Uniqua

Every once in awhile there are children who come into my classroom that I want to adopt, as in take home and be their parent. It doesn't happen often and while you may think me cold and heartless, it's not that I don't see kids who need better parents it's more that I do not view myself as parent material.

But this year we have a student who has tested my parent boundaries. Do to the nature of my job, I cannot tell you her name, but instead will call her Uniqua to reflect the odd nature of her real name and because she is truly that, Unique.

Uniqua is a survivor. She lives in a household with many brothers and sisters (most of them halves not wholes) and a mother who is a recovering drug addict, though many wonder if she's either still using or "overused" by her former addiction. Her sole focus in life is surviving the hole she's dug herself into financially and emotionally and while she's busily (and admirably) trying to better her life, her children (Uniqua is her youngest and suffers the most) are neglected and must therefore fend for themselves.

By fend I mean...feed themselves, shop for themselves, clothe themselves, get themselves up and going, organize their lives, keep track of schedules, and just about anything else children generally don't have to do if they come from a semi-functional family (note the "semi" please).

Uniqua does all of this and more. She has yet to miss a day of school. She hasn't so much as been tardy. Occasionally she's not had breakfast, but we have a stash of breakfast bars for children who miss breakfast at home. Before enrolling into our pricey private school, she attended the local neighborhood school, walking the 10 blocks to and from school every day. Her walk took her past our doorstep and one day, so her mother tells me, Uniqua declared, "I want to go to that school, Mommy."

And so she is.

This is one bright kid. Street savvy, yes, but intelligent bright as well. Unforunately, there are things she's never learned or never experienced and when she raises her hand in class to ask, "What's that mean?" all the other kids look at her in surprise. But Uniqua doesn't care. Whatever it is she doesn't know, she finds out and then says, "Okay, that's cool", storing it in some enormous memory bank of newly understood information.

Last night was Curriculum Night, or open house where the parents come and listen to presentations by the teachers about our curriculum, our philosophy, and get a layout of the year. Uniqua's mom wasn't there even though she lives 3 blocks from the school.

At the end of the month, we're taking a long trip to attend an environmental learning center for a few days and the paperwork involved is enormous. Uniqua never got hers turned in, so one of the secretaries (who belongs to the same church as Uniqua's family) walked over to the house and got mom to sign everything that we needed.

Today, we looked at the packing list for our overnight field trip and I realized Uniqua probably didn't have a rain coat or a pair of sturdy hiking shoes or even a warm hat and gloves, so the secretary and I brainstormed what to do. In the end, we decided to ask the church if they would donate money to Uniqua's cause and get her some shoes, a rain coat, hat and gloves and perhaps a pair of long underwear for the cold days in the mountains.

And through it all, Uniqua has the confidence, this survivor savvy that she will succeed at whatever she takes on. It's like those yuppy t-shirts that state "NO FEAR" in flaming letters. Uniqua has no fear of anyone or anything, nor does she care what others might say about her -- to her face or behind her back.

You might think that she carries those emotional bruises with her, but she really doesn't...it least not as far as I can tell. The other day, for instance, the kids were sharing items that meant a lot to them. Kids brought in stuffed animals, pictures of their pets, and gifts from foreign countries. Uniqua brought in a picture of her mother and father's wedding dance (very romantic) and then said, matter of factly, "But they got divorced last month." I said, "Wow, that picture must be very special to you in such a difficult time." She said, "I like the picture, but I like that they're divorced. Now I have two houses." There's no way to describe her smile after she said this...it covers her face and lights her eyes. Genuine. Authentic. The real deal.

The truth behind the story though is that her father left her mother because the mother almost accidently burned down the house while all the kids were asleep at night -- a smoldering cigarette, though no one is clear about it -- and dad has sort of dropped out of the picture.

All the kids in our class have "cubbies" or storage areas where they can keep personal items like a hairbrush or a pencil or a reading book. Uniqua's is stuffed with about 7 books, no hairbrush, and an odd collection of broken and semi-usuable pencils and a huge fuzz ball she's creating from the fuzz of our classroom rug. One day last week, she came into class with her hood over her head. The secretary came in and said, "She probably didn't have anyone to braid her hair." Sure enough, as the day grew warmer, Uniqua's hood comes off her head and her hair is Little Rascals, straight up and uncombed. I sent her to see the secretary who I knew would braid her hair for her (I'm telling you, the two secretaries who happen to be sisters, are lifelines...not just for teachers, but for the kids, especially kids like Uniqua who live in the 'hood where our school is located).

Often, in novels written for kids this age, there are these almost unbelieveable characters who overcome one obstacle after another. Rarely are the characters African American though there are a few authors who have recently written more authentic fiction for kids of color. Uniqua could be one of these characters. Her life is like a book in many ways and she is functioning, overcoming odds that most of the kids we see never have to face.

I worry that Uniqua will make no friends. She's fringy in many ways (her clothes are wrinkled, filled with holes, often dirty, and many days she wears the same set of clothes she wore the day before) and at a private school for girls, fringy doesn't really have a huge following. But Uniqua doesn't seem to mind. Her head is always held high, her voice is always strong, and I don't really know how to describe it, but she walks with a confidence that makes me believe that one day she's going to rise far above her circumstance and be the "woman leader" our school always advertises as our mission.

I know adopting her is selfish and may be viewed as coming from this position of white guilt, which is probably partly true. But there's another part that's equally true and that's this viseral feeling I get when she smiles or laughs or dances to the music we play during clean up, or the size her eyes when we showed pictures of the moutain goats and the cougar that live in the park where we'll be taking the girls for their first overnight (no worries, it's not like the cougar is a daily sighting, but it IS the mountains and wild animals do live there).

Today the kids wrote letters to their parents about their experiences during the first 8 days of school. Uniqua wrote in her first sentence, "I'm really excited I am going to school here, mommy. The biggest highlight of my week is that I get to go to the mountains and sleep in the woods where wild animals live."

I cried when I read that. Uniqua lives in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods of Seattle. The gang-bangers hang out at the park a block away from the school. Drugs are openly sold at the small grocery stores where they sell fried chicken and cheap beer. On weekends, I've seen Uniqua running down the street or riding her old squeaky bike, her nappy head uncombed and flying straight to the sky. She waves at the alcoholics who congregate on the bench by the public phone. She smiles her big smile at the prostitutes who slink by in their high-heeled shoes and sagging stockings. She gives a high five to the young thugs in their oversized coats and their super white shoes. Everyone in the neighborhood knows her. Everyone looks out for her. The wild animals are rampant in her own backyard, but everyday she walks into that classroom a sponge, ready to soak up the next lesson or the possibility of adventure in the woods, and she does it all with her chin resting high on the breeze of her confident walk.

She creates a feeling that anything is possible. She gives me hope. That's the kind of kid I wouldn't mind sharing my life with. The truth is, though, I need her in my life more than she needs me. She'll survive. It's written on the wake she leaves behind her. I'm just thankful I get to be a part of her amazing life.