Bad News

"Ms. Craven! You going to the fair this weekend?"

Rickety rides whose purpose is to make you feel like you might throw-up aren't my cup of joe even when I'm not pregnant, so of course the Marrero carnival was not on my weekend agenda. My decision not to partake in a favorite past-time of my students was confirmed to be a good one when I got this news from a coworker today.

He went to Truman last year. This is the third student to be shot and killed in the three years I've been teaching at this school. The last two were 16. Marcus, from my first year (from my super-challenging 8th grade class) was 14.

Officially Marrero is a suburb. But if your suburb is filled with the same poverty as the city proper, the same issues arise. Without going off on a rant, because I have piles of projects to grade and still more planning to do, I'm going to permit myself a small paragraph:

Every time something like this happens it pulls all of my kids way back in progress. Not academically necessarily, but mentally. Why should they take my advice about working hard now so that their future is better- if their future may only extend another year or two. Adults in poverty tend to share that immediate-gratification mindset- because it is practical. Because nothing is stable. Because you can't count on anything.

Stefin was talking yesterday about a speech where they were discussing how humans are the only species with unemployment. When a five year old heard that unemployment meant that a lot of people couldn't find jobs, he asked "Does that mean all the work is done?"

If only.