Wednesday, November 30, 2022

Wednesday, November 30, 2022

     

I was supposed to have a 5:30 appointment with eighth-grade K today. He was a no-show. I suspected his mother was contemplating firing me by ghosting me. I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t pay for the completed sessions. The upside of her action is she is protecting her son. The downside is she doesn’t realize she is wrong. No, he was not lying; he had never done work like this before and had no experience evaluating his part versus the teacher’s. His mom has decided she doesn’t trust me- that I am untrustworthy. I suspect she is viewing it as a haoli who puts down people of color; her son is at least half Japanese. While the mother’s name is as English as they come, I suspect she is mixed race. When she doesn’t get things her way, she screams victim. While I can appreciate the bias, people of color have been put down by white people for generations. It is as much a bias against white people as racial discrimination against people of color is a bias. It’s hard to see when you feel like a victim. I could appreciate those sentiments, but I didn’t appreciate the ghosting.

 I struggled to think of how to expand K’s verbal range. In one conversation, I told his mom to ask more questions as he talked about his day to force him to give more details. I said he trusted her. She said, “I hope he trusts you.” It was stupid of me to trigger the topic. I told her I hoped he trusted her more than he trusted me. We went round and round on this subject a few times. She got the point; he should only trust me to the extent one should trust a teacher versus a mother or a partner. Hopefully, that’s different. If it isn’t, something is wrong with that personal relationship.

  K does well with all nonverbal activities. He spends every weekend hunting or fishing with his dad and his brother. He attended a Hawaiian emergent charter school before he came to the academically oriented private school he is in now. He did well memorizing the long Hawaiian chants. He did well with all the nonverbal activities. Reading and writing English is ignored in these schools.