“‘Cause You Talkin’ about a Whole Person”: A New Path for Schooling and Literacy in Troubled Times and Spaces

Abstract

Hey, the school yard is a good place to hang with all kind. I belong to a gang and I make a little cash on the side, if you know what I'm sayin'. I can't read so good but that ain't my fault. I used to go to school every day. I be sittin' at some desk that too short for my knees to bend and the chair too high for the desk. I tell the teacher and she tell me to be quiet. So I be quiet just sittin' there lookin' at the back of somebody's head.

The teacher be sayin' something' about the way the Mayflower people survive and the kind a tent the Indian live in. What am I supposed to do about it? The buildin' I live in don't have heat or hot water so the Indian tent ain't no different except it be cooler in summer.

One day the teacher say to write a paper about how life be different from the time a the early settlers, so I do. The next day she give it back to me with a red pen mark all over it. She say she want me to learn to speak English. I thought I was. I thought I be sayin' somethin' about how hard life is for me just like it be for the Mayflower people. I got to deal with the freezin' winter and no food and people hackin' and coughin' in my face at home. I got to deal with attacks from other gangs, you know.

The only thing I learned that day is how to look like a fool in front of the class who be laughin' when the teacher read my paper out loud. I never went back after that. So what? School never teach me how to live today and I don't care how they live a hundred year ago … The only thing school teach me is how to feel stupid and I got my father for that.

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