i got it covered

Went to the third floor (8th grade) to check for one of my students yesterday. Two girls stopped me- one is one of my resource girls, who I like a lot but feel for because she doesn't really fit into the school at all, and her best friend that she cuts with all the time that I am growing to loathe. My student was holding back her friend, who was about to fly into a rage because some girl in her class threw a water bottle at her while she was helping clean the room. It was one of the first times I've had to navigate a racial issue between students at the school. Both girls (my resource girl and her friend) are white, the girl who threw the bottle was black. The school has an interesting race dynamic, in general. It's really diverse, as city public schools go. I have no idea what the actual demographics break down to, but if I had to estimate based on the classes I've seen on a regular basis, I'd say it breaks down to something like 50% black, 30% latino, and 20% white, with a micropercentage of "other"-- there's at least a few asian kids, for example. In that breakdown there's a lot of overlap and mixing- Trish, for example, is white, but her nephew in the 8th grade is black, and they have been raised as brother and sister (fortunately for their overall quality of life, but unfortunately for me, they just moved into a house from a homeless shelter and so transferred schools. Luckily Trish has a fellow TFAer who is a good friend of mine at her new school, so I know someone's looking out for her). Lucky is very vocal about her puerto rican heritage but looks like a carbon copy of her african american father. I don't know how she's counted in whatever school census data there is.

Anyway, I mentally organize the white kids into one of three categories, or at least think of them as falling somewhere along a spectrum between these. There's the white racists, who are following in long intergenerational footsteps of families and a community that are racist, have white supremacist groups, and at some point etched a swastika on my blackboard. Then there's the white kids who culturally are not white at all. This year we're doing a school play of West Side Story. The cast, rather than being white and puerto rican, is black and of mixed latino heritage (mostly puerto rican with some dominican thrown in). There is one white child in the entire play, and he plays Riff, the leader of the Jets, otherwise all black. He's a good example of the type who assimilates; I've never actually seen him hanging out with another white student. His aunt, who was an aide in my classroom last year, is black; I wonder if a lot of the cultural assimilation of those kids (like Trish and Riff) has to do with being raised in poly-racial/ethnic/cultural homes. The third type is somewhere between, and those are the kids I feel for; they're not racist and so aren't accepted into the white supremacist cliques, aren't culturally integrated enough to fit in with the black or latino kids, although they may have friends from those groups, and there aren't enough of them, per class, to form their own cliques. Squirrel was one of those kids. He was transferred to another classroom when Gecko, Jamie, Pockets, Huffy, and Jellyroll (his nickname from his friends, I'm trying to think of a better one cause that one's pretty bad) jumped him and stole his stuff. All of the kids who jumped him were black but Jellyroll, who has a latino last name but whose mom is white, but I don't think it was a racial thing at all; none of them really even disliked Squirrel. I think he was simply an easy target for the side of young boys that wants to cause trouble, which is a pretty universal trait. Now that Trish is gone, Squirrel is gone, and my two potentially psychotic kids both passed through my classroom and were hospitalized, there is only one white kid in the room, Tory, who also falls in the middle category (not counting Jellyroll, I'm not actually sure what his background is). Tory luckily seems to have bonded with a couple of the other kids pretty strongly despite pretty different backgrounds (oddly enough she seems to be closest to Lucky, who otherwise seems to think that every white person is racist and, for example, once accused L of racism for temporarily confiscating a toy that was causing a fight in the middle of class).

The other thing I've noticed about the white kids is something apparent mostly in the special ed kids. The black and latino kids often have serious issues, are violent, oppositional, defiant, etc. Most of them, though, seem to be at least workable, or have problems that are understandable or are capable of managing them with time and effort and care. Cyrus is a good example, as is DJ from last year, or Bouncer. All, the year before I had them, had records that looked kind of terrifying on paper. Assaulting teachers (I still can't imagine DJ biting his teacher...), daily fights, oppositional to authority figures, etc. But then looking at their files, it makes sense. Torture, abandonment, molestation, transient living situations and homelessness, etc. Their behavior is mostly symptomatic of defenses they've built for mind-numbing experiences. But all three are still resilient enough to bounce back, and have (except for Bouncer, who's at a disciplinary school, but I think she would have given enough resources). While Cyrus is a pain in the butt sometimes, he's still mostly a happy, loving, good child.
When my mom went to begin teaching in an inner-city high school a few years ago with serious violence problems, another teacher told her to think of building relationships with her kids as a priority for safety.

"If someone walks into your classroom with a gun, you want to know that there is a kid in the room who would jump in front of the shooter and take a bullet for you."

My mom thought it was overly intense at the time, as did I, but it's a thought that has stuck in the back of my mind (especially recently as I actually now have kids that I think probably do carry guns with them). In my classroom this year, there's a couple of kids that I think might do that for me, but Cyrus is the kid that I know would. Whatever his problems, they haven't completely destroyed who he is, internally, and I think he's actually got a lot of nobility in his heart. He would have made a good knight.

The white kids in special ed, however, are a totally different ball game. Case in point Super-soaker, who was hospitalized early this year, after such stunts as covering people with gasoline and trying to light them on fire or kicking his five year old brother's teeth out. Then there's the kid who was in my classroom for a week due to legal issues and was also hospitalized (I think, he's not at my school anymore at any rate) after assaulting both his teachers before me and who was on something like four heavy duty anti-psychotic drugs. These are kids who are just totally past any resources available to them to help. Love and care from a teacher, which so far seems to be what kids like Cyrus most need, just does not cut it. Nor, evidently, does anti-psychotic medicine or round-the-clock behavioral specialists. I don't know what causes the difference in severity between the groups, and certainly this isn't true of everyone. Just an observation based on the kids I've worked with and know from around the school.

Anyway, while I was trying to deal with the two girls (really only one, the other one who's actually my student was trying to calm the other one down), I ran into Mr. Fart, the "art" teacher who farts on students as a classroom management technique. Because he doesn't actually make anyone do anything, he's fairly tight with a lot of the delinquent end of the eighth grade, and hears a lot of fun/horrific stories. This one, of the several he told me yesterday, was the best (and also involves a small bit of graphic language, while only a minute fraction of what I listened to the girls saying in the water bottle incident). LJ evidently came in with a big black eye, so Mr. Fart asked him about it.

"LJ, what happened to your eye?"
"I got rolled on."
"Well, why'd you get rolled on?"
LJ shrugged.
"I don't know."
"Well, who punched you?"
Another shrug.
"I don't know."
"LJ, a black eye is kind of a personal thing. Generally speaking, you know why you get one, and who the person is who gave it to you."
LJ looked around.
"Between you and me?"
"Yeah, between you and me."
"Well, I was fuckin this girl yesterday at her house, and her brother and his friends walked in on us. So they rolled on me."
Fart mulled it over.
"Well, LJ, I don't want to tell you how to live your life or anything, but uh, I wouldn't really want to be a pop at your age."
LJ shook his head in agreement.
"Naw, man, I got it covered!" he reassured him, and pulled out a long strip of condoms from his back pocket. The next line in school supplies...