, Stacy, and Lisa are usually a threesome, but when it comes time to pair off for things, she is the one who is usually left out. When we do classroom activities, like the 4th of July crossword, until I come over to her, she'll push the work away and put her head down, complaining that she doesn't know how to do it.

Once she gets in a foul mood, she won't get anything I teach, but with an attitude adjustment, she'd do rather well I think. On the other hand, she thinks she knows a lot and usually sticks her nose in everyone else's business when someone gets in trouble or isn't doing what they are supposed to.

And with this, she thinks she's special, because she'll get up in the middle of class and walk over to me to ask me if she can get a drink of water, or "do we really have to do this?"

It's hard to decide if she thinks too highly of herself or too lowly. Nor do I know how to push all those other qualities aside and just help her exercise her intelligence in the classroom.

Names have been changed to protect student and teacher privacy.