Martians, William the Kangaroo and Special Ed

This blog is just a compilation of a few random stories from my childhood and a short update on my job.

I am still working at the school and I’m actually enjoying it! This is week four, so that in itself means something. Because of my “assertiveness” or maybe because of my “lack of flexibility” I am no longer “Special Ed TA” I am now, “ESL/Bilingual TA”.  I enjoy it so much more, and I feel like I am getting to help kids and work on my Spanish at the same time.

I think its kind of funny that I was never a star student in elementary school and now I am desperately trying to get these kids to learn and pay attention etc.

The teachers are always swapping stories in the teachers lounge about the boy that never does his homework, or the girl that always loses her work, or the kid that just doesn’t really try. I want to reassure them, “don’t worry, they’ll be fine! I never did my homework, I turned out just fine.” Well, I finally started doing my homework in the 6th grade. I had spent most of my recesses inside that year writing, “I will not lose my spelling homework” and things of that nature, over and over again. That is, until one day while we were making little science workbooks with pictures and facts about sea creatures, which I had once again, not completed, when Mrs.Sanders came over to me and quietly threatened me, “I’m sending either you or Katie to Special Ed. If you don’t start doing your work it’s going to be you.” There was NO way I was going to special ed! That was all it took, from that moment on I was motivated and I learned the importance of grades….maybe not for the right reasons, but it worked.

Being back in an elementary school around little kids has made me remember my years in elementary school. So here are two little stories of my adventures and trials. My mom says I took things very literally and sometimes just didn’t quite get things when I was little.

Growing up in Africa was an adventure in itself, add in a good imagination and being able to believe a lot of things, made for many exciting, adventurous days.

I remember being in kindergarten, well Prep 1, at Isamilo, our elementary school in Tanzania. Every day at recess my friends and I would run outside to what seemed like a giant mountain, next to the dirt soccer field. We would climb up the mountain, my friend Jasmine told us she was a witch, and we believed her. Why wouldn’t my little African friend be a witch? One recess, being led by Jasmine we inched our way across a steep part of the mountain, more like a cliff, when we found a little crack between the rocks, that formed a miniature cave, the home of a baby kangaroo. If I remember correctly he went by the name William.

Every day at recess for weeks, Jasmine the witch, would take us up the mountain and we would visit William, maybe bring him a little piece of a brownie left over from lunch, and peer into his little kangaroo home. We would tell him about our day and he would tell us kangaroo secrets, sometimes to us individually, and sometimes he would tell Jasmine and she would relay the message. I haven’t known any witches since Jasmine, and don’t know of any other miniature kangaroos living in miniature caves on African play grounds. I wonder if there are any Jasmines running around my school here in Dallas and if they have equally exciting adventures. I hope they do!

When I started first grade we moved to the big city of Nairobi. It was kind of a wake up call, I felt like kind of like I was being forced to grow up, even though I was only six. My brother and I started riding the bus, but once again, we were riding the bus to school in east Africa. Our bus stop was across the street from some kind of Somali compound, which was kind of always a mystery to me. Our bus stop was by a fruit stand, a wooden kiosk with lots of little niches, built over a ditch, covered in gunny sacks. It was the perfect place to hide and crawl and climb. I became friends with a little girl at my bus stop, but the older girls that rode on the bus…not so nice. I was terrified to find out that they were Martians. I kind of knew what a Martian was from watching episodes of My favorite Martian on one of our two TV channels. But these Martians were not like My Favorite Martian. I didn’t just have to worry about being abducted by aliens in the morning, because these girls were also in my basket weaving class after school. While the nice Kenyan ladies were teaching us how to braid and weave baskets I was worrying about becoming a pod person and being abducted by aliens.

hmm….I think I’ll say that I just had a really good imagination and there was no correlation between almost being sent to special ed and believing in Martians and miniature kangaroos.