YMCA

Uck, I feel dirty. This morning I got up at 5:30 am and rode the bus to Laurelhurst Elementary to work at the before-school center. It started out promising: I stood at the MAX stop and watched the sun rise like a big golden egg, the silhouette of a mountain below it. I walked from the bus to the school, and it's in the middle-upper class Laurelhurst neighborhood. My cousin T., who will graduate with a masters in early education come May, taught at this school last year, and she had excellent things to say about it. I get there, I find a door that's unlocked, I wander around the beautiful school for ten minutes until I find someone who can show me where to go. This school has all the markings of a really involved, high-quality school. The walls above drinking fountains are lined with tons of these really creative tiles that students made, with monster heads and animals poking out. So I'm led outside to this row of portable classrooms, and pointed to the one at the far end. These portables look totally different than the rest of the school--they're little shacks with plain doors and boarded windows. So I enter the classroom, and there's a little group of cranky children coloring and arguing over crayons and a woman sitting at a desk. The room goes silent when I enter, and I tiptoe up to the teacher and murmur at her who I am and why I'm here. She seems like she was unaware I was coming, and she tells me to go get to know the kids. In case you don't already know, I'm painfully shy. So I cautiously squeeze myself a spot at the table and grab a paper and crayons and start coloring.

That's pretty much what I did the whole time: colored and smiled awkwardly at the kids. But that teacher! My lord what an unfriendly person! She sat at the desk the whole time and yelled at the kids whenever their arguments got too vicious. Unforgiving, uncaring, she took sides in the kids' arguments. Twitchy, creepy-looking parents kept arriving and dropping off more kids. A jaded teacher's aide came in and sat behind the desk with the teacher. After a while the teacher told the kids to throw all their drawings away and clear everything off the tables, and she asked me to pass out a piece of paper and a crayon to each child. She told the children that she would read a book to them, and they had to illustrate the story on their piece of paper. Then she preceded to read a very boring, very sexist book with a storyline that went nowhere. Half the children didn't even understand what they were supposed to be doing, so they copied me as I drew three boys and a boat and a lighthouse etc. The morning went on in similarly. At one point, this boy started gasping and wringing his hands against his eyes in a most disturbing manner. I had to wait for the teacher to stop yelling at some other kids before I could let her know this boy was really upset, and without a drop of sympathy in her voice, she told the boy to stop crying, that he had no good reason to. I'd fucking say he had a good reason to cry, stuck in that miserable classroom with that mean teacher and probably sucky parents, too. Ten minutes before school started, the teacher told all the children to line up at the door with their coats and backpacks. The children were made to stand there for ten minutes, waiting for the bell to ring, as the teacher and the aide gossiped and complained to each other and I stood around uncertainly. The bell rang, the room emptied, the teacher and aide kept gossiping, and I stood around until the teacher realized I was still there and said I could go.

I'm going to Laurelhurst again tomorrow, but I don't know if I'll continue after that. I didn't feel needed or wanted at all, and the teacher told me I'm especially not needed during spring break.

Yesterday at Alameda was a lot better. Aladema Community Elementary School is also in a privileged neighborhood, and although the class I work in (kindergartners) is big (over thirty kids!) and understaffed (just me and the site director!), it's at least somewhat more organized and positive, and the parents seem ok. It's unbelievably exhausting to keep a room full of kindergartners busy, happy, and entertained for four hours. And! The school's vice principle is my very own former high school choir director! I was highly involved in choir in high school. He said me and my old friend L. were "bright spots" from his choir directing days.

A cool thing about working for the Y: I get free membership to all Y gyms in the Columbia-Willamette area.

I go to Alameda again today at 2, and I'm tired and want to go home first. So I better end this post.