maleficent

First off, whether you realize it or not, you are making a difference, the kids probably don't even realize it, but they will eventually, and appreciate what you are doing for them.

I taught,on a volunteer basis, two nights a week at an "alternative" high school in a not so great area of NYC, for a bunch of years, most of these kids had been kicked out of every mainstream high school in the city and this was their last chance to get a high school education, the girls all were moms at very young ages, to 2, 3 or more kids, with boyfriends in jail, some of the boys were fresh out of Spofford, or other equally delightful places. Their homelives I could only imagine how awful they are (One girl I had for two years, was hospitalized for a really bad asthma attack, and I had gone to the hospital to bring her an assignment (she asked) and to just visit her, the nurse told me that this girl had been in the hospital for 3 days and her mother had never come to see her.

The fact that these kids are actually going to school, and trying to get an education says something about them, somewhere inside is the willingness to learn (YEah, I'm a Pollyanna sometimes). I don't think teaching them the bare minimum is good enough, or just giving them enough to get by, challenge them a little, some of them will actually rise to the occassion.

I've been a math geek a long time, and that's what I really wanted to teach, I took on a writing class, because it seemed easy - and the school was desperate -- (though it amused friends to no end who know how atrocious my grammar is) the writing class I got a lot out of because I could see the kids really start to change how they looked at the world, and some of the assignments I gave them, were really hokey, but they took the ideas and just ran with them.

These kids have probably had very few people believe in them, believe that they can achieve and it will make all the difference in their lives.

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