In their own words
Carolyn Leuner

Carolyn Leuner graduated from Cornell University in 2002. Carolyn is currently in her second year as a Kindergarten teacher at PS 31 in District 7 in the South Bronx.

September 18, 2002

These first two weeks have been far from an easy road: getting switched from teaching fifth and sixth grade science to Kindergarten four days before school started, realizing that my students didn't know any letters of the alphabet, or how to write their own names. Many of my students didn't even know their colors: reds were orange and pinks were reds. I know I have a long road ahead to get my students where they need to be so that they are prepared for the first grade. And on top of that, there is Rosa Sanchez.

Today, Rosa hit David because he wouldn't share his black crayon with her. I pull them apart and ask Rosa how she would feel if David had hit her. She simply shuts off at this point, she puts her fingers in her ears and stares at me blankly. She never looks away, but she never responds to a word I say either. I send her back to her seat, hoping that I have reached her with my inspiring words. Before I can even get back to the center of the classroom, Rosa has run around the classroom tearing down posters, flipping her groups table onto it's side. After the initial shock wears off, I realize that I have my work cut out for me.

I quickly recognize that Rosa has the ability to disrupt any lesson at anytime. I talk to her mother, her brother, her sister- the response: we can't control her at home.

October 15, 2002.

It's morning, I see Rosa standing outside waiting for the school building to open. I walk out and we begin talking about the grass and the sky. She tells me that she likes my shoes and that she wishes I would wear my hair down. Noticing that I am wearing eyeliner, she says, " Miss Leuner, your eyes look funny. Do you need glasses?" I laugh and she grabs my hand.

That day was no exception. Rosa ate my chalk, refused to get out of her chair for lunch, and bit Yesenia on the arm. But that day, I realized that I was constantly making a laundry list of what she did wrong. I would automatically believe any tattles the other kids made on her. Granted, a lot of them were true, but I had put her in a little box. Even though on the surface I was encouraging and still trying to give incentives, work with her family etc, I knew that deep down I had given up on her in some ways. And I made a vow that day to maintain for her the same high expectations I maintained for the rest of my students.

Over the next weeks, I continue to talk to her family, but I start talking more to her. I find out that she wants to be exactly like her brother, Luis, that she loves to sing, that there are no books at home, no crayons, and no glue and that is the real reason she isn't doing her work. I find out that she puts her fingers in her ears because she expects to get yelled at. She loves being line leader and she loves the book, If you Give a Pig a Pancake.

Rosa and I begin to work together during lunch on her letters and her sounds, chunking, stretching, concepts of texts... We spend every morning chatting before school as I work to build her social skills, her academic skills, but most of all her belief in herself. This has become our sacred time together. She begins writing scribbles at first and then her mass of colors begin to emerge into pictures. Most of all, she suddenly desires to come to school and become part of the community of learners we had created in our classroom.

March 1, 2003

Rosa is still the first to get out of her seat during a lesson, but she finishes her work now and hasn't hit anyone in class since November. Rosa just finished her own story, with capital letters at the beginning of her sentences, describing her adventures to the moon in a rocket ship, full with illustrations and a title page. They are all brilliant. All of my students know all their letters and all their sounds. Moreover, left and right are now west and east. Naptime is one o'clock. My kids are adding single digit numbers and Evelyn, who lives in the South Bronx with her brother and father, is adding double digit numbers. All of my students are writing sentences, with periods at the end. Books are sacred in my room and my children love to read. My students will come up with rhyming words, words ending in the same sounds, my kids know what the word stealth means and they use it to go on stealth missions through the hallways, undetected. David, who wears the same tucked in shirt almost everyday, reads on a third grade level and is writing on a first grade level already. They are all brilliant.

I have been hearing rumors all day that Rosa is leaving. At the end of the day, her mother walks in with bags of Luis and Manuela's school stuff. It was true. I can feel tears welling up in my eyes. "Hi, Miss Leuner," she says. "We are moving to Fordham. I am bringing Luis and Manuela to their new school on Monday. But I've worked it out so Rosa can stay. I am going to drive her every morning and pick her up every afternoon for the rest of the year."

Rosa just clung to me.

Note: Some names have been changed in order to protect the privacy of individuals.

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