Ass Kicked By A Faggot

Bombing of London, WWII

My general position on violence is that it is wrong.  Self-defense aside, there's generally better ways of handling conflict.

But not always.  Not in all worlds.  Not in Afghanistan, for example.  Or maybe South Korea.  The North fired rockets at them today.  There's a little daily ritual I do to rouse the students out of their chairs 3rd period to pledge their allegiance to the flag.  (I know they think it's silly.  So do I.  But they're public school students, and part of a larger normative process that we share in creating: society has summoned them forth, no matter how tired, sad or stoned, to their calling - and we will honor that process.  As an atheist, I feel particularly silly 'round the God bit.  But I tell them this.  Pointedly so.  When the odd goth chick says something like fuck America, I thank her and remind her that her views are perfectly valid.  While she stands.) 

So today I spoke to the conflict in Korea, and wondered aloud if it hadn't been too long since we had a real good war.  You know, with lots of raping and killing.  Because that's what our countrymen faced in WWII.  The Nazis had maps and plans for invading America.  "And don't think they wouldn't rape your mother..."  And what would the flag be then?  A call to arms of course - no more of this stupid gangster dopehead crap.  "You, Jose, get up there on that ridge with a rocket launcher!"  War is God-damned hell and people do terrible things.  So you fight back.

I overheard a student later in the day plot the fight he was going to have this week.  "Just wait 'til he gets his ass kicked by a faggot!", he said.  Then he pulled out his cell phone and left a message on the subject's phone.  "You gonna talk shit then you better back it up.  And without your boys around!  We'll settle this shit right now!"

The student is a real pill.  He's loud and obnoxious and acts as if the world can kiss his skinny golden ass.  And he's gay.  He comes from a thoroughly gang-related family (his "people" were affiliated with the student shot in the head a couple weeks back).  He talks non-stop about the drugs he has either done or is planning on doing.  He moves quickly.  He's hyper.  He's a joker, spitefully daring the world to challenge him.  He's a force to be reckoned with, a fighter.

I could only imagine home-life was painful.  Until a teacher told me today his Dad beats the shit out of him.  Where's CPS?  Apparently, they don't deal with teens.

Apparently a neighborhood kid has been giving him a hard time, calling him a faggot.  Then yesterday at the street fair the kid and a group of his friends caught him alone, jumped out and beat him up, smashed his cellphone.

I called him over and asked if there wasn't a better way to resolve the conflict.  He said there was two ways it was going to go: with a verbal agreement, or the kid getting his face smashed.  I tried to reason with him.  What if it escalates?  "It ain't gonna escalate.  What you think, he's gonna go tell his friends he got beat down by a faggot?!!" Maybe there was some other way.  I racked my brain.  He headed for the door, "Don't worry Mr. XXXXXX", he told me, "I'll be fine."

I couldn't think of anything to say.  He had a point.  What was he going to do?  Call the cops?  Right.  And this kid wasn't going to stop.  This is a community with no adult supervision.  The adults in control are no match for those who aren't. 

When I taught elementary school I always felt a bit hollow sometimes when teaching students to "do the right thing", to "talk it out".  This was usually best.  But children are sociopaths in a sense.  A child could be sitting there, minding his own business and someone could him him over the head with a shoe for no reason.  That's no way to live!

Public education, always the microcosm of the larger planet, has its bad actors, its rogue nations and genocides.  And just like in the real world, the good people, the adults, the police can't be everywhere at once.  And in some situations, it may just may more sense to stand one's ground. 

How was I supposed to tell my student that he shouldn't punch this bigot in the face?  When they leave our doors they're on their own.  It's a war zone and they need to survive.  Without police, without capable parent supervision - and these are teenagers, mind you - it's every kid for his or herself. 

I hope he avoids a fight.  I hope his dad never lays a hand on him again.  But hope won't keep him safe at night.  Sometimes when I ask students why they even bother coming to school, if they never do any work in class.  Because home is worse, they tell me. 

And so I'm glad they're with me, even if the lessons I've slaved over mean nothing to them.  Because at least when they're with me there's still hope.  And that's something.

School Violence and Real Teaching

 Mark Kleiman emphasizes that kids need to feel safe in their neighborhoods and at school:

"It also leads some of them to construct informal alternatives to state power for mutual self-defense. Alas, those institutions are also capable of collective aggression; we call them “gangs.” All the random psychologizing about how gang membership provides a substitute for the family misses its role in providing a substitute for the state. If we really want to shrink gang membership among juveniles, we might start out by making non-membership safer."

While I agree, I'm not sure sure this is an avenue that will bear much fruit in the long-term.  Many of his commenters throw up their hands and complain (again) about the failure of public education as an institution.  But we must remember that what schools are being asked to do - and rightly so, in my opinion - is take these broken children and offer them a chance at success.  And not just the victims, but the perpetrators as well.  Because are they not all victims in the end?
 
There is a lot of room for growth in how we fight bullying and violence in our schools.  The current reform norm via charters & NCLB have actually created an environment in which a lot less experimentation is possible. State mandates are often created by people who have little experience in actual education and it means endless wasted hours for those of us who want to make our schools better, distracting us with top-down bureaucracy that distracts from the business of site-level analysis and serious reform. But there’s of course some good too.


I work with at-risk gang populations at a continuation school and fortunately we have the benefit of small class sizes. I have students who are able to get the kind of one-on-one support that no comprehensive classroom teacher would be able to offer with 35+ students. That makes me just one more person in his(her) life who he knows cares about him and facilitates his emotional acculturation. This means that when he walks out my door to the lunch line he’s that much less inclined to react violently to a negative situation.

Obviously there needs to be sufficient policing. But the culture of a school (something incredibly hard to quantify) is possibly more important. There’s a ripple effect from violence, hate, anger, etc. that can overwhelm even the best security measures. In my own classroom, I know that things happen behind my back because the students are very good at not being seen. But through handling bullying and conflict appropriately, which often means directly in a smaller class, provides rich opportunities for improved student self-awareness and an orientation toward compassion. Students know what is wrong and what is right, but they often lack the tools to get through conflict in a safe and responsible way. A lot of gang/bullying/etc. behavior comes from a simple ignorance of appropriate responses to stress. 

Now, the fact that so many of the students are coming from high-stress homes, with few or no positive adult role-models, makes this process very fragile. And honestly, I’m not sure every teacher is cut out for the work, as it demands difficult to identify, high-level emotional skills. But there’s also little room in the day for this type of instruction, much less in any kind of serious, targeted curriculum – especially in high-risk neighborhoods where everyone is simply trying to survive academically and everything is focused towards reading & math scores. But school may be the only place many students will ever receive the type of moral leadership and emotional skill-building that they’ll need to be successful in life. It should be on the agenda of every school board and site administration.