Boulevard of Broken Teens

I have had a few requests recently for information on my daily life in the school and what specific work I am doing.  I fully plan on gratifying such petitions in future posts, possibly beginning with the one after today’s.  For right now, though, recent events have made me feel compelled to offer some background on the lives and situations that many of my students come from. 

Since the beginning of this school year, which began in the middle of January, I have been embarking on a program to increase the discipline of the high school I work at.  Reason being that results from last year showed that only 34.9% of our students passed their matriculation exams.  That basically means that 2 out of every 3 of our 12th graders failed and did not receive the South African equivalent of a high school diploma.  Not a good outcome, obviously.

For this reason, I sat down with the management of the school, and we agreed that one of the key reasons for such poor performance was a general lack of discipline.  I have, thus, been determinedly implementing new procedures to increase things such as student punctuality, adherence to dress code, loitering outside the classroom, etc. – things that I’m sure seem trivial to many, not least the students, but which I know have and already are having a positive impact on the school.

A side effect of such disciplinary procedures is that I have really started to get to know about the students I deal with since documenting and dealing with bad behavior requires one to interact with the offending child, sometimes on a very personal level.  Not only have I become increasingly adept at remembering and pronouncing African names, but I have also begun to learn just exactly what types of environments each one of them are leaving in the mornings and going home to in the afternoons.  Such knowledge is vital, since discipline is not a one-size-fits-all scheme, but rather something that has to be tailored to each student based on what is going to achieve the desired effect.  The way I speak with and deal with a young man with an attitude problem is going to be entirely different from the way I treat a young girl who constantly shows up late.  If I, also, then find that that young man was abandoned by his father at a young age, and he has never had a strong male role model in his life, I have to alter my approach accordingly.

Just to give my readers a general idea of things, I would estimate that only 10% of my students, if not less, live in a household in which their mother and father are both present and still married to each other.  The majority of the children have had either one or both of their parents pass away – largely as a result of AIDS.  Many of those whose parents are still alive, the parents have either abandoned them or work in another city and only return every so often.  For this reason, most of my learners live with a grandmother or aunt.  A significant amount don’t live with anyone, and are literally on their own – all at the ripe old age of 16 and 17.  In short, I work with a group of children who have been forced to grow up too fast and deal with things a child should never have to face at their age.

This was brought home to me last Friday when I had a chat with a student in our school, a grade 9, who is the sweetest little girl that you will ever encounter in your life.  She is always respectful to me and the other educators, and we never encounter any problems with her while at school.  Unfortunately, this same precious girl is a serial late-comer.  Since school began on January 11, she has been late no less than 10 times. 

Those of you who have read my previous posts, know how I feel about “African time” and that I regard it as inimical to development, especially in an educational context.  If you are late to class, you are missing out on information you need, not to mention that you disrupt the lesson, teacher, and the rest of the class by coming in at a later time than the one scheduled.  For that reason, punctuality has been the disciplinary point I have stressed most since the beginning of the year.  (Given my acknowledged lack of punctuality throughout my life, I know that this will come as a great shock and laugh-inducing irony to those who know me.  Peace Corps has a funny way of putting things in perspective.)

Because of this young girl’s perpetual tardiness, I originally thought that I needed to take a hard-line with her to correct the behavior.  As I mentioned before, though, I have slowly been coming to the realization, that the best kind of punishment is the one that works, which means it has to be based on on understanding of what is causing the behavior.  Consequently, whenever this angelic girl came late this last Friday, I sat with her in the principal’s office and asked her (delicately) if there was a situation at home that was causing her to be tardy so often.  She sat silently with her head down for about 30 seconds, before telling me, almost in tears, that she and her mother did not have a good relationship because of the mother’s addiction to alcohol.

Two years ago, the mother embarked on a period of continual drunkenness such that the woman no longer takes any interest in her daughter’s life.  The mother is drunk whenever the girl leaves in the morning and is still drunk whenever the girl comes home in the afternoon.  The girl wakes up in the mornings at 5:30 and then has to proceed to not only prepare herself and cook her own breakfast, she then has to do the same for her younger sister because the mother is passed out.  The reason why this young girl is late everyday is because she has to take her younger sister all the way to the other side of the township to drop the toddler off at what amounts to a pre-school and then walk all the way back to the high school. 

As this sweet young girl was relating this to me (with great difficulty as I’m sure you can imagine), I almost began tearing up myself, because the pain in her eyes was evident.  I soon realized that harsh talking-tos and detention would have no effect on this girl’s punctuality.  Instead, I am now trying to speak with a social worker to see if something can be done to relieve this girl of responsibilities that should not be hers, so that she can focus on being a 15 year old high school student and not a mother and substance abuse care worker.

Such stark awareness of the difficulties my students face was further reinforced this past Monday as I was attempting to get the students to hurry up as they were already late for school.  One young man, despite being told 3 times to begin rushing, continued walking.  Whenever I went up to him and ordered him to begin jogging, he refused, and told me, quite defiantly, that he would not jog because he was tired.  I immediately marched him to the principal, and we sent him home for the day with a letter requesting a meeting with his guardian.  The boy arrived the next day with a man, who identified himself as the boy’s neighbor.  After speaking with the neighbor, I discovered that both the boy’s parents are dead, and that his current guardian works in a town 300 kilometers away, which only allows the guardian to return perhaps twice a month.

With this knowledge, I spoke with the boy, telling him that I am sorry for the situation that has been forced upon him, but that I also know that making excuses is going to do nothing to improve that situation.  I told him that the reason I go so hard on my students is because I expect the best out of them.  I told him that I have high standards for him, and that I know that he is strong enough to overcome adversity and be successful regardless.  One of the ways that he can do that is by being on time to school despite the lack of parental support.  I told him I do not think he is a bad kid (which he really is not), and said that all I am asking of him is to leave the house earlier so that he doesn’t miss out on any of the lesson.  I asked him if he could do this, and he replied “Yes”.  He was quite early to school both yesterday and today, so we will see if such positive behavior continues.

One of my reference points during my time here in South Africa is a movie called “Lean On Me”, starring Morgan Freeman, about a principal who comes in and turns around a failing school with primarily black students, largely through the imposition of high standards and strict discipline.  If you have not seen it, I would highly recommend it.  One of the continual refrains from Morgan Freeman’s character is that people will perform based on what you expect of them, such that making excuses for someone because they are black, from the ghetto, without a Dad, etc. does them a disservice because then underachievement becomes acceptable due to such difficult circumstances.  His theory is that only by holding people to the same standards, will they learn to perform well regardless, and by doing so, make sure that they are able to change those circumstances in their own life.

When you work in an environment like mine, you are constantly torn between wanting to make exceptions for people because of difficult circumstances and recognizing that always allowing people to perform below expectations is not doing them any favors.  I usually tend toward the side of Morgan Freeman’s character; however, as you can see, I took very different tacks with the boy and the girl based on how I thought each would respond.  Based on my experience so far, it seems that many times girls need understanding, whereas boys, especially when the father is not present, need and even crave authority, despite what they might project on the exterior.  Even that, though, does not always apply and every case has its own nuances.  It is a judgment call that I hope I will continue to get better at, the more that I work with and learn about my students.

Whatever the case, what I know for sure is that I have never been more appreciative that I DID grow up in a loving, stable home in which both my mom and dad were around and married.  While I do take great pride in my achievements, I also recognize that I owe a lot of it to the incredible support I received in all areas from my parents.  Had I not had such positive influences, I cannot honestly say I would be where I am today.  Like I mentioned above, that does not mean that excuses  should always be made for those who do not benefit from such a healthy household environment.  It should, however, moderate our hubris when we congratulate ourselves on our achieved station in life, while simultaneously tempering our judgment of the behavior of those who we consider to be less than successful.  It is only with such perspective that we can adequately tackle the ills society is facing and break the cycle, so that the children of today do not become the irresponsible, hurtful parents of tomorrow.

South African English Word of the Day

pitch – to show up, to come

The clothes are not washed because the maid didn’t pitch today.