Introduction
The broad-shouldered, curious 5th grader at table four started the school year with an unshakable vision for the future. With dark hair spilling across his forehead and into his eyes, he seemed to marshal all his energy for one goal: a chance to compete for a spot at one of the top middle schools in the city. He knew that behavior was important for acceptance so he balled his fists to control the bursts of anger he had struggled to contain in the past. He hunched over difficult math problems and narrowed his eyes with concentration as he wrote. His goal provided a single-minded focus that drove his actions at school and sent him into a burst of tears at signs of failure. Right before the application deadline, his reality changed. He wouldn’t even be in the running for a spot at his dream middle school after all. Located across town, the school was too far away for kid-friendly transportation. His parents, perennial education supporters and thoughtful caregivers, just couldn’t make the logistics work. Their jobs lacked flexibility and their paychecks had no extra fat for luxury. His parents needed him to stay in the neighborhood so he could walk his young sisters to and from school.
For the 5th graders in my class, disappointment and sudden change are far too frequent. Last year, my students experienced family deportation, apartment eviction, temporary homelessness, gang-related violence, sudden moves due to socioeconomic circumstances, foster care changes, and family separation. About a fourth of my students had a close family member in jail. These changes pile on the disappointments of routine failure or, as with the student I described above, the elusive chance to make it into a “dream school.”
In many instances, my students feel subjected to change. They can’t re-route the buses to make a middle school more accessible, add to their parents’ dwindling bank account, or fight an apartment eviction. And yet, their lives and dreams are often thrown into a tailspin by circumstances beyond their control.
In times of transition and unwelcome change, identity is at risk. A parent sent to prison, for example, can suddenly become a primary part of a child’s identity. Cultural narratives can make a transition even worse. An otherwise confident 5th grade girl who struggles with the first assignment in her new math class, for example, may feel an immediate threat to her identity as a “good student,” especially since the prevailing cultural narrative is that girls are not good at math.1 Even innocuous changes like moving to a different grade level can leave student identity feeling frayed or in urgent need of defense.
When one student learned his father would be deported, he shrank into stunned silence. He stayed there for weeks. With arms crossed protectively in front of him and face resolutely turned towards the ground, he disengaged from school work, peers, and even his beloved family. The sudden physical absence of his father meant dramatic emotional, socioeconomic, and familial change. It also threatened his identity as son, family member, American citizen, and future college graduate. He floundered to merge the reality of his father’s absence with his personal identity.
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