| Apr. 12th, 2006 @ 10:34 pm Flag Paper |
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So I had my first Flag paper tonight.
There are several kinds of papers that we are not qualified to grade, most notably the papers that are too short, too off-topic, or too confusing for someone with a week's training. Those are marked No Grade and sent on to people specially trained in dealing with them.
The final kind of paper is a Flag Paper. When a paper is flagged, that means first it goes to the manager, then to the school that the student attends, and then potentially to the police and Child Protective Services.
We don't Flag for drug abuse, petty theft, underage drinking, or consenting underage sex, especially if it's mentioned in a past tense situation. What we do flag for are things like muder confessions, child abuse, and rape. These children are told, and encouraged, to compose fictional stories, so there's sometimes a fine line, but it's fairly easy to tell the difference between a story about a rapist and an essay about being raped.
Tonight I had a paper about a girl whose major adult influence is her father, though she wishes he would just "blow away on the wind and never return". She talks about how he affects her behaviour, her schoolwork, and her actions, all in fairly vague terms, but in the present tense -- and with enough detail for me to surmise that her father is a Very Bad Person.
Normally, being a cynic to start with, I detach pretty well, otherwise I'd despair of the human race. I didn't detach particularly well from that paper. I kept grading and finished out my shift, but after the paper went through to him and Manager, Longhorn pulled me out of grading and bought me a soda in the breakroom just to be sure.
I know that rapists and child molestors exist. I know several survivors of childhood incest. I've dealt with troubled students before, though not in this particular way. What got to me is that this girl is at least sixteen, and she's clearly never told anyone before, and for some reason a written exam essay was the place she chose to reach out. She sounded so tired and afraid. She wrote really well, too.
I don't know what I make of it all. The written word is very powerful. The urge to tell our own stories, especially to an audience who can't see our faces, is a theme I've dealt with many times, both here and in my formal scholarly studies. Creativity trumps fear. I don't know. I don't even know if I'll ever find out what happens to her and her father, I don't know if they tell us that kind of thing.
I'm not -- upset, precisely, though it is of course upsetting. I'm just trying to fit tonight into my headspace, and it doesn't immediately go. |
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