Before I am able to delve into the present, a short overview of the past is necessary. I was raised in a typical upper-middle class suburban neighborhood. I am Caucasian, as were most of my friends and the student population at the public schools I attended. I have wanted to teach for as long as I can remember. It is rare nowadays that a student graduates college with the same major that they began, but I was one of those rarities. With only one exception, I held fast to the desire to be a teacher and when I considered for a brief moment perhaps that was not my destiny, I was brought right back to it the moment I left school and was allowed inside a real classroom. As for teaching inner city, that idea came about only in college when I truly began to understand that where you come from often determines where you will go and something inside me longed to try and do anything I could to change this. So to the surprise of few who know me best, I was determined as soon as I could that I would accomplish my goal. After one semester of teaching at a Title 1 school in the southwest I decided it was time to pack up and start out on a new adventure.
Six weeks and a lot of prayers later I landed a job as a middle school language arts teacher in an "urban" inner-city school. Among the school's obstacles include failure to meet AYP gvedoals for too many years, high turn around in adminsitration and teacher staffing, a lack of motivation among students, and a student population comprised mostly from the two housing projects surrounding the school. I was to teach a class of students that are too old for their grade level. In essence those students who have failed enough that they are considered to be in high risk of dropping out because of their age and grade level. The student's range from 13-15 and are in grades 7 and 8. I knew all this going in and yet after only one week of teaching I see that no matter what statistics I had heard or what I had studied nothing could have prepared me for what I would encounter. ...
* I will take this moment to say that in order to protect the student's identities and the integrity of both the school and district for which I work, all names will be changed.
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