Yesterday a new student registered for school with us. Kindergarten. Five years old. The most adorable little boy you ever saw: beautiful olive skin, springy, tawny curls, big bright eyes. A little cherub. He's in foster care, and this is the first time he's been in school in his life.
His teacher, my favorite from the kindergarten hall (experienced, kind, fun, and with a real gift for teaching little ones), was out sick yesterday, so the classroom aide was by herself. Up in the front office, by midmorning we started to hear rumblings that the Cherub was turning out to be a real live wire. The library assistant reported that when the class came to check out books, she started asking him questions about himself. He stared at her, answered her questions for a minute, and then said, "I punch people who annoy me." She said, "Am I annoying you?" to which he replied, "No, but I'm just letting you know..." We all chuckled. Okay.
At lunch, he informed one of the lunch ladies that he "knew lots of gangsters at his last home" and "I punch people who annoy me!" Whew, we said. What a little firecracker! Haha! Okay.
Then about an hour after lunch the classroom aide called up to the front office and said, "I need help! (Cherub) is trying to escape!" When the principal went down there, he was angrily trying to exit the class and refusing to sit down and cooperate. She walked him up to the office and sat him on the bench outside the nurse's office, to cool down. After a little while she went to talk to him and said, "You'll get to go home soon. You're riding the brown bus home." (For the littles our buses are named Pink, Brown, Orange, and Blue to help them remember which one they ride). Cherub looked at her like she was an idiot and said, "I ride a YELLOW bus home!" She briefly explained that while the bus IS yellow, the one he rides is called Brown. He continued to look skeptical, so she asked him if he'd rather stay at school with her after everyone else leaves. He shouted, "HELL NO!!!!"
Today when his teacher returned, I saw her first thing and said, "You've a got new student!" She gave me a wry look and said, "Yes, I've already heard." This is a veteran teacher and nothing much fazes her. * Later in the morning, during her break, she reported that they had given Cherub the kindergarten readiness assessment, and he scored really high. High enough that he could almost skip kindergarten and go right into first grade without a problem (at least academically). She also acknowledged that she'll have her hands full with him.
Right before I left for the day, I looked up and saw the teacher in the main office, so I called her over and asked her how the day had gone.
Y'all...
She told me that about an hour after lunch, the Cherub had demanded she let him go to the cafeteria to "get a hotdog". She told him the cafeteria was closed. He wasn't having it; he demanded that he get to get down there and get a hotdog. She repeated, "Cherub, you can't. The cafeteria closed an hour ago."
And this adorable little boy, the sweetest looking little child you ever saw in your life, raised both his fists, gave her two middle fingers at the same time, and yelled, "Well, FUCK YOU, BITCH!"
Life in a modern-day American school. God help us.
*Thank goodness this child was assigned to her class. If anyone can help him, she can.
25 comments:
Yikes. The Cherub has a mouth on him!!
Hopefully, if he settles down, the teachers can get him to behave.
that poor child! what his mother and father must be like....There is hope with good teachers- stay cool,
Good thing the kindergarten teacher has seen it all and is so experienced!
Wow! I find young kids in school more frightening since that six-year-old boy in Virginia shot his teacher. We don't know what Cherub has been through and experienced, but his life has certainly included profanity. Foster care can be very rough.
Love,
Janie
My daughter and daughter-in-law are elementary teachers. It is a tough world for teacher. Many of their students are being raised by grandparents. Parents do not answer phone calls or attend conferences. My daughter currently has 3 parents who started the year homeschooling, sent them to public school in October and are mad at the school and have just withdrawn them again. This is in a fairly middle class community. Her first job was in an inner city school and a few months in she had third grader bring a gun to school on the bus. She also had a student whose dad went to Vegas and left the 3rd grader and kindergartener with $25 for food for the weekend.
I once taught in a well known, and expensive, school for 6 to 13 year old's. The school gave grants to a few boys each year who came from poorer backgrounds. One such (like yours) looked like an angel but was a nightmare. He swore, smashed windows, and refused to do what he was told. All the other children were frightened of him, so sadly he had to go. He'd had such a wonderful opportunity, but was too damaged.
Poor little Cherub! I can't imagine what his first five years of life must have been like, knowing the words he knows and behaving the way he does.
He has a chance with this teacher, and I hope he won't blow it completely.
The poor cherub. Let’s hope it’s not too late to save him from his obviously bad start in life.
He's like an angry little grown man.
He's in a foster home, so who knows how awful his biological parents are.
Seriously!
Most foster homes I see aren't worth much at best and are terribly abusive at worst.
Yep. We have loads of stories like that. A six year old girl who attends our school was found at 2am wandering the streets one Saturday night and her mother couldn't be located for hours--she was off getting high somewhere.
I hope this little guy isn't too damaged. I don't have much faith in our foster care system.
He's in a foster home that's iffy at best. It's a damn tragedy, what some of these little kids have to endure.
God knows what he's already seen in his short life.
Wow...the "cherub" brought back memories of when I had some very difficult students. Some people think that the job of a kindergarten teacher is easy. It sure isn't.
Whoa! You gotta wonder what kind of interactions he's seeing at home.
Given the fact that he's academically pretty smart, I wonder if he's bored in his assigned grade level?
I'm also thinking I might have had the assistant walk the Cherub down to the cafeteria so he could see for himself that a hot dog was not an option.
I have always thought that the teachers who teach the youngest children should have the greatest financial reward. If little children don't want to engage, they just completely ignore, or revolt, like Cherub.
I feel bad for that boy. At 5 years of age it will be difficult to undo all of the damage that has been done to him. Part of the problem is the foster care homes. Foster parents get money for taking care of the kids, unfortunately many are in it just for the money and really could care less about the child.
I feel so sorry for him. What a difficult life he has had so far. I hope he gets the help he needs.
I can't even begin to imagine what that child has been through in his five years on earth to have caused him to have already developed such defense systems. I weep for the pain and probable abuse he has already experienced.
I just don't even know what to say. We had a few kids like that back when i was in school...some did well over time, others not so much.
It's easy to laugh at this but I do not envy the staff members who have to deal with this little lad. Apart from anything else, he will be stealing precious attention time from the other children in the class. Let's hope he settles down and learns to play the school game by the rules.
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