Chapter 12: The Wrong Side of the Tracks
After a lot of discussion, María and I decided that we would be better off living in Modesto, where her family lived, than in the Bay Area. There were a lot of advantages to living in Modesto. The cost of living was much lower. It would be quite a few years before we would be able to afford a house in the Bay Area, if at all. We were easily able to buy a house in Modesto within two years. Surprisingly, starting salaries for teachers in Modesto were actually higher than those in the Bay Area. The most important aspect of living in Modesto was the benefits of raising children. There were a lot fewer of the problems associated with urban life in Modesto. That isn’t to say that there were no problems: there still were gangs, car thefts, etc., but they were in much smaller numbers than in the Bay Area. In addition to that though (and probably more importantly), María’s family lived in Modesto. What better way to raise children than in an area surrounded by family?
I hoped that finding a job as a teacher would not be a problem in Modesto. I sent repeated letters to apply for different teaching positions within the main school district. Unfortunately, I never got a response. It was as if I was being ignored by the district. The good part was that one of the principals from a school that was exactly what I was looking for needed a Kindergarten teacher and was going through personnel files. He came across my letters and resume.
Modesto has always been easily dividable between haves and have-nots. The school was definitely in a have-not neighborhood with at least 75% Hispanic families. The poverty level was high and the education level of the parents low. After working there for about two months, I visited most of my students’ houses. I walked through the streets with no sidewalks or lights. I could hear the loud music blaring from the obvious gang or crack houses. I could smell the empty lots which served as dumpsters for people not wanting to deal with their trash. I saw the squalor of the trailers in which many lived, the entire trailer park reminding me of the slums of Colombia. It was as if I was in the third world while walking the streets of Modesto, well, walking the streets almost of Modesto.
The school itself was within the city limits, but the streets surrounding it were county. This created problems when the school or the families tried calling the police.
“That is an issue for the sheriff, that is county property,” the police would say.
“Actually, that is a police issue,” the sheriff's office would reply. “The incident started by the school so you have to call them first.” Meanwhile, the criminal would be long gone.
The main thoroughfare near the school was a minor highway, down which cars and large semi-trucks would race down to get to the main highway or into Modesto. On one side lived all of the families. On the other, were the majority of the businesses. On more than one occasion, I watched as children not far out of diapers, struggled to get their younger sibling across the street before traffic hit them.
At one point, the highway patrol had volunteered to serve as crossing guards to get the families across. They set up a crosswalk, warning signs, even speed bumps. They lasted about two weeks before giving up stating that “it was much too risky for our officers.” The families were still left to fend for themselves.
The worst problem, however, was another building that was in the neighborhood, almost across the street from the school. In spite of warnings in the 50s when the school was originally built, within view of the site chosen was a tallow plant. In case you don’t know (I didn’t until starting to work in Modesto), tallow is what is made from processing (renderring is the official term used) dead animal parts. Essentially, animals (cows, turkeys, chicken, etc.) and their left over parts (bones, feathers, etc.) are boiled to make tallow, which is used for soaps, candles and animal food. It is a very useful operation for the agricultural area that the county around Modesto continues to be. Unfortunately, this was not the cleanest tallow plant. It had more citations than any other tallow plant in the entire country.
Carcasses were found left exposed to the elements over long weekends. Wastes were dumped almost regularly into the river passing behind the plant. It didn’t have the “scrubbers” necessary to reduce the horrendous smell that emanated from the smoke stacks. The worst part is that it was almost directly across the street from the school. On some days, later on in the first year, I would be teaching in my classroom with no air conditioning on days in which the temperature reached or exceeded 100 degrees. We would open the windows and door to let the slightly cooler air in, only to be hit by the putrid smell coming from tallow plant. We would again close the windows to avoid the smell, only to have to put up with the heat again. To this day, when the tallow plant is finally closing, the school is more famous for its proximity to it than anything else.
The principal that hired me had wanted a qualified teacher that could speak Spanish. “I couldn’t believe that you were still available!” was what he told me after appointing me into the position to teach Kindergarten. “You had bilingual certification, a master’s degree, a long list of student-teacher placements and great references. Why no one else showed any interest, I’ll never know, but I took advantage and snapped you up.”
During my first year, I wasn’t always sure that it was advantageous, however. Talking with the parents, I felt like I was a good fit with the community. I still made some grammatical errors in Spanish, but I was able to relate with them in a way that they were able to comprehend. In talking with them, I always tried to take the perspective of another parent that spent 6 hours a day with their children and not “the all knowing TEACHER” since I wasn’t. They tended to be impressed by the idea that I would come out to their house instead of waiting for them to go to the somewhat intimidating school. Then, when with my looks, I spoke Spanish and went to the same church as many of them, I was able to be accepted.
I was able, for the most part, to work well with the students as well. I could understand where they were coming from and gear my instruction to their needs, instead of expecting them to understand things that they had no way of comprehending. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t push them hard to get to the level where they were “supposed” to be, but I had realistic expectations of where they started. There were a couple of instances that I had with behavior, but they were from more problematic children.
The problems at the school, as I saw them, were caused by some of the other teachers. My classroom, for instance, was created with an overflow of students from three other classrooms. Normally, in a situation like that, especially with a new teacher, you try to create each of the classes with a similar make-up of high, medium and low ability students and similar ratio of boys to girls.
I started my first day with a lot of anticipation. “Here I go into my new career!” I told myself. I was excited and very nervous, not sleeping for about 2 or 3 days before the first day, but it is normal for me to not sleep when I am nervous. My classroom seemed very rambunctious at first, but what did I know? I was able to keep everyone moving through the first week or so, keeping on task, for the most part. It wasn’t until about the 3rd week when I took the children outside that I noticed another Kindergarten classroom that seemed to be much quieter while playing than my class was. All of the other students seemed to be cooperating and playing instead of hitting and bouncing off each other. I started counting and noticed that, for some reason, that teacher had many more girls than boys. My classroom of 32 children had 25 boys. “That’s interesting!” I thought to myself.
Educationally, my students seemed to progress. It was not an easy task teaching the basics of language and math to students, some of which had never seen or held a pencil or scissors before in their life, let alone a book. I thought that it was strange how many of my students were pulled out of the class during the day for additional learning help, called Resource. It wasn’t until a couple of years later that I noticed that 12 of my Kindergarten student had been identified, before starting school, with a learning disability. I learned that it normally takes a child a couple of years in school before learning problems begin to show themselves. These 12 students showed learning problems before starting Kindergarten. My other colleagues teaching Kindergarten didn’t seem to have the same number of Resource students as I did, for some reason.
The most challenging students that I had were two siblings, TJ and Dita. Both had attended the John F Kennedy School for severely handicapped children in preschool. Why they were not placed directly into a special education classroom is still a big surprise to me. Not only were they not placed in a special classroom that could better fit their needs, they were both, brother and sister, in my classroom. TJ had a big heart, but could be mean at times. I caught him once with a pair of scissors getting cutting another child’s hair. He was bigger than the other kids, so there was not much that the other student could do to stop him. Dita would crawl off under a table at times, just because she wanted to. She wasn’t usually mean to the other students, but she also couldn’t do any of the things that the other students were doing such as counting, writing letters, cutting shapes and was frustrated because she couldn’t do like they did.
I was drained trying to teach them and the rest of the class. Here I was already with more boys than girls and more slow students than the other teachers; on top of that, I had to deal with TJ and Dita, neither one of which should have been in a classroom like mine. I had been dumped upon by the other teachers in making up my classroom. I tried to reach out to them in order to be able to work like I had at La Escuelita, but they had already shown how they worked with others in selecting which students to give me.
I didn’t find much support from any of the other teachers either. Lunch time in the teachers’ lounge was spent, for the most part, complaining about how little the students were able to do or how little the parents took part in their children’s education.
“Those lazy parents never do anything to help with the homework. They just barely dress the kids in the morning.”
I wondered if the teacher making those comments had ever bothered to visit the household to see the conditions in which the children lived. I ended up taking one student home once that kept showing up early for class, my class being the afternoon Kindergarten. Both mom and grandma were passed out on the couch. No wonder the child had asked why he needed to learn, he had no positive role models at home. I had to continue to be creative to motivate him during the rest of the year to go to class on time and to learn.
I came close to not finishing out the school year. After coming from a place filled with a sense of family, in spite of being on the wrong side of the tracks in Oakland, I had landed in a similar school in Modesto where even the teachers didn’t seem to create a positive atmosphere. I needed the same thing professionally that I did in my life, a sense of warm belonging, of family. What finally kept me going was meeting Alfonso.
I hoped that finding a job as a teacher would not be a problem in Modesto. I sent repeated letters to apply for different teaching positions within the main school district. Unfortunately, I never got a response. It was as if I was being ignored by the district. The good part was that one of the principals from a school that was exactly what I was looking for needed a Kindergarten teacher and was going through personnel files. He came across my letters and resume.
Modesto has always been easily dividable between haves and have-nots. The school was definitely in a have-not neighborhood with at least 75% Hispanic families. The poverty level was high and the education level of the parents low. After working there for about two months, I visited most of my students’ houses. I walked through the streets with no sidewalks or lights. I could hear the loud music blaring from the obvious gang or crack houses. I could smell the empty lots which served as dumpsters for people not wanting to deal with their trash. I saw the squalor of the trailers in which many lived, the entire trailer park reminding me of the slums of Colombia. It was as if I was in the third world while walking the streets of Modesto, well, walking the streets almost of Modesto.
The school itself was within the city limits, but the streets surrounding it were county. This created problems when the school or the families tried calling the police.
“That is an issue for the sheriff, that is county property,” the police would say.
“Actually, that is a police issue,” the sheriff's office would reply. “The incident started by the school so you have to call them first.” Meanwhile, the criminal would be long gone.
The main thoroughfare near the school was a minor highway, down which cars and large semi-trucks would race down to get to the main highway or into Modesto. On one side lived all of the families. On the other, were the majority of the businesses. On more than one occasion, I watched as children not far out of diapers, struggled to get their younger sibling across the street before traffic hit them.
At one point, the highway patrol had volunteered to serve as crossing guards to get the families across. They set up a crosswalk, warning signs, even speed bumps. They lasted about two weeks before giving up stating that “it was much too risky for our officers.” The families were still left to fend for themselves.
The worst problem, however, was another building that was in the neighborhood, almost across the street from the school. In spite of warnings in the 50s when the school was originally built, within view of the site chosen was a tallow plant. In case you don’t know (I didn’t until starting to work in Modesto), tallow is what is made from processing (renderring is the official term used) dead animal parts. Essentially, animals (cows, turkeys, chicken, etc.) and their left over parts (bones, feathers, etc.) are boiled to make tallow, which is used for soaps, candles and animal food. It is a very useful operation for the agricultural area that the county around Modesto continues to be. Unfortunately, this was not the cleanest tallow plant. It had more citations than any other tallow plant in the entire country.
Carcasses were found left exposed to the elements over long weekends. Wastes were dumped almost regularly into the river passing behind the plant. It didn’t have the “scrubbers” necessary to reduce the horrendous smell that emanated from the smoke stacks. The worst part is that it was almost directly across the street from the school. On some days, later on in the first year, I would be teaching in my classroom with no air conditioning on days in which the temperature reached or exceeded 100 degrees. We would open the windows and door to let the slightly cooler air in, only to be hit by the putrid smell coming from tallow plant. We would again close the windows to avoid the smell, only to have to put up with the heat again. To this day, when the tallow plant is finally closing, the school is more famous for its proximity to it than anything else.
The principal that hired me had wanted a qualified teacher that could speak Spanish. “I couldn’t believe that you were still available!” was what he told me after appointing me into the position to teach Kindergarten. “You had bilingual certification, a master’s degree, a long list of student-teacher placements and great references. Why no one else showed any interest, I’ll never know, but I took advantage and snapped you up.”
During my first year, I wasn’t always sure that it was advantageous, however. Talking with the parents, I felt like I was a good fit with the community. I still made some grammatical errors in Spanish, but I was able to relate with them in a way that they were able to comprehend. In talking with them, I always tried to take the perspective of another parent that spent 6 hours a day with their children and not “the all knowing TEACHER” since I wasn’t. They tended to be impressed by the idea that I would come out to their house instead of waiting for them to go to the somewhat intimidating school. Then, when with my looks, I spoke Spanish and went to the same church as many of them, I was able to be accepted.
I was able, for the most part, to work well with the students as well. I could understand where they were coming from and gear my instruction to their needs, instead of expecting them to understand things that they had no way of comprehending. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t push them hard to get to the level where they were “supposed” to be, but I had realistic expectations of where they started. There were a couple of instances that I had with behavior, but they were from more problematic children.
The problems at the school, as I saw them, were caused by some of the other teachers. My classroom, for instance, was created with an overflow of students from three other classrooms. Normally, in a situation like that, especially with a new teacher, you try to create each of the classes with a similar make-up of high, medium and low ability students and similar ratio of boys to girls.
I started my first day with a lot of anticipation. “Here I go into my new career!” I told myself. I was excited and very nervous, not sleeping for about 2 or 3 days before the first day, but it is normal for me to not sleep when I am nervous. My classroom seemed very rambunctious at first, but what did I know? I was able to keep everyone moving through the first week or so, keeping on task, for the most part. It wasn’t until about the 3rd week when I took the children outside that I noticed another Kindergarten classroom that seemed to be much quieter while playing than my class was. All of the other students seemed to be cooperating and playing instead of hitting and bouncing off each other. I started counting and noticed that, for some reason, that teacher had many more girls than boys. My classroom of 32 children had 25 boys. “That’s interesting!” I thought to myself.
Educationally, my students seemed to progress. It was not an easy task teaching the basics of language and math to students, some of which had never seen or held a pencil or scissors before in their life, let alone a book. I thought that it was strange how many of my students were pulled out of the class during the day for additional learning help, called Resource. It wasn’t until a couple of years later that I noticed that 12 of my Kindergarten student had been identified, before starting school, with a learning disability. I learned that it normally takes a child a couple of years in school before learning problems begin to show themselves. These 12 students showed learning problems before starting Kindergarten. My other colleagues teaching Kindergarten didn’t seem to have the same number of Resource students as I did, for some reason.
The most challenging students that I had were two siblings, TJ and Dita. Both had attended the John F Kennedy School for severely handicapped children in preschool. Why they were not placed directly into a special education classroom is still a big surprise to me. Not only were they not placed in a special classroom that could better fit their needs, they were both, brother and sister, in my classroom. TJ had a big heart, but could be mean at times. I caught him once with a pair of scissors getting cutting another child’s hair. He was bigger than the other kids, so there was not much that the other student could do to stop him. Dita would crawl off under a table at times, just because she wanted to. She wasn’t usually mean to the other students, but she also couldn’t do any of the things that the other students were doing such as counting, writing letters, cutting shapes and was frustrated because she couldn’t do like they did.
I was drained trying to teach them and the rest of the class. Here I was already with more boys than girls and more slow students than the other teachers; on top of that, I had to deal with TJ and Dita, neither one of which should have been in a classroom like mine. I had been dumped upon by the other teachers in making up my classroom. I tried to reach out to them in order to be able to work like I had at La Escuelita, but they had already shown how they worked with others in selecting which students to give me.
I didn’t find much support from any of the other teachers either. Lunch time in the teachers’ lounge was spent, for the most part, complaining about how little the students were able to do or how little the parents took part in their children’s education.
“Those lazy parents never do anything to help with the homework. They just barely dress the kids in the morning.”
I wondered if the teacher making those comments had ever bothered to visit the household to see the conditions in which the children lived. I ended up taking one student home once that kept showing up early for class, my class being the afternoon Kindergarten. Both mom and grandma were passed out on the couch. No wonder the child had asked why he needed to learn, he had no positive role models at home. I had to continue to be creative to motivate him during the rest of the year to go to class on time and to learn.
I came close to not finishing out the school year. After coming from a place filled with a sense of family, in spite of being on the wrong side of the tracks in Oakland, I had landed in a similar school in Modesto where even the teachers didn’t seem to create a positive atmosphere. I needed the same thing professionally that I did in my life, a sense of warm belonging, of family. What finally kept me going was meeting Alfonso.
posted by Richard Braun | 6:34 PM
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