I was so excited. 40 years old and walking into my first classroom. I had been dreaming of this since I was seven. I floated down the hallway.
My first class was a resource classroom in a rural community in Texas. Not my first choice for a job but I needed a job so here I was in Podunk, Texas. A white middle class girl from Southern California. I was going to learn a lot about poverty, race, and the business of school. Nothing could have prepared me for what I walked into.
First lesson: Resource classes in Podunk, Texas generally consist of all minority kids.
Second Lesson: They are smarter than they seem.
I heard the other teacher was fired (well, she was reassigned which is code for moved into a really horrible job as part of our contract which states: all other duties assigned) because a kid set himself on fire because she used an editing strategy call FIRE. Really? Who would do that? Yea, some ED kid in resource, duh.
