Another Example

The news from Steubenville, Ohio is just the latest example in how we continue to fail our young people.  If you did not know, two High School football players were found guilty in the rape of a 16 year-old girl.  The victim was intoxicated at a party last summer and passed out.  That's when the two boys apparently took advantage of her.  While the story of a young girl being raped is horrible, what's even worse is that other party goers, as well as classmates, knew what was happening and did not come to the victims aid.  Instead they chose to take out their cell phones and snap pictures and/or videos and text and Tweet about it...while it was happening.  In addition, other students discussed and gossiped about the crime openly online while never bothering to contact authorities.

In addition, three other football players watched what happened and recorded it on their phones.  They received immunity for their testimony.  Some of the most damning evidence were sexually explicit text messages sent by students and classmates who were at the party.  The judge delivered a Guilty verdict and in the process stated "Many of the things we learned during this trial that our children were saying and doing were profane, were ugly."

Again I have to ask: Why isn't Internet common sense and/or technology ethics a part of our young people's education?  Our children have the most advanced technology known to man at their disposal and are given an unprecedented amount of freedom as well as exposure through social media and Internet technology.  Yet, nowhere are they being taught how to use it.  How many more Manti Te'o's or High School incidents like this do we have to see?  We have all seen and read about the absurd number of teen suicides as a result of cyber-bullying.  What more do we want?

I have been working with middle school and High School aged children for many years and in that time have come to realize that, while being unbelievably technologically savvy, they are extraordinarily ignorant regarding consequences.  We now have a national story where educated High School kids stood by and filmed/photographed a girl being raped instead of trying to stop it.  They even went as far as to post some of their material on Youtube so other people could watch as well.

Maybe this case will get the wheels moving...?  I think the victim's mother summed it up best in what she said to the accused at trials end: "You were your own accuser, through the social media that you chose to publish your criminal conduct on."  

Flashback Newark, New Jersey

This is a journal entry I found that was dated July 12, 2012.  It was fairly close to when my school year in Newark had ended.  I had managed to get through to some pretty tough kids and also made headways with some kids I really had to build trust with.  At the time I wrote this, I had no idea I would not be going back to the school.  You will see the impact the kids and their surroundings had on me.

Lights come up in the morning almost the same in every house.  Young mothers walk into babies rooms to pick up little bundles with smiles and greetings.  Shadows are cast across the wall in morning angles.  Mothers with older children ease into rooms, turn on lights and gently break the bad news: “Time to wake up”.  Regardless of where or how - it’s morning and children are beginning their day.  The sun is barely up, the smell of coffee fills the home and dad is upstairs getting ready for work.  Breakfast is prepared and the mindset of school begins to set itself.

Up the road ten miles it’s a different story.  It’s still morning and children are still waking up but in this house it’s three to a bed.  There may not be a mom but an Auntie or maybe a Grand-mom.  There is no father.  It is time to get ready for school but there will be no breakfast and perhaps no encouraging words.  New clothes will not be laid out but rather the ones worn yesterday will be worn again or maybe the ones that were slept in.  Some of them will go to school dirty and unclean although washed of inspiration and encouragement.  

They are still children, and they are waking with innocence in their eyes.  There is hope and even some dreams but there is also reality.  That gets pushed to the back though and with any luck there will be something that looks like a smile - even if it’s forced.  Tiny shoes are put on tiny feet, hands are held and the door opens to a new day.  Opportunity looks different to some children and to others it’s not even opportunity but survival.  Again, it’s only ten miles from you but you pretend it’s not there until you have to see it every day.  You touch their lives and they touch yours.  In many ways they make you feel guilty for your life.  You want to save all of them and even take a few home but you know you can’t.  They are children but you have to remember that they’re not your children and that - yes that - is the worst part. 

At some point it becomes clear that it has everything to do with love.  They don’t know love and you have to show them.  In the process of doing that you begin to love some of them despite your best efforts.  Even the worst ones: the thugs, the playas, the knuckle heads...it doesn’t matter.  You see the light in all of them and they know this about you so they begin to show themselves to you and this only makes it hurt more.  They let you in and you can’t believe what you see and hear.  Some of the stories are too sad to be true others are too awful to even be a part of someone’s reality - but they are.  These realities are now yours and you can’t help but think that this is not fair.  This life that these children are forced to live.  How could they be living these lives, here?  Here in this country?  

I drive ten miles from my house but it feels like ten-thousand.  I leave a community that has safe streets, grass to play on and hope.  My community gives its children a chance and I’m not quite sure why the children I teach can’t have those chances.  The children I teach are not dumb.  They are not stupid.  In fact, they have hopes and dreams just like my children.  The problem with the children I teach is that no one is there to tell them this.  No one reminds them of the vastness of their potential and what it can bring.  My children leave the house and will discover things they didn’t know.  My students leave their homes and are simply reminded of what is coming.  

Some of the children write poems and they make you cry when you read them.  You cry because they are so honest but are coming from a place that no child should be coming from.  The poems ask “Why?” and “How come?”  Some of the poems simply want the violence to stop.  It seems like such a simple request especially when it comes from a child but no one listens to the child nor the simplicty.

If you’re not careful you’ll get angry and then cynical and that’s not good.  You want to make sure that the children never see cynicism.  No one likes that, not even a child and these kids, well, they’ll see right through it. 

January 17, 2013

It has been just over a month since those horrible shootings in Connecticut and we have already lapsed into the same old mindless banter in its wake.  Of  course the issue of gun control has come up and some idiot spokesman from the NRA has found it necessary to make numerous moronic public statements regarding the matter.  My personal favorite was something along the lines of "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."

What really bothers me is that no one is talking about one of the key issues at hand and that is the how we treat children with mental disabilities in this country.  As I said in my last post, we all knew a variation of the young man who committed that horrible crime: a very bright, socially awkward, somewhat disaffected individual who was ignored, bullied or both.  There are kids just like that in class with your children now.  Perhaps you know that child.  Think about how he or she is being treated at the school.

There is a boy in class with my son who falls into the above category.  This young man has been through some tough emotional things and has some issues.  He has engaged in some pretty questionable acts at school and as far as I can tell, is not receiving proper care or attention.  This scares me.

Again, our schools are truly the first line of defense.  At some point it has to stop being about money and being about what's right.  In the midst of this retreaded and ridiculous gun control discussion, why hasn't anyone stepped up and mentioned the care and treatment of young children with special needs?  Why aren't our procedures and protocols being questioned?

Think about that while you're thinking about your children.

It's a horrible day.  It all started Friday when a severely disabled young man walked into an elementary school in Connecticut and killed almost 30 people - 20 of them young children.  Yet again we Americans are forced to sit back and ask "why?".  Yet again we are forced to watch helplessly as another psychologically disturbed individual walks into a public place with an array of military grade assault weapons and opens fire on the innocent.  The reason it's so chilling this time is because so many of the victims were young helpless children.

Now we begin to state why we believe this happened.  Many are blaming our violent culture: TV, films, video games and web sites that do nothing except further enhance what many see as an increasing culture of violence.  I agree in some regards with that.  We do live in a society that seems to enjoy violence.  We also seem to be pushing an ever expanding envelope when it comes to what's deemed "acceptable" in entertainment.  The TV landscape is dominated by Reality Shows whose sole purpose seems to be rewarding the moronic, useless, argumentative, indignant or a variation of all of these. Video games are extremely violent and only seem to be getting worse.  Films are violent and so are the lyrics in much of the popular music...but again: we've heard this before.

This is all old news and, yet, nothing seems to change.  In addition to the aforementioned I have been thinking a lot about education and the role our schools play.  I have worked with and taught a wide array of children in my life.  I have taught at an inner city school, a school for children with autism and a High School for children with behavioral and emotional issues.  The one thing that keeps popping into my head is how we all know who the kid was who did this horrible thing in Connecticut.  We had a variation of him in our elementary, middle or High School.  In fact, there may even be a student like that in class with your child right now: a highly intelligent, disaffected, socially awkward, perhaps mentally disabled child.  Maybe you made fun of him in middle school or High School.  Maybe you stood and watched when he was pushed around on the playground.  Or maybe you did what most of us chose and silently dismissed him as "weird" or "different".  It's time to change that.  I think that schools need to identify these kids and work with not only their teachers but also parents and family members to get them help early on.  So much of what we see today is the result of social and/or psychological dysfunctions that are not properly addresses or treated.  Why is that?

The young man who did this suffered from severe psychological problems.  I saw an interview with one of his former school counselors today who said that the young man did not feel emotional pain.  The other thing the counselor said - that scared the hell out of me - was that the young man was also incapable of feeling physical pain.  Knowing this, you have to ask two obvious questions:
1.) Why wasn't this young man given proper and/or top notch treatment and care?
2.) Why, knowing of his disabilities, did his mother keep military grade assault weapons in their home?

It's the second one that gets me.  Why, as a part of her son's treatment, wasn't the mother educated about the dangers of having these weapons - especially with a mentally disabled son - in her home?  Is it really her "right" to have these military grade weapons in her home when it clearly is and was a danger not just to her but also her community?  Also, why wasn't her son placed in a special home?

The cynical side of me believes this has to do with money.  Could the mother not afford appropriate or proper care?  Maybe her insurance wouldn't cover it?  What about the schools?  Were appropriate programs put in place to help this young man?  If not, was it because they were not in the school's budget?

These are just questions I have and I'm hoping to get answers.

I have not checked in on my Blog in a while.  It is now November of 2012 and just as this school year was getting ready to start, I was informed that I would not be returning to Newark...and it was not my choice.

They shut six public schools in the city and although mine was not one of them, they took a displaced music teacher from a closed school and moved him into my position.  This had nothing to do with the job I was doing but because the teacher has tenure and I do not.  It was a simple case of bureaucracy combined with seniority.  It did not matter that I had formed relationships with many of the troubled children at the school nor that I managed to keep the strings program alive, stage four concerts and start a school drumline.  I also helped many children through tough times - like my colleagues.  I managed to do all of this and I am not even a "real" teacher.  I am still trying to earn my certification...which is a whole other story.

I have learned a lot from my experience in Newark.  In fact, I have learned so much that I am writing a full book about it.  Many of those things will be covered here for every and no eyes to see.  What about the education process in this country?  How are we training teachers?  How does our society view teachers?  Should kids in an inner city like Newark be expected to learn like kids in a suburban community like mine?

I asked my kids last night why they think they have to learn science and math and do you know what their answer was?  "I don't know."  Mind you, my son is in advanced math and is a straight "A" student, my daughter is a straight "A" student as well and her reading level was just evaluated at a seventh grade level (she's in fifth).  Despite this, they can't tell you why they are asked to learn the things they are.  Why is that?  If two kids from a suburban school district can't tell you why they are learning what they're learning do you think kids in the inner city can?

This is the tip of the iceberg and something that needs to be written about at length.

Two Weeks From Hell

In the last two weeks the following things have happened at my school:
- As I wrote in an earlier post I was choked by a third grade boy.
- One of the most beloved security guards at our school was attacked by a fifth grade boy and punched repeatedly causing severe bruising on her arms and back.
- A third grade teacher was pushed so hard by a boy in another class that she fell over.
- A seventh grade teacher found out that her blood pressure is too high due to stress and was told to take a two week medical leave.

In addition to all of this, Miss M, the dance teacher was also hurt and took a medical leave.  Miss M is a massive presence in our school and losing her seems like the final blow.  The school is out of control and the kids know it.  I feel terrible for many of the children because they are scared, confused and frustrated.  There is not much learning going on and how could there be?  If you noticed - many of the incidents that are occurring at my school are being done so by boys.  The male population at my school is in crisis.  These boys are terrified.  They also lack self esteem and - as I have said numerous times - a male influence.

As a teacher, the last two weeks have been crazy but I'm not leaving.  I'm committed.  I'm determined to try and make a difference.  Many times I look at the kids from the perspective of a parent not as an educator.  These kids are being robbed of something and it's not just an education but also their lives and development.

I have to try and change that.

Where Are the Men?

A third grade boy tried to choke me today.  He put his hand around my neck and had a look of sheer anger in his eyes.  He was fighting with another boy and I broke up the fight by pulling him off.  I put him into a door jam to calm him down and he grabbed my neck.

I don't blame him for anything.  This child is angry - like most of the boys at my school.  They are young boys or men and most are mad.  I feel terrible for them.  They need help and I am not talking about academic help.  They need a man to not only look up to but talk to and express themselves with.  I don't know how they would react to me because of my skin color.  Is this wrong?

I am a father before I am a teacher and I am the father of a son and a daughter.  I see what I give my son and these boys don't have that.  The boys at my school are starving for a male to lead the way.  I don't know that I am that man but damn it I'm gonna give it a try.