Yesterday it Was Police Dogs

This morning another one of my students was in handcuffs.
Special ed- he was in my class last year. Rarely caused much of a disturbance. Usually just sat there... staring out the window, or gossiping to whoever was near him about whatever drama had gone down the day before. He would try when I could sit right there on his shoulder. Walk him through the steps and help him spell words most first graders know. This morning he was the 3rd or 4th arrest on campus.

The honeymoon period has passed. The bell to start the school day rings at 7:30am. Before that, the students are corralled outside in a little foyer area where there used to be tall pine trees... but now is bare aside from a few rickety bleachers the kids are supposed to remain seated upon. They lost the privilege of being able to play in the shade after too many incidents where pinecones were used like ammunition. After some kids pelted an unconcious boys with cones, the administration ordered that the trees be cut down.

So now they sit, in the treeless outside, many of them hungry but too embarassed to go get their free breakfast. At 7:25 the dean and supervising teacher wrestled a pair of boys into the office where I was busy talking to the secretary. The first boy was screaming, his mouth full of blood. "I'll f*cking kill you motherf*ker! I don't care! I f*cking put my life on that!" And he knelt for a minute before they could grab him again- and he crossed himself like we do when we eat at Grandma's house.

The other boy was so enraged that the dean, a fit woman from the inner-city, physically pushed him into a seat, while the on-campus cop got the other kid into his corner. My vice principal, very rationally said, "Okay, you've gotta act like a student now."

Three minutes later, two girls were at it. The kids were all standing on the bleachers, stadium-style. Some of them pumped their arms and chanted. Many were laughing. Not the clear, silly laughter of children though. It was harder than that.

I had a really hard time understanding it, when I first arrived here. Their near-obsession with fighting. But I've come to understand it more. They have to fight so often. For attention from adults, for enough to eat, for a fair shot, to not-get-shot... fighting at school is usually safer, easier than those other fights. At school, you know that there's going to be someone to pull you apart. Socially, you prove that you're not "scary" (their word for "weak"), but you don't run so much of a risk of the other kid having a gun on their hip as you would if you started the same thing on the street. At least at school, you get some attention, and all it might cost you is a black eye or bloody lip. And as a spectator, you get some agression out vicariously, and cheer because- 1. it's a distraction, and 2. it's not you.

I've altered my lessons for today so we can watch Obama's speech. I think it's a good time for a discussion of personal responsibility.