Chivas?

Today a mother came to visit after school, four children in tow.  Her son Efrain was a 2nd grader with me last year, and her son Elijah is a fifth grader with me this year.  They are both behind grade-level in all subjects.  They are both small, sweet boys with broad, white smiles and a shock of slicked-back, black hair.  They look like twins.  I often call Elijah Efrain because they look so similar.  They make similar mistakes, mostly with spelling and attention to detail.  Detail escapes them. They play with their fingers, their erasers, the air molecules floating before their faces.  They have the attention span of fleas.  They are profound daydreamers.

The mother was full of energy, intense, focused.  Everything her two older boys were not.  She shared their broad smiles.  She wanted me to listen to her frustration. Here’s rough English translation of our talk:

Mom:  He doesn’t do his work.

Me: I know.  I’ve called you five times already.

Mom:  I don’t know what to do.  He sits in front of his work but then doesn’t do it.  He takes his books and–

She picks up a book and slams it down.

Me: I understand.

Mom: Or else he–

She floats her fingers in the air before her.

Me: He wants to succeed but he doesn’t want to put the effort in.  He wants fairies magically to transform him. He wants to daydream his work into being.

Mom: Exactly!  But he wants me to be the fairy.

Me: I’m so glad you don’t do his work for him.

Mom: I sit with him and sit with him, but–

She gestures broadly towards the other three.

Me: He has to be willing to put the effort in himself.

Mom: At least Efrain tries!

Me: Efrain worked so hard last year. He’d get distracted, but then he’d do twice the work to make up for it.  Maybe they could work together?

Mom: His dad bought him a Nintendo DS last year, and he didn’t buy any fancy games for it.  He bought math games to help him.  But does he touch it?  NO!  A brand new Nintendo DS.  Just sitting there.

Me: Maybe he needs some time to grow.  Maybe he ought to stay in 5th another year…

Mom: He spent two years in K and two years in 1st!  NO!

At this point, frustration bubbling over, she turns to him with a barrage of Spanish, the gist of which is: This is IT!  This is your last chance.  If you don’t try now, if you don’t put in the effort, if you don’t pay attention, if you don’t do your homework, next year I’m sending you back to Mexico TO TAKE CARE OF THE GOATS!

Elijah and I sit stunned.  We look at each other, look away.  It’s a life neither of us can imagine, me perhaps less than him.

I considered the starkness of the choice.  Exponents, variables, the digestive system, five paragraph narratives, the Civil War, persuasive essays, podcasts, computer lab– in the US, or

– goats in a remote village in Mexico.

I turn to Elijah.  I ask, is that what you want?

He shakes his head.  He cannot bring himself to speak.  I see tears brimming in his eyes, but they don’t spill over.  Beneath his soft, sweet exterior, there’s a toughness I haven’t seen before.

He wants to learn, I know that.  In his writing journal he has written: I am so exited about lern sow meny knew thing.  i whant to lern bout siense and writting ever day is knew stuf.

But he and Efrain are both like Etch-a-Sketches.  Here today, and tomorrow, shake shake, it’s gone.  Like a blank slate.  With barely a trace.

I’m not sure what to do.

Are some kids/people just dreamers?  In another time and and another place would they be shamans or river guides or herbalists?

Or is there a shared learning disability?  Something that hinders long-term retention of spelling and grammar and math.  But the boys have difficulty with concepts as well, so it’s not just symbolic manipulation issues.

They remind me of much milder versions of Brianna, who, when I referred her for testing last year, was found to have more learning disabilities than the psychologist had ever seen in one child.  Brianna was also small for her age…

Over the years, I’ve seen several children with this Etch-a-Sketch syndrome, all from Oaxaca (but then most of my school’s population is from Oaxaca…).  We teachers have noted this syndrome is particularly common in families with a certain last name, though neither these boys nor Brianna had that last name (though they still could be related…).

But why would there be such a concentration of learning disabilities?  Is it something genetic in this particular Oaxacan population?  Is there some environmental factor (or factors)?   Are the factors located here or there?

So many of these families are interrelated and come from the same areas.  I have to gather more data and find patterns, consult with special ed and resource. What I really want to do is consult with an anthropologist and linguist familiar with the region.  Over the years as I and other teachers slowly have gathered anecdotal data, it’s all been very remote and abstract and academic at some level.

But suddenly I know exactly how much is at stake.  Figure something out or else it’s off to the goats!