Bimsmile is the pseudonym for one of three teachers who have been documenting their first year teaching in NYC.
I have a friend who teaches 4th grade in the Bronx. One day last week she came home crying. A parent had stormed into her classroom, screamed obscenities and instigated a fight between her son and his classmate. She loudly encouraged her son to beat his classmate up and informed him that they would be waiting for him later. What sort of an environment are our students growing up in, that a parent would be encouraging such violence?
Last week Carolyn, a young freshman student of mine, came into class with two rather large scratches around her eye and a quarter-sized burn mark on the top of her hand. She was animatedly telling the others about the fight she had gotten into the previous day. I was surprised at the amount of enthusiasm she seemed to have in her voice.
Her fight was like her first kiss. She seemed proud to have had the experience. Her emotion must have set the tone for the entire event, because some how I didn’t give it much thought. It’s part of their young lives I thought.
After hearing about another one of my students getting into a fight a few days later, I’m having serious second thoughts about it “being part of their young lives.” I’m currently reading Geoffrey Canada’s book Stick, Fist, Knife, Gun and for anyone interested in this topic, I would strongly recommend it. It is helping me try and understand violence among kids.
Now how do I share this understanding with my students?
Two boys jumped Sammy, a 14-year old, tall lanky Dominican boy outside of school as he was on his way home the other night. Apparently they hit him at least twice in the face with some sort of hard object, a lock I believe. This sort of violence, upon such a sweet young boy, strikes a chord close to my heart. I was angry, sad and curious. Why, and how, does this sort of thing go on?
The violence only continued to build that day. I stopped by the dean’s office on my way out of school and noticed Glory sitting in the corner. Her leg was shaking, moving up and down like a sewing machine in full swing. Her eyes were a little glossy and when I asked her what happened, I could hear the fear in her voice. She said something along the lines of , “they’re keeping me here for safety reasons.” Apparently there were rumors about her starting a fight between two boys, one of them being her boyfriend and that she was going to get it next. I didn’t push her for details, but I was almost scared for her.
I can recall times in high school when I was afraid of being beaten up, but I don’t think the threat was ever as real for me as it was, and is for her. These kids think that violence is the answer. They think it solves problems. Maybe for them, it does? I don’t know the type of environment they are living in, nor how necessary violence is, but I do know that violence hurts. Carolyn was physically hurt, Sammy was physically hurt, I was emotionally hurt and Glory was mentally hurt.
* All names of students were changed
