My life teaching an Hispanic Eleven year old

Ok, some of you may know that for the past three years, I have been baby-sitting for my neighbors down the street. They have an eleven year old boy named Josh. Not to hard, right? Wrong! Josh may be eleven, but he is Hispanic, and he spent most of his live in Mexico with his grandparents. He came back here to Minnesota to live with his mom and step-dad, when he was seven. About a year later is where I came in. I won’t bore you with all the details of how I got the job, but I did.

Now, I’m working for them and I find out that part of the job is to help Josh with his school work. Ok, not that bad right? I can help him with his home work. Well it’s work out for about a year or so, and then as school work does, my work got harder and big shock, so did Josh’s. And let me tell you he had a LOT of work. His school seems to think that kids do not need lives, I can hear them now…“Let them spent all of their little lives sitting at a table doing work, till it’s their bed times.” Which is what he did I would get there a four O’clock and there he was working on his school work. When he was done he might get half an hour to watch TV or what ever before his bed time, which was early because he had to be at the bus stop at seven. Well, anyway, I always bring school work with me because; I don’t have time to do it all at home with this job and all. But it’s hard to do my work when he needs help all the time. And I mean all the time. He is always asking me “Is this right? Is this right?” He does not have confidents in himself. He thinks that because he’s from another country that he is not as good at the work then the other kids. Which is partly true because of the second language thing, but he needs to realize that he is very smart. I try to tell him that but he just shrugs it off. Then there is another thing he does with the language barrier, when he is having trouble with his work he will say things “like it’s because this is my second language it’s hard for me.” It drives me crazy!

And the thing that drives me the craziest about Josh is that most of the time HE NEVER SHUTS UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He is like the never ending song. He’ll sit there doing his work and he’ll start talking to himself. I try to tell him to stop it. He’ll say sorry. Then two minutes later he’s back at it. It drives me crazy. But when I make some noise, he gets all mad because he’s “trying to study!” It’s very hard. And if he is done and I’m not, he’ll get even worse.

Now that you know what I hate the most about Josh, I think it’s only best to say that I like the most about Josh. He is soooo funny. Most of the time when he is trying to be he’s not, and when he is not trying he is very funny! He is very nice, very polite (too polite if you ask me) But all and all he is a very nice little boy.

P.S. Sorry if this is very boring, or kind of mean. It’s just that I needed to vent my frustration on something. But PLEASE do not get me wrong about how I feel about Josh, he is a very, very nice boy and I think my life would be very dull with out him.

P.P.S. sorry if I misspelled anything. :)