My first day training with ARC, I felt like an atheist walking into a church for the first time. I didn't really know what to expect. I was in an anonymous building in downtown Oakland, the whole floor was vacant, the whole place smelled like freon. I was early so I waited for everyone to show up. the first to walk in was this old woman pulling a wire frame carry along behind filled with news paper clipping and books with frayed pages, walking with a limp. She had those long willowy jowls that make rowdy kids walk in the street when they see them dangling from an elderly chin of someone walking down the sidewalk. She told me that this was her ninth tutoring job, then she told me a story about a old black matriarch from Memphis who helped save black people from themselves by teaching them how to knit.
A few minutes later people started flooding in, all twenty minutes late and smiling and I felt a little jealous even after hearing that special little story. A guy came in carrying a fixie on his shoulder like a soldier carrying a riffle, behind him were three people: a girl and two guys, one thin and two heavy set (feel free to divide these attributes as you see fit on your own) all speaking Spanglish at a rate so fast that my socalian ear had no chance of catching up with them. A girl who smelled of wheat germ, sat down next me because, I was happy when she sat down, even though I hate the mealy weird taste, I like the smell of wheat germ. Another guy with a star wars Rebel tattoo sat down next to me and we began to chat.
Then the indoctrination started.
I. Breaking down
You want to destroy the candidates illusions of purpose and individuality One sentence I remember is "your not here to save these kids." and I kept thinking from what from who there parents? There teachers? Each other? I asked and got no answer the speaker went on
II."The teachers will not like you"
and I started to wonder why? Where just extra help right? Trying to assist these people and these kids to do there best. She went on.
III. Don't have any illusions
of course the illusions started flooding in right after she said that.I saw me, Me reaching a kid who needed help talking to a parent about why there weren't great report cards coming home, learning all the kids names really impossible stuff . Then I started having allusions why did she have to mention that twice why weren't any educational professional involved in this besides the ones pushing paper on the floor above us
IV. I don't really like No child Left behind either but.....
I had no idea we were even part NCLB until she said that. It wasn't in the advertisement on craigslist.com where, I guessed, most of the candidates in the room were drawn from.
On My first day as a tutor I was there before my sight coordinator. I was angry until I met with the coordinator. She had just come from another teaching job. She looked tired but pleasant so I helped her carry her work books into the school. I replacing a girl who had to leave after a familial tragedy. To the teacher's we are scabs. I can understand. What ever learning inconsistencies the testers at ARC finds reflects negatively on their whole, under funded, overpopulated classes. Their unions can do little to help. And there I am, the I am "tutor", the spy. The system sets us at odds.
These are my kids: D is a brilliant boy who knows it. He is rambunctious and distracting, mostly to me. English, is his second language but he handles it well enough to keep me entertained. He read my tattoo phonetically and the thing is in Latin. Then there is O and B, or Ohmidah and Berumazadahn, I like saying there names but I don't think they like hearing come out of my mouth. They're sisters and O has been helping B pretend to speaking English probably the whole time they've been in school; It's really very clever: O understands things quicker, but she's younger and teachers always expect her to try to get the answer from her older sister B, B is older and she actually has a tougher time learning English because of this fact. So really while O is "asking"B for the answers, B is actually getting the answers from O, leaving T(eachers) convinced that B grasps everything she's supposed to have learned. Then there's Rio who reminds me of myself. He was kicked out of the program because Rio can't read and has disciplinary issues.
You see Rio was never really taught to read but he has learned to use the same trick as O and B by himself.
Rio sees a new word.
Rio does not remember his old words and the sounds they make.
Rio gets frustrated and throws a fit, or leaves the room.
The first time I decided not to follow the ARC program, implemented based on the no child left behind protocol and requirements, I had Rio read to me while the other kids did their own reading and memorization work, Rio read perfectly spoke well and got most my questions about what she had just read correct. The next week I came to tutor he was gone.
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