Many of us are familiar with the poem, “Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” The poem starts…. “Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own messes. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody….” It really is a guidebook to life. It’s been very eye-opening to me how so many of these “skills”, the kids here do not have. I think that when survival is the common denominator, you often don’t see the value in these basic skills. Sharing- why would you share when you barely have enough yourself? Clean up- when you live in an area surrounded by trash, why clean up? Say you’re sorry- are you really sorry if hurting someone else gets you a “leg up” on survival? I understand why many of these children do not have these basic skills, but it is just another way that they are behind in life.

Due to this, I have found teaching here really difficult. When sharing a pencil with another is never going to happen, when hitting your friends is how you show affection, when throwing trash on the floor is the norm- it’s hard to maintain any sense of structure in a classroom. I often feel like I am “managing the environment” more than teaching on any given day. However, I find some satisfaction in thinking that maybe somehow I am helping to teach these basic skills. More specifically, since many kids are lacking school supplies, I went to the store and bought some for the class. Now, I make the kids politely ask to borrow from me, and I remind them that sharing means returning when done. I also make them clean up the classroom floor after class, and every once in a while even get one of them to say “please” or “thank you.” That’s progress if you ask me!