Abdi's Endless Worksheets

The children at Refugee Community Center (RCC) come from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. In this safe place, asking where one is from always follows asking one’s name. I was surprised, then, when Abdi answered that he is from Atlanta. Dressed in his light blue, oversized, Phat Farm t-shirt and baggy jeans, he certainly looked like an ATL-ien, but the context had me expecting something else.

Katherine had told us that a special federal allowance (or perhaps oversight) had broadened the scope for RCC beneficiaries. Like most state and federal policies, her explanation seemed cloaked in a cape of bureaucracy, but the main gist entailed a loosened restriction on the maximum number of years a family could remain in the United States and still receive aid from RCC. Certain families, then, had been here for five years or more and were currently utilizing services from RCC, but Katherine predicts this will be tightened again once those in control figure out what is going on. For the time being, I’m glad that the bureaucratic confusion allowed for Abdi’s family to slip under the radar. For now, I have the opportunity to work with a young brother trying to learn his abc’s.

For the past several days, I have helped Abdi with seemingly countless worksheets. The topics are estimation, spelling, and more estimation. “Estimate the length of your desk,” one problem instructs on a worksheet. “Now, measure the length of your desk.” There are about 15 of these on a page, and Abdi works through it diligently yet absently. It doesn’t require much of his attention; perhaps because the questions are so repetitive and he has had virtually the same worksheet four out of the past six days.

On Thursday, I walked out of RCC with him as his mother rolled up in a gold Nissan Maxima. She is a beautiful Somali woman with a wide smile and a gap between her two front teeth. With a tiny baby girl in the back, Abdi’s mother strained across the passengers seat to ask me how Abdi is doing. “He is doing well!” I reported cheerfully, because he is finishing his homework everyday and he does share with the other third graders and he does engage in conversation with the other tutors and me. He hopped into the backseat, and his beaming mother looked back at him. “Wonderful,” she said, in a way that was so sincere my arm hairs jumped up.

How much faith do parents put in school teachers? How much do they expect that teachers will assign work that will broaden their children’s minds? How much can worksheets really do? How many worksheets does Abdi’s mother think his teacher hands out each day?

I should have told his mother that I think we should devise some more enriching homework for him. I could have asked her if she knew what he was doing each night for homework. I could have, but I didn’t. I probably will tomorrow. For today, though, I just wanted for everything to be as simple as it should be.