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Ann Barger Hannum Contents: Case NarrativeMartin slumped off the school bus, barely glancing at his mother Lorreen, who was waiting on the corner for him. “Hey honey, what's the matter? Did you have a bad day?” “Naw, nothin's the matter,” Martin responded flatly and walked on. Lorreen shared a concerned look with her mother Rhona about Martin's despondent attitude. As they walked toward the house, Martin asked, without looking at them, “Mom, what happens if someone says you did something that you didn't do? Like if someone says you took something but you didn't take it?” “Well, you tell the person that you didn't take it and talk about what happened. Sometimes it's just a misunderstanding. Why? Did someone say you took something that didn't belong to you?” Martin started to get agitated. “Yeah, at lunchtime. Johnny and Mack and Jose said I stole Steven's watch, but Steven gave it to me! I told 'em so but they said I stole it because I come from a bad neighborhood and we don't have any money!” “Honey, that's awful! When did Steven give you the watch?” “He gave it to me last week. He's my friend and he gave me a present! Steven told them he gave it to me, too,” Martin answered. “But they just said Steven was stupid. Are we poor, Mom?” Martin looked up at his mother. “Honey, we have a good life and everything we need,” Lorreen assured Martin. “I know you always tell the truth, and I'm glad that you told those boys what happened. It's good that Steven stuck up for you. You stick with boys that are nice to you and don't pay any mind to those other kids.” Martin's mood lightened and he smiled a little as they walked into the house. But Lorreen remained troubled, and her thoughts drifted to other worries about Martin. Lorreen and Rhona Reflect on Martin's Situation “Oh, he is so smart. Why's he acting out?” asked Rhona. “I think it's this thing about friends,” Lorreen explained. “Mrs. Taylor and I have talked on the phone about the fact that Martin's spending all this time with Shawn again - you know, his friend from the old neighborhood. She says that Martin looks up to Shawn, and he's a troublemaker, so we're working on a way to separate them as much as possible.” “She sends home notes every few weeks saying how well he's doing. And even in our last few conversations, she kept telling me that Martin was a great student. But she's basically just worried that Shawn's a bad influence on him.” “But this business today about boys in school accusing him of stealing and being poor makes me think there's a lot more going on at that school than Mrs. Taylor is saying. Besides, I doubt she knows about what's gone on with all his little friends since we've moved.” “You mean because he doesn't see his friends from the old neighborhood as much?” Rhona interjected. Martin still attended the same school, but had left good friends in their neighborhood behind when they moved. “Well, he definitely misses his old friends,”Lorreen agreed. “I think that's partly why he's started hanging out with Shawn in school. His other old friends come over to the house sometimes, but make fun of him right to his face. They criticize his clothes. They tease him about his interest in African and Native American heritage. They tease him about his darker skin color. But he still wants to hang out with them, I guess because otherwise he's alone a lot. But you know it bugs me. Not to mention all their street talk and him trying to copy it.” “On top of that he doesn't get invited to any of the other kids' houses in the new neighborhood. His little Vietnamese friend moved away. And I won't let Martin have anything to do with these two white kids down the block. They're rough and talk back to their mothers. I wouldn't be surprised if they end up in jail some day.” “And he's having trouble finding other new friends in the neighborhood. When we first moved here, things got racial. A few boys told Martin that their parents wouldn't let him come over because he was black, even though the boys really liked each other. Martin just took it in stride and wanted to stay friends with them.” Lorreen also recalled a neighbor who had used the most hated of all racist words. “I was furious with her. I didn't lose my temper, but I set her straight that no one was going to make any racist comments about me or my family. I haven't heard anything like that since.” Lorreen admitted to her mother that the move had affected Martin, that he missed his old neighborhood and wished he could have both black and white friends. Lorreen apologized to her mother, “I'm sorry I didn't mention this before, but I wanted to focus on the good things that were happening and not think about anything negative. Plus Martin and I talked about the bad things that people say and do to each other and about fighting racism. He knows how I feel about dignity and fairness and what it means to succeed in a competitive world. I think our talks have helped.” Rhona spoke lovingly to her daughter, “I know how much you love your new home and fixin' it up and makin' it look good. You should be proud of yourself. I'm always telling my friends how strong and smart my grandson is and what a good mother you are.” Lorreen surveying the small, well-kept yards in their new neighborhood and mentally compared it to the broken asphalt yard of their public housing complex just last year. “It's true, Ma. Each flower and tree reminds me of things growing and the possibilities that are ahead of us. I never thought we'd ever really be able to move. Remember how I used to worry about Martin day and night? I thought it was just a matter of time before I lost him to gangs. I always prayed we'd be able to move someplace safer. And now, for the first time, I really believe Martin has a chance for a good future.” Lorreen had held several jobs at once to save enough money to move from the public housing where Martin spent his first five years of life. Ray, her fiancé, had supported her efforts and shared the excitement of their new home with them. Lorreen felt lucky to have Ray in her life and living with them, and to have her mother and other relatives so close by now. They all spent a great deal of time together, and Martin enjoyed playing with both his younger and older cousins. Lorreen reassured herself out loud, “I know the move was the right thing for Martin, even though things haven't been perfect.” “Even so, you ought to talk to his teacher,” Rhona countered. Joan Taylor, Martin's First Grade Teacher Lorreen made a strong impression on Joan from the start. Eventually Lorreen had opened up to Joan about finishing her high school diploma as a single mother. Joan knew of Lorreen's promotion to assistant manager of a beauty supply company and of her hopes of going to college one day. “My grandmother, she always tried to instill in us, get your education, do this and that, and don't have any kids when you're young ... don't just sit on welfare, my grandmother didn't believe in that,” she had told Joan. Besides, Joan appreciated Lorreen's concern about her son's schoolwork, a commitment that Joan didn't sense from all of her students' parents. But Lorreen had stressed Martin's respect toward his teachers and family members. She also clearly supported Martin at home with homework. They'd even bought a computer for him to practice spelling and reading on. It was true that Lorreen hadn't made it to any school-wide events like the PTA, which Joan often attended, but maybe she was just too busy with work. Otherwise, Lorreen seemed to live up to her belief that “You can't ever be too involved in your kid's schoolwork.” Even Martin seemed to share this involvement ethic, by helping his younger cousins with their school work. Lorreen struck her as a very serious and success-oriented person, which she seemed to convey to Martin. “I always tell Martin,” Lorreen had said, “that being successful is trying new things, even if they're hard, and finishing things, even if you don't always do well, because one day you might do well. I always remind him about Michael Jordan, who wasn't successful at first, but he kept at it; Martin has to learn that determination is an important part of success.” Martin had a lot of his mother's determination; somewhat small for his age, he still took on all of the bigger kids in outdoor games. Joan also really liked how bright, engaging, and enthusiastic he was in class. Despite Martin's strong academic performance, Joan worried about his acting out in class. She attributed this to his spending time with Shawn, another African American boy, who seemed to have a lot of influence on him. She considered Shawn to be one of several black boys in school who expressed a lot of anger and got in frequent fights. She viewed their behavior as a product of having to defend themselves in the tough public housing neighborhood where they lived. Martin seemed different to her, though; he lived in a better neighborhood and obviously came from a strong, concerned family. Joan called Lorreen numerous times to talk about Martin's behavior and felt the two of them could speak frankly about Martin. They agreed that Martin's friendship with Shawn encouraged his acting out and that Joan should try to separate the two boys as much as possible. Joan had also learned about the incident where a few boys had taunted Martin about stealing a watch from his friend, Steven. She spoke with the boys, who explained that Steven's grandmother said Martin stole the watch. Joan figured that Steven's grandmother must have told other parents, because several boys knew about it, had approached Martin in school, and had concluded that Martin was too poor to buy his own watch. From what Joan could tell, the problem had been resolved when Steven corroborated that the watch was a gift to Martin. She liked to think that her constant encouragement of students to negotiate peaceful solutions to quarrels was paying off. Plus her efforts to separate Martin and Shawn seemed to be working fairly well. The Meeting Lorreen sat across the child-size reading table from Mrs. Taylor, who looked just as uncomfortable about broaching the recent peer incident as she did, and who probably didn't know all of what Martin has gone through in the past few months. Like all of the teachers and administrators in the school, Mrs. Taylor was white. And for the same reason Lorreen avoided the PTA meetings, she now found herself silent. She just wasn't sure they'd take a young black woman seriously. And yet here she was, heeding her own mother's advice to meet with the teacher. Something at the school had to change, for Martin's sake. The people and events in this case are loosely based on real-life accounts, but have been disguised to protect confidentiality and partly fictionalized for teaching purposes. We would like to thank Carol McAllister and Jane Dirks for conducting the interviews on which this case is based and for providing insight and initial analyses of the case. This work was supported by the MacArthur Foundation as part of its Network on Successful Pathways through Middle Childhood, with partial funds from the W.T. Grant Foundation. Also through support from the DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund as part of its School/Family Partnerships Initiative, and Kraft Foods, an operating company of the Philip Morris Companies. Discussion Questions
Instructor NotesTo request instructor notes for this teaching case, send an email to FINE at fine@gse.harvard.edu. ^ Back to top |
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