Last night at Ice Angels (our youth group for teenage girls), I experienced one of my most disheartening revelations yet of the rough situation at Sparrow.
To preface, may I say that academics are an uphill battle at Sparrow. Kids are coming from backgrounds of poor and insufficient nutrition, minimal stimulation since birth, varying levels of developmental delay, inadequate school systems, and rarely ever the motivation from parents or teachers to succeed and learn.
The result is a generation of teenagers who have close to a 2nd-grade understanding of mathematics in the 8th grade. Last night the gap was all too apparent.
Our topic for Ice Angels was dreams, imagining their futures in the year 2020. I started with a simple question, "How old will you be in ten years?"
half of the girls pulled out their cell phones,
using the calculator function to add 10.
the other half started counting on their fingers.
It was so very, very sad. Even after I explained that all they needed to do was to change the 1 to a 2 in their age (13 --> 23), they fought with each other as they kept adding 11 or 9 to their ages and disagreeing on answers.
The situation is frustrating at every level. Their families fell short, the public school system has fallen short, and Sparrow is too short-staffed to attend to the daily progress of each of the 180 children in school. It is a deep shame.
Lord, help these minds to grow in knowledge & truth.
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