No Child Left Behind
Apr 21st, 2004 at 11:00 pm by Susan
Then in the afternoon in South Jamaica, we tried to scare the young. There was a little girl in a pink sweater saying how much she is afraid of the big third-grade test she must pass today. She ran from PS 165 to the school bus at the curb and called out,“I throw up.”
“When did you do that?” she was asked.
“In the night. I throw up.”
“No, you don’t,” her sister shrieked.
“I throw up.”
At 2:40 in the afternoon, the third grade was tumbling out of the side entrance of PS 160 on 109th Avenue and Inwood Street in South Jamaica. The people in charge of their city’s schools encourage anxiety to intrude into their lives.
A girl ran out of school and came into the school yard calling, “I’m going to do it! I’m going to pass.”
“I am,” another one said.
“I am.”
“I going to throw up,” a little girl with glasses said. “I be shaking when I got those pencils in my hand. Shaking. I’m scared.”
