Heberle

There is no traffic light on the intersection. A young man is walking across the street when we are turning into a two-lane street bordered by Italianate-architecture houses. We are waiting until he enters the sidewalk before approaching to the parking lot of the Heberle Elementary School, an inner-city public school where I will be a guest for art classes today.

The building is well kept on the outside but dirty in the inside. Jean, the only art teacher for the school invited me to come to Heberle today. I always wanted to know how it feels to be in school. I wanted to know why Laneisha, a third-grader I have been working with for the One-on-One tutoring program at the library told me that school bored her. So I thought I would find out how boring the school is.

Jean is also one of the members of Heberle Elementary Outreach Ministry at Covenant-First. The ministry has started three years ago with focus on helping students to read and write. Nancy Smith, a member and a social-worker, directed a group of tutor to assist the primary grades at Heberle Elementary School for the last three years. The main goal is to improve children’s reading skills. They organized events such as a mid-day service at Covenant-First Presbyterian Church featuring Rev. Todd O’Neal’s inner-city children chorus. Children also treated with parties and gift-books.

The school starts at 9:00 pm. and finish at 3:00 pm, with one fifteen minutes break and an hour lunch. Seven grader class is our first, followed with six, fourth, second, and kindergarten. We stay in the same room while the students come and go each forty-five minutes.

The early spring humid day trapped us in the building without air-conditioner. The windows are broken. We hold the screen with a white box we found in the class-room. “This is not the worst class,” Jean said, “Some classes have no windows at all.” How can students read, write, or concentrate in unhealthy condition?

This classroom is full with students’ works. Jean showed me several paintings of fourth graders that she put up on the wall. The assignment was to draw the city according to each student. One of the paintings that took my attention was the city at night, with black empty sky, with writings “the city is sleeping at night. Everyone stays inside at night. It is dangerous outside.”

Most of the kids are black and several are Appalachian. Some are well behave some are not. Some helped to cleanup. One kid is trying to steal some color pencil while he knew I am there. As kids getting older, they don’t want to listen. Two girls from the fifth grade class are fighting. It is happening so fast while the two of us are in the front of the class. These girls are fighting for several color pencil.

The smaller girl doesn’t want the bigger girl to sit on her group and excuse her stealing her color pencil.

“I will kill you,” said the smaller girl.

The bigger girl came and took the pencil,” bring back those pencil, they are mine,” said the smaller girl.

I don’t know who started first, but they began to attack each other, and pulling each other’s hair, beating each other. Jean is standing between them trying to pull them out when several other teachers came.

“Is this what happened everyday?” I asked Jean.Jean said this is the first time she ever had kids fought. She thought they were trying to get some attention. I still can’t find why school is boring according to Laneisha, but I find out one thing that students in this school need attention. They are the future of the society, rescuing them meaning providing quality education that will stimulate their learning experience. Rescuing them is also getting them out of bad influence on the street such as drugs and immorality.

Link to the Covenant-First Outreach Ministry in Heberle