Last night Sharnice and I went to Starbucks on Capitol Hill to do homework, which yes I admit is unabashedly yuppie but there aren't many options like that around here. Anyway, we didn't end up doing any homework for summer school even though she had brought a few papers from biology about plant cells. Instead, she vented for a good hour or two about her summer school teacher who sounds horribly un-teacherlike and cruel. I kind of interviewed Sharnice and was writing down her answers... lol not for any good reason, I just thought that would help me focus and she seemed to be pleased that I was taking everything she said seriously enough to make note of it.
Anyway, this teacher has done everything from call Sharnice slow (in front of everyone, of course), tell her to "sit her narrow behind back in the chair," let's see what else... the teacher's cell phone is on all day and rings a few times each day and she proceeds to talk on it, she leaves class frequently, oh yeah she also called Sharnice sloppy (on a day when, Sharnice said, "I looked very pretty that day") and also told her to quit talking and she "couldn't stand her squeaky voice." I mean this is totally out of control. Of course she's a kid and she could be exaggerating but I doubt it. I told her I'm going to her school tomorrow for an hour. Sharnice thinks the teacher will be as nasty as usual, but I told her that in my experience, if there is a visitor watching, teachers (or anyone) tend to be on their best behavior.
I'm a little scared to go to this school so I'm going to call a girl today who is basically like a mentor coordinator. DC schools, it might be safe to say, are some of the very worst schools in the entire nation. I wish I had enough space to tell you about that. Well I will find some appalling Wash Post articles and put them on here for you. Anyway, Sharnice has impressions of the DC Board of Education, and the mayor, and a lot of other decision-makers that it would suprise you that she knows enough to have formed these opinions, but she does.
Anyway, the most fascinating part of the conversation is when we started talking about gangs. I now know about 500% more about gangs then I did yesterday. She told me that if she had to estimate, she'd say probably 95% of the kids in her school are in gangs and only 5% aren't. She told me the names of the gangs that have approached her to ask her in. She told me the names of all the different ones, which ones are biggest, what they're known for. A few of them are made up of girls and gay boys ("we call them faggots," she said). Geesh. So, this explains why she didn't want me to take her to a movie at Union Station one Friday night. I thought she was being ridiculous, prejudiced, and even immature to suggest "that's where all the gays hang out on Friday night" but indeed, it turns out, she knew what she was talking about and these kids have been a real threat to her.
She kept saying she has "anger issues." I'm not sure what I can do about that... Hopefully just listening is a big step toward helping. I'm really hoping listening is a bigger part of being a mentor than talking, cause I really don't have much wisdom to offer her about these things.
One thing that was funny is she was saying a lot of people even in the Capitol Hill neighborhood she would recognize and know they're in gangs. (Basically they had migrated up the avenue from the worse areas to the wealthier areas.) In any case, so I was joking around and was like "really, anyone on the streets? Like that guy right there? Is he in a gang?" It was a well-dressed businessman. lol We had a good laugh about that. "No... not him."
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