These Two Schools

I work at two schools.
One is called "Free", but the other one costs no money
Twice a week, I ride between them. 15 minutes, tops.
but I doubt a single child from each has ever met the other.

One: 53 white kids, 10 staff, many loving parents. the lack of academic expectations frustrates me,
my prep-school self feels proud, and this makes me afraid.
I laugh on the phone to friends and relatives: 'I am learning that just because its progressive doesn't mean I agree with it'.
But as I learn these young people, I care less and less about their math skills, and more and more about their happiness. I still worry, however, what they are loosing by forgoing the drudgery of conventional education.


Two: 80 or so elementary school students burst through the doors of the theater/cafeteria,
the rest of them are outside and on their way home.
I serve them on styrofoam trays: gross cheesy white bread, apples white with wax coating, lettuce they say no to, chocolate milk, ranch dressing. Some days it is my job to count just how many of them rush by boisterously- to ensure 1-meal-per-child, for The State.
I take my dozen 10 year olds to do their homework, and then we play improv games for an hour- they are eager but unfocused, inattentive, disrespectful, kind to me but very mean to one another. They are filled with irks I wish I could let the squirm out and talk through, but when I try they get crazy, and so I exercise control as best I can (which is poorly) and I know the kid I sent to my supervisor was also picked on, but he ran so much and called so many kids stupid. Maybe he is just bigger and louder than the others.
Straight-line-no-talking back to the cafeteria and I teach another dozen how to make a recycled art project with just-enough-freedom-for-age-appropriate-creativity. no more no less. It is so satisfying to prepare and share a lesson. I know the kids at One would like this too, but I do not have it in me to spend hours prepping projects that I have no guarantee they will do. I wonder if the other staff is disappointed in me when I let them stray from the plan and my demo, let them make things that are awkward and lumpy and gluey and absent-minded and unfinished. The children seem happy. I should remember to complement them more on what they make.


At One, when there is conflict or sadness, we talk and talk. I am learning to listen to young people, and they are learning to share and process, and not be afraid to cry. Life is hard for all people big and little, and maybe it is not easier when you have ample time to feel your feelings. no straight quiet lines to march down the hall and loose yourself in, no validation from check marks and gold stars.
Two: I want to apply this listening, I imagine the children crying for it. in moments of unstructured time there are bouts of such frustration, I want to talk with them, but there is not time. And the others would go wild in my absence. They tattle on each other, look to me for protection, and I don't know how to do anything about it while class must continue. I don't want to punish without knowing details, but I know I will learn.

Little faces grasping the hands of bigger faces that look like theirs. Endless women answering to mamamamamamamama from their lolling teenager or collapsed tiny ball of person on the floor. Parents from One tell me of their struggles and parents from Two politely shake my hand. I am filing away all of this parenting, it is a petrifying thought that one day I might well use what I am learning for a little one that right now I am trying very hard not to brew within me.

The weeks feel too Real Life all of the sudden: job. weekend. boyfriend. families everywhere. I am a person with a family. I think about my childhood, my loving parents making big body tracing drawings in the hall and word problems at restaurants. my clean clothing, my bedroom, my home cooked meals. It also leaves me thinking about my future, envisioning it with a certainty that feels fake, or incorrect. Makes me want the next step (backwards? outwards?) to be seeking time and space for artwork, searching through my own ideas and materials like a navel-gazing, looser-hip, idealist privileged white girl from new york city. which is what I am right now. I am trying to be a collected educator, but it feels premature.