BACKGROUND
HEATHER
MIGDON
Sixth Grade Self-Contained
Washington DC Public Schools
If
I could imagine myself being happy doing anything else, I wouldn't get
out of bed early in the morning to ride a bus for forty minutes from my
house into the worst neighborhood in the District of Columbia — the
neighborhood in which my school happens to reside. But the exhilarating
sense of possibility that fills me just before 21 vivacious sixth graders
flow into my classroom at 8:45 a.m. each morning makes the journey more
than worth it.
My goal every day is to provide them with a first-rate education that will enable them to compete with children from anywhere in the country. My overarching ambition is that my students counter, rather than contribute to, the disheartening achievement gap between children from poor families and children from wealthy families. My students deserve no less.
Virtually all of the children in my school are classified as low-income. Many, if not most, live in public housing. Most of my children live with their mothers, but some others live with foster parents or other family members. Many of the students at my school fail to meet basic grade level standards. Having been told by fellow staff members that we are "a pretty good school," I can only assume that they do not believe that our students are entitled to any better.My students started the school year in two classes with over 30 students in each class. Once the school's administration realized that the school's small classrooms could not accommodate the large class sizes, they pulled about ten students from each class and gave that group of students to the school librarian. Unfortunately, no classroom was available for the librarian-turned-sixth grade teacher, so she taught her students in the school's auditorium.
The students, who lacked an adequate number of both textbooks and desks, had to be relocated each time the school held any assembly. Then, a few days before Winter Break, I received a letter from the District of Columbia Public Schools informing me that I would need to relocate to this school to take over the class from the librarian. So here I am, in January, not yet having taught my students for a full week without interruptions. Did I mention we have only 60 school days until the Stanford-9 Achievement Test?
In this, my first year of teaching, I find myself more challenged than I ever have been before. I urge my students to consider college while the ink on my own diploma is still wet. Then again, no one ever said it was going to be easy. Teaching truly is the toughest job I'll ever love.
