Meet the Students: Paris and Em.

Photo by DiaTM (link below post)

Finally! After a long long wait, I've had 2 students placed with me. The wait was long because the Counsellor I'm working with had to deal with what was apparently a miniature "Fight Club" cropping up at InnerCity school. Apparently the incident involved about 10 students or so, wherein 2 of them had scheduled a fight (during school time, on school property...) and 8 or so people who knew about it decided they would come and watch, maybe join in. The lot of them were suspended, fighters and audience members alike. The kids are about 13-15 years old... all I can say is, come on! When I was in the 8th grade at InnerCity, we all knew that if you wanted to fight and not get caught, you had to do it off school grounds and not during class time. Silly, silly children.

Anyway, the Counsellor was busy wrangling in 10 students for suspensions, thus our little project had to wait. But no more! I got a call about a week ago to come in at 8:30 a.m. to meet with the Counsellor and the Principal to discuss the two girls I'd be working with. The conversation went something like this:





Counsellor: "Hey Sally, so we'd like to thank you for taking this on. We have these two girls that we'd like you to meet with who we think could really use a great role model like you."
Principal: "Yes, these girls are really in need of some guidance from someone they can relate to."
Sally (me): "Well, um, thank you for the opportunity. Can you tell me about them?"
Counsellor and Principal look at each other sideways. Principal takes a deep breath and begins.
P: "Well the first girl's name is Em*. She's 14 and in the 9th grade. She's missed the last month of school on an excused absence because she was raped last month."
Wow. That's one hell of a start. I nod and say something like "Ok, I see, mhm" while all the while thinking nothing. Nothing. Like, brain-freeze, blank slate, shell-shocked nothing. She's only 14! Not that there's a good age to be raped at, but 14!!
C: "She hasn't been attending any classes, and we're placing her with you to give her the chance to catch up on some of her missed work."
Me: "Ok. And what about the other girl?"
There's a pause, and the Counsellor starts laughing to himself. And folks, he's a big, round, intimidating man. When he starts laughing it's like the room is laughing with him. 
Me: " What?"
C: "Oh it's just...I mean... you're gonna laugh too when you hear this... Ok, ok, so this girl, Paris*, she and her friend decided in the 6th grade after watching that show, you know, The Simple Life, that they were gonna be just like Nicole Ritchie and Paris Hilton."
Me: blinkblink "... at 11? What do you mean 'be like?'"
C: "I mean be like! They started dressing like them, dying their hair like them, being bitches to everyone around them like them, making fun of their classmates and teachers, doing zero work, and basically deciding that they were gonna get by by being The Simple Life."
Principal just nods.
Me: "So she's what? Just done nothing since the 6th grade?"
C: "Yep."
P: "Pretty much."
Me: "Ok... so if it's the end of the 8th grade for her now... what are our goals for Paris? To scrape through her core grade 8 subjects? To pass math?"
P: "Honestly Sally... if you can just get her to hand in some work, that'd be great."
C: "Yeah. You see, she's done most of socials at home, but we have some concerns that her work may be more of her parents work (trying to scrape her by) than her own. We've had her assessed, and we don't think there's an issue with ability, but it's hard to say."
Me: "So you'd like her to do... something. Anything. Ok. Is there anything I can't do with these girls in terms of say, taking them out for coffee or to the park to talk?"
P: "No no, by all means do so if you think it will help. A big part of this will be gaining the girls' trust. And honestly, they aren't coming to school at all right now, so if they get something done at Starbucks with you, that's better than nothing."

So, that's the situation I'm faced with. Two very different girls (by the way, it turns out they hate eachother) with very different reasons for doing nothing and not going to school. In the city I moved to for University, I volunteered as a Sexual Assault Support Worker. I went out on call to the local hospital to meet with women who had just been raped (usually within the past 24 hours) and supported them through the different tests and policing issues. The situation with Em shouldn't shock me... but of course it shocks me. A 14 year old girl. Not shocked in like a "You mean this happens that young?!" kind of way... just... I suppose it's more of a poignant sadness that this episode is now weaved into the fabric of her life and will stay there regardless of how beautifully she heals around it. How do you talk to a girl who last year or maybe a year before was probably dealing with her period for the first time about her rape? I heard just the other day that her rapist had been caught by the cops. Great, except she was still raped. That's the funny thing... in talking to other women of all ages who've gone through sexual assault, catching the monster is bittersweet. Sweet in that you know now that he can't do it to anyone else... bitter in that they expect the catching to take away the pain, but once he's locked up they find that it still happened. It doesn't disappear because he does. And then they realize that in someway, the episode will always be there. Sometimes, that's harder to live with.
I have no idea how I would deal with that kind of trauma now... how does she deal with it at 14?

And Paris... Jesus, she's 13 years old. One bad choice at age 11 has influenced her probably for the rest of her life. Before bad TV, she and her friend were doing their work, going to school, and generally being 11 years old. Then comes Ms.Hilton and Co... beautiful, glamorous, irreverent, rude, and on top of it all, getting adored and paid to be that way. And let's not forget that it's normal, natural, and healthy for an 11 year old girl to be curious about such a set-up, even to idolize these images of ultimate, societally-worshiped femininity. What I wonder though, is where was mom and dad in this picture to talk to their kid about the images she was seeing on TV? Where was the reality check? Why didn't anyone explain to this girl that you can only be Paris Hilton if your dad is Mr.Hilton? That a certain set of circumstances, circumstances that don't apply to little Paris, allow Paris Hilton to be the way she is? And that Paris Hilton is an adult who is building an empire, a money making empire, out of her dumb-blonde image thanks to the headstart that having a multi-millionaire Dad gives you?

The thing about these girls that blows my mind is that we're all products of the same geographical location, the same local politics, and, since highschool was only 6 years ago for me, many of the same educators. All three of us live in the poorest section of town- we're all broke, with families that are on or have been on welfare, are now or have been bankrupt. I know this because it's a well established fact in the Inner City. We're all three of us (myself still included) struggling to rise up out of the same dirt. It's a lucky break that I was never assaulted, a lucky break that I had people at home to tell me that unless I bust my ass at school, I'm going nowhere fast. These girls haven't caught all the breaks I've caught.

Now the question is what can I do to help them?

*Note that all names and certain details have been changed to protect the identity of the girls, my school, my town, etc. However, this is by no means a fictional or sensationalized blog.

(Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/deanaia/2629052578/)