Bethany's Blog ~ Day 3

Tuesday March 16th. Today we visited an elementary school where we offered teaching on stress management to a group of parents. The majority of the group was Hispanic and required a translator to communicate with them. One mother in the group expressed to us her high level of stress raising her teenage children alone and recently losing her job. These stories really help me to be thankful for everything in my life. It could so easily be me in a similar situation. It was very difficult trying to give information on stress management when I really have no idea what these people go through every day. I really wanted to help them improve their situations, but managing stress is also important because so much depends on how they cope with their situations; their health, the health of their children, their relationships with family, friends, and community, etc. It was difficult communicating with a group of people who don't speak the same language.

Today we also visited a middle school. This was a true inner-city school, complete with security guards and inspections for weapons at each entrance. This experience really affected me. I am a person who has a large heart for adolescents who come from troubled homes/situations, but after being placed in a 7th grade math classroom to help students, I was shocked by the behavior of the kids. I had never seen such awful behavior in my life! I did have conversations with several of the kids to try to get an idea of why they were behaving that way (not listening to the teacher, being very disrespectful, etc.). When asking one of the girls what she does after school she told me "I go see my man." As a mother of a 14 year old daughter, this really bothered me. The teacher told me there is a lot of pregnancy (in middle school!), abuse at home, and drug and alcohol use/abuse by parents and students. I'm used to dealing with kids in similar situations, but on a one-at-a-time basis. This was very overwhelming for me, considering most of the students come from difficult home situations. Where does a person even start to help these kids? It would really be difficult to be a teacher in these classrooms, so I'm sure it is difficult to recruit quality teachers; which are essential in reaching these kids. It makes me sad that the kids attending this and similar schools often do not have a safe place to grow up. One child from the area was recently a victim of a homicide. I was honestly horrified that such pockets of inequality exist in the United States.