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| Rat King by Katharina Fritsch |
As I drove down Hays Street towards the school, I stopped to watch the dog pack. Three wandered through yards and across the broken sidewalks. One was pregnant, or had recently given birth. Her fur was flattened in places, stiff and bristly in others. All three were no one’s dog, just hungry animals trying to survive. The neighborhood looked as hungry as the dog: small, wood framed houses, some behind rusting fences, most in need of paint, many with sagging roofs and broken porches, missing windows covered in plywood, an abundance of cars in driveways, some without tires, or with tires piled in stacks underneath the front windows. Few yards had grass, just dirt or weeds.
I parked in front of Martinez Elementary School. It looked like a nineteenth century orphanage – windows covered in stained, beige shades, an old, sooty gray brick building, a large swath of dirt interspersed with scraggly grass, a chain link fence. Keeping an eye out for the dogs, I opened the brown metal door at the front of the school and checked in at the office. They’ve tried to make it pleasant. They’ve painted the trim around windows and doors blue. But no amount of paint can hide the cracked floors and smell of disinfectant and old cheese. Ninety-five percent of the children here qualify for free or reduced price meals. They eat both breakfast and lunch at school, and, for some, these are the only meals they get each day.
I arrived here on a recent morning to see a writing lesson. I walked through a labyrinth of metal “shacks” behind the main building. They were painted beige and had brown wooden stairs to the doors. There were no plants or children’s art. There was nothing inviting about crossing the threshold into the rooms. These so-called temporary classrooms were dark, like basements, with old wood paneling and frayed carpets. Not so different from many of the homes in the neighborhood where the children live. But learning is supposed to happen here.
Twenty-five first graders sat in desks bunched together in two long pods. There wasn’t much room to move. The teacher was working with the children on how to write questions. They raised their hands to share their own before starting to write. One little boy, with a round face and slicked back hair said, “Why are there too many rats?” Why indeed. Inside the nervous laughter from the teacher and the children, I saw a dreadful image in my mind: families living in rooms where rats move freely across kitchen counters and sleeping children.
I was looking at the face of poverty. My heart dropped. I wanted to leave this place, not think about what it meant for children to grow up poor. Poverty won’t be found on an analysis of school performance, even though it impacts how children learn, and what happens to them as adults.
Numerous studies show that children living in poverty are more likely to drop out of high school, be unemployed, use drugs, have children young, get ill, and have learning difficulties. How is it that a country as rich as the United States can find billions of dollars to finance wars, but not be willing to completely fund programs like Head Start, which has a proven record of success with children from poor families? What about funding a network of community service centers so families have access to everything they need: decent housing (including exterminators), health care, furniture, and good food? How about spending some billions on decent school buildings?
I remember visiting a fourth grader’s house during my student teaching days, a time when these visits by teachers were required. This child lived with his grandmother and four younger brothers and sisters. The grandmother was welcoming and friendly, invited me to sit on the plastic covered sofa in her tiny, but orderly living room. She proudly showed me the room where the children slept. There were three mattresses on the floor, the beds were made with clean, but worn quilts, and the clothes were folded in piles by the door because there was no other place to put them. She offered me something to drink. I heard smacking sounds from the kitchen, and some kind of rustling noise, like paper. Roaches paraded across every surface, and the children were hitting them dead with the palms of their hands.
I politely declined a drink, but I saw this woman was doing her best to provide for her grandchildren. Mitt Romney has said there are plenty of resources in place to help the poor. Yet the United States ranks 31st out of 34 countries according to data on poverty levels compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The number of children living in poverty continues to increase. Why is that?
Well, because this country doesn’t care about the poor. Our history has always been about favoring whites, and discriminating against immigrants and people of color. Read about the immigrant experience of people living in tenements in New York City in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Study the Jim Crow laws in place after the Civil War across the south. Study The Great Migration of black families to Northern cities. Look at statistics about which ethnic groups fill the prison system. Many people, especially Republican politicians, think the poor simply need to work harder to improve their lives. Tell that to the grandmother looking after five children. It’s so easy to say something like that and to forget the conditions children live in each day.
What can schools and teachers do? I remember reading a number of years ago about a principal in an inner city school in Philadelphia who installed a washer and dryer so parents could give their kids clean clothes. She solicited clothing donations and set aside a room in the school where parents could get what they needed for their families. The gratitude and sense of community was powerful.
Some days I don’t know if any of this will get better. I only know it’s important to write and read and listen and talk to those trying to show us there’s got to be another way.
