Girl Power

There is a kick ass chick in the making with my latest student. I say this with even more declaration because of where this seven year old girl comes from.  She lives with her mother and grandmother in a unsafe part of town where their house gets ransacked on a regular basis because mom works at a pharmacy. The neighbors think she must have drugs when in reality she's never taken one in her life. She had her daughter when she was a teenager, wasn't able to go to college and earns barely more than minimum wage to support her.  Dad, of course, is conveniently out of the picture too.  He is some no good asshole who probably knocked up her mother just to get laid and went on get  involved in a bank robbery.  He take cares of no one from behind bars not and most likely doesn't care either. But all of that has no effect on her yet, nor should it.  All of the chaos surrounding her is their mess and not her.

When I see her she is oblivious to any shortcomings. She is always smiling and eager to impress her teacher.  She desperately wants to be Student of the Month and from what I see, she will have that honor in no time.  It's only been two weeks and already she is killin' it.  First, she started reading with the expression of a child star after one time of listening to me use voices for the cast of characters in Amelia Bedelia.  Then, she finished ten pages of extra phonics work her teacher threw at her in one session on top of studying for a spelling and vocabulary test and now she has an award.  A colorful certificate of honor with her name boldly displayed on it for doing so well on her last reading test. Hell yeah! I think she's going to make everyone who doubted her eat their words by the end of the quarter. Way to go, little Miss Thang. This one goes out to you.