Shoes and Jackets

My mom and some of her friends sent money so I could buy winter coats and shoes for all the kids at the group home where I have been volunteering. So now every kid has a coat and shoes, and they are ridiculously cute.

Working with the kids has been an interesting experience. In some ways it's been very like working with homeless kids in the U.S.: same emotional outbursts, same desire for affection, same core loneliness. And frustratingly, same lack of expertise on the part of many caregivers. The caregivers at this home are wonderful, nurturing people, but like at home, childcare doesn't pay much, so you're not getting people with masters' degrees in child development. I've already posted on how they discourage volunteers from holding the babies because "they'll get spoiled," so now let's talk about education.

There are 4 school-aged kids at the home, but only two are in school; two are basically being home-schooled, minus the education part. The two who are in school are woefully behind. Ani is 7 and her brother Ctaum is 6, and one day when they got home from school Ani was supposed to practice writing the numbers 1-10 and their names on the chalkboard. She did that, although she's just copying from a chart because she can't read yet, and then she started making up nonsense words, stringing together letters and saying "What does that spell?" Then a new one: "What does this spell?" She was really enjoying herself, until one of the caregivers snapped, "Ani, you are not taking it seriously. If you're not going to copy your lessons, go in and take a nap."

If you have a modicum of child development knowledge, you know what she was doing is a critical preliteracy step. She is making the connection that these squiggles we call letters are each associated with a sound, and when you string these sounds together you get words, and words have meaning. And you learn to make nonsense words before you make real words. Frankly she should have been doing it at 4 or 5, but since she's finally doing it now, let's not shut it down.

In another instance, I was working with CarRlo, who is 7 and has only been at the home a month or so. "He doesn't know anything, he hasn't been to school," one of the caregivers said in his hearing. "He doesn't even know his numbers." Well, true enough, CarRlo can't write every number. But if you put a pile of crayons in front of him, he can count them all. If you take some away, he understands that you have less. If you add some, he understands that you have more. He has the basics of numeracy and he's actually pretty sharp; he just can't yet associate the amount with the number that stands for it.

It is frustrating to watch this and know these caregivers, so well-meaning and so loving, just aren't equipped to help these kids the way they need. And as a visitor and a white person, I can't jump in and say "No, what she's doing is an essential part of learning" or "Actually, he knows quite a lot." I say it to the kids quietly when I get a chance, and I tell the caregivers in private about what I've observed and what might be done to help them. But they're not well-educated themselves and they don't know how to assist kids who have so many gaps--kids who remind me so much of their Star of Hope counterparts.

It has made me really, really glad that Phenias is at KIPP, and really, really despairing that there are just not enough KIPPs for every kid in the world who needs one.