Multicultural Hours - America Reads

I have been worked for America Reads last year, and was able to continue my job this year. I haven’t had many multicultural experiences in my job because I’m usually working as a teacher’s aid or listening to students read. However, ever so often I get the opportunity to take students aside or in the hall, and help them with projects that need to get done. I’ve worked one-on-one and with small groups of students in subjects such as reading, writing, and literacy. I’ve never had any serious problems when it came to my authority over the student besides having students that didn’t want to do their work, which is always going to be an issue. However, in my last week of work this semester, I had an incident occur that resulted in my first abuse report.
After we had our class about reporting abuse, and what we should keep an eye out for, I was actually nervous about the first time I would have to make a report. Would I be able to recognize an abuse victim? Would I make the right call? Would I do what was best for my student? Well, I’m not even a teacher yet, and I’ve already had to make my first report.
With this class of students, they have two teachers, one to teach reading and writing, and another to teach math and science. Because they switch teachers half way through the day, they have two authority figures to keep an eye on their progress and behaviors. In order for student’s parents to know how their child is doing, each student gets a score out of three, from each teacher, for how well they did that day on homework and behavior. I was working with two students, on their descriptive essays, out in the hall one day when a student started telling me how he needed to get a good score that day. He said if he did not get a three, his father would hit him. When he first said this, I didn’t know how to respond. I told him to stop worrying about his score for now because we were working on their essays, but he kept bringing it up. Because it was still during the school day, and I had never had this happen before, I decided to wait to talk to the teacher until the end of the school day.
I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to go about this situation because I wasn’t actually a teacher, only an America Reads worker. Like, who was I supposed to tell? Or was I supposed to make the report on my own? I decided to tell the teacher after the students had gone home fore the day. I wasn’t sure if maybe this student would just say something like this to get attention, or if he was actually telling the truth. The teacher told me it didn’t matter if it was for attention, or not, a report still had to be made. She said she would make the report, and say the student told her America Reads worker.
I assumed the first time I would have to report abuse I would feel awkward and uncomfortable, and that is exactly how it felt. But I knew it had to be done. It’s sad that teacher have to make these kinds of report, and often, but it has to be done. I now know what has be done for the future times I’m going to have to make a report.
(I worked for three hours this day.)