thursday
Last week, it became apparent that the seven year old next door does not have reliable transportation to school, regardless of the fact that his school is only five blocks away and there are at least five adults with vehicles at home on a given morning. So, I've been walking him to school for a week now and we've been getting there about twenty minutes early; he's been really excited about this. The first day I walked him, he told me that I had to sign him in, because he always has to be signed in; turns out that you only have to be signed in if you're late.
He was a little late coming over this morning, so I went and knocked on his door. His sister answered and said that they'd overslept and his mom would take him today. OK. On two days with me, he'd overslept, but had been ready within about five minutes of me waking him up.
It's been over an hour and school started 20 minutes ago, and they haven't left the house.
It's pretty accepted that those lower on the socioeconomic ladder generally do not value education as much as those higher on it, but the sad irony is that if they teach their children that education is unimportant, they virtually guarantee that their children stay on that same rung.
And he's such a bright kid.
posted by mamaspeak @ 6:21 AM
1 Comments:
melanie (if you converse with me, I'm going to call you "Mel"), from the 4 or 5 posts that I've read, you are a decent person. Nice to meet you.
Personally, I'm a shithead for the most part, but when it comes to little kids, I'm a fairly decent joe. I substitute teach. Although my original certification was at the secondary level, I have discovered the absolute, hilarious joy of working with kids the age of your neighbor. They're Humanity at its finest (which is a really, really sad statement).
I've come into contact with a lot of little ones sharing the same deplorable upbringing as your little neighbor, and I have always been amazed at their resiliancy in the face of such odds.
It's good of you to try to help. A word of advice though: Keep your distance. Exactly how far that may be is entirely up to your judgment, which, if you behave as well as you write, will probably be just right. (Oops! I kinda made a pun.)
Anyway, I'm commenting on the last 5 posts, so come see what I left at your blog.
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