Humble struggles

Hello again!

Many, many things have been happening up here in Chicagoland. Ups and downs abound. Let me tell you about the end of last week.

Build- Thursday was interesting. We usually have split classes on Thursday afternoons, so half the class is in music and half is in art with us. This week, however, the music teacher was gone so we had all of the kids. Most of the day was fine, bad kids of course, but bearable. Then it was 2:00 and our 4^th graders came in. All 30+ of them. Now I hadn’t met half these kids yet since they’re usually in music. There was one kid in particular who was a real peach. He would blatantly ignore me every time I said something to him. He walked around the room while Ms. D was trying to instruct. And he made the other kids want to act up, too. Great combination.

Let’s just say this was the most horrible class we’ve had so far. These 9 year olds were acting like teenagers- defying authority, being disrespectful, showing off for each other, talking back. Ugh. I got to the point where I felt like I had lost it. I was yelling, which I rarely do. I was so angry. I have always felt that empathy and gentleness were some of my spiritual gifts, but on Thursday I was in short supply. I just got so caught up in the frustrations of the moment and didn’t take a step back to collect myself and take a different approach with them. Yes, these kids need to get yelled at sometimes. That’s the only way they will listen. You should have seen them when their really scary para came in to our class after they were being rowdy. Whoa, baby you can tell they were scared of her. She came in and RIPPED them a new one. Whew, was I glad I was not one of those kids. Anyway, the point is, they listened to her. They RESPECTED her authority. 

I want these kids to respect me, but don’t know how to gain their respect. I try to be nice and joke with them when I can, but as you can gather, that isn’t really possible all the time. Like I said, my strengths are tied with relationships. I’m good with one-on-one stuff, and I’m an optimistic person. I’m not really a dominating, intimidating personality. Trying to figure out how to connect with a large group of rowdy kids with my personality has been a challenge. 

Yesterday, I was waiting for the bus on Madison (a kinda busy street by the school) and I guy pulled up in a car behind me. He was a middle aged white man. He rolled down the window and said “Excuse me young lady, but what are you doing in this neighborhood?” that was after two “Hey white girl!” comments at me since leaving the school. I told him that I worked at Spencer. He asked if I was ok, I said yes. He asked if I was usually ok, if I’d had any trouble. I said no, I sometimes get comments from passersby but nothing threatening or uncomfortable. In a strange way it was just nice to know that even random strangers respect what I’m doing and care about my safety.

Then tonight I went to the Garfield Park building to sign up for a fitness center membership. I went a few days ago to look at the facility, and then thought about it for a few days (since it costs 1 ½ monthly stipends for me). So yeah, I went in and was waiting for someone to help me (one guy was tied up aiding a kid who fell down the stairs) and a girl came out and helped me, just as she was getting ready to leave for the day. It was the same girl who gave me the tour the other day. I told her I wanted the $150 year-long membership (they also have one-time, one-month, and three-month options but the annual is the best value). Monique (the employee) told me she was going to do something special for me and give me the three month $55 rate except for a year pass! Can you say awesome? She said that I was quite possible the ONLY person to get a yearlong membership. A lot of people do the $10 several week conditioning program or pay the $17/month since they can’t afford $155 up front for the whole year. Wow. I mean, I don’t consider myself to be a very wealthy person. I have a savings account, even though not a lot is in it. But I never had to worry about having enough funds to cover $155. Very humbling.

Monique asked me some demographic questions that were optional but I didn’t mind answering. Age: 22. Race: White, Non-Hispanic. Household Status: Single, no kids. Highest degree of education earned in household: Bachelor’s degree. Income level: Under $25,000. I’m like the black sheep of the neighborhood. I’m guessing that most people in the neighborhood would only match my information on one of those categories…Can you guess which one? Yeah. Income level. So maybe I threw off their demographics a little bit, but I’m proud to represent myself :)

Well friends, I don’t want to overload you all at once so I’ll save the rest for another post. Stay tuned, it’s gonna be AWESOME.