The Next Step

Some of you have asked about what I will do now that the Loft directorship is no longer on the table. The simple answer is this: I'll look for another job. I don't really have any idea what that new job will be, nor do I have a lot of time to think about it right now as I'm getting us ready to move. Fortunately for me, my current work situation is such that I have a whole year to research and find the perfect next job for me.

I'll remain in my current teaching position at Career Link for the school year, and I did accept a full tutoring schedule at the Loft (although I'm still waiting to see if I like the new director). Even without the Loft hours, my teaching job will pay enough for me to be comfortable while I look for something else.

Why not just stay at Career Link indefinitely? I might, if I knew it would be guaranteed employment. Sadly (mostly sad for the kids this is going to hurt--shame on you President Bush and No Child Left Behind!), the funding for the program has been cut. This is a direct result of No Child Left Behind, which stipulates that a GED is not an acceptable outcome--only a high school diploma will satisfy the requirements. Career Link has enough budget surplus from the past few years to operate for one more year. What will the kids do when Career Link closes? According to the president and his cronies, they'll go back to high school and finish their diplomas like they should.

Forget that there are a lot of kids out there for whom high school is such a toxic experience that there's no way they're going to attend often enough to satisfy the requirements of a high school diploma. They don't have the right clothes. They don't have the right body type. They don't listen to the right music, watch the right movies, say the right things. They don't have the money popularity requires. They're picked on, bullied, and tormented to the point that they're afraid to go to school.

Forget that there are kids who come from single parent homes where no one has EVER tucked them in at night and read them stories. Their parent(s) are too busy trying to survive that they don't have time to provide a so-called normal childhood for their children. About three-quarters my class last spring didn't know the Hans Christian Anderson version of The Little Mermaid, and when I asked them what their favorite bedtime stories were when they were kids, most of them replied that no one had read to them. No one is there when they get home from school, with milk and cookies and help with homework. No one makes sure they eat breakfast before they leave for school in the morning. No one takes them on family vacations every summer. No one takes them to the zoo or other enriching places on weekends. No one makes a big dinner on Thanksgiving or plays Santa on Christmas. The adults in my students' lives hardly have time to remember they have children most of the time.

Forget that many of them come from houses where the so-called responsible adults in their lives are entirely drugged out of their minds. I have students who come to school hungry because their mothers have used all the food money to buy crack. I have students who come to school and complain that their fathers smoked all their cigarettes, and they need a nicotine fix or they won't be able to pay attention in class.

Forget that many of them have drug problems of their own to contend with. I have students who come to school so high they fall asleep in the back row of my classroom, and when I wake them they are so stupefied they don't remember where they are, and their glazed over expression and the scent of pot tells me all I need to know about the problem. I have students who are in and out of rehab on a regular basis, never quite managing to get completely clean before their beds are given to more severe cases.

Forget that a lot of them are too scared to go home, because home is where they're physically, sexually, mentally, or otherwise abused. They live on the streets or with friends who have slightly better circumstances than their own, sleeping on floors, in cardboard boxes, and under bridges. These kids fall asleep in my classroom because it's the first safe, warm place they've been after a weekend on the streets. Quite frankly, I let them sleep because they're too scared and exhausted to stay awake.

Forget that many of them are teenage parents, both fathers and mothers, trying to finish a GED after they've been forced to drop out of high school to support babies. High school is a full time job for a teenager, and my students don't have time to pretend high school is important while they're learning to be parents and working real full time jobs to support their children. They're hoping to get a GED, which will allow them to get slightly better jobs than flipping burgers at Mac Donald's, so that maybe their babies might have a better childhood than they did.

Forget that many of them have learning disabilities that, because of lack of money and health insurance in their homes and insufficient social services and overworked school employees, have never been diagnosed or have been misdiagnosed. They suffer in high school classrooms, falling quietly behind their peers or acting the part of class clowns to cover for their insufficiencies. No one ever notices that they're struggling until they give up and drop out, at which point they're so credit deficit and behind in their studies that they could work until they're 35 and still not get that high school diploma.

For my students, a high school diploma is as far out of reach as an all-expense paid trip to the moon. Life has dealt them a really crappy hand, and while they're doing all they can to cope with all their other problems, it isn't realistic to expect them to succeed in the candy-coated world of cheerleaders and football players, popularity and proms. That they're willing to attend classes and try to get a GED is enough of a miracle. I wish the pristine, black business suited politicians, who send their own children to the best private schools in the country, would be forced for just one month to live the lives my students have led since birth, and then say to my students that they should attend a regular high school and graduate with a high school diploma. It's disgusting that No Child Left Behind is leaving behind so many young people. What will these kids do when GED programs are gone? Tell me they won't be left behind. It's not like any of them are going to suddenly decide to return to high school and get high school diplomas. No Child Left Behind is further contributing to the poverty and lack of education that is bringing the United States further and further down the world scale, both socially and economically. It is an act that purposely leaves behind a whole lot of children: the poor, the abused, the drug addicted, the less academically gifted, those who don't fit in at a high school. President Bush and his friends would rather pretend that these "undesirable" children do not exist, that every child in the United States is as lucky as their own children. I don't know how people of such privilege can ignore the suffering of so many children, but it seems that they can.

What will I do next, when Career Link closes its doors next June? I'm hoping I'll find a job as a youth advocate (or education advocate) in some way. Someone has to keep fighting for people who are too downtrodden to use their own voices! I'll look for another GED program, an adult education program, a youth center, another teaching position that will allow me to continue to help those who are being left behind every day, from the minute they're born. I definitely want to continue to work with marginalized populations in some capacity. This summer's ESL classes and my work in the Loft have shown me another route that is open to me, which would be helping the immigrant population, much of which lives in situations as atrocious as my Career Link students'. I think there are a lot of options out there for people who want to help other people. While these jobs might not pay a lot, I don't require a mansion and a beach house and a fancy car with a driver. Helping other people pays enough to keep healthy food on the table, a sound roof over my head, and so many of life's little luxuries that I seem really rich when I compare myself to most of the rest of the world.

I might have whined about not getting the Loft directorship, but in the end, I still have a great job, an amazing education that no one can ever take from me, a wonderful and stable family, an incredible boyfriend who supports me unconditionally and loves me even when I'm stressed out, and a comfortable home. I'm luckier than most people. I think I have a responsibility to share some of that with people less fortunate than myself.