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I'm home with sick kids today who are resting, so I've had time to read around here and post a bit. I've been a bit shocked at some of the replies today.
First of all, we have to realize that many, if not most, kids today are angry. Full of rage kind of angry. That rage comes from many sources: knowing that their future isn't as bright as it would've been twenty years ago (and yes, they get this), losing parents, losing friends and family, poverty, not feeling safe at home or at school, you name it. There are many good reasons for our kids to be mad. When they don't know how to handle that anger, they lash out, first verbally and then physically.
In our alternative high school of 176 students (decent mix of urban and rural, all ethnicities including Native American students from a nearby rez, mostly poor but some from middle class and upper middle class households in the area), over 80% of our students have lost one or both parents. That's a huge part of why they're at our school. They have learned at a young age never to trust adults, that adults let them down all the time and in every situation. Why would teachers or administrators be any different?
We have many homeless students, several students who are parents at a young age and are living on their own with jobs and childcare woes already, and many who are hungry. They're not the usual teen-level of hungry: I mean they only eat at school with the free breakfast and lunch program. It's difficult to learn the level of math we require today (our math teachers complain of many concepts they have to teach being ones they didn't learn until their upper-level college courses) when you're starving, homeless, or exhausted from being up with a baby all night after working second shift.
We also have many students who don't feel safe at home and spend the evenings at friends' houses or locked up to stay alive through the night. One student woke up in the middle of the night once to find his mother holding a shotgun to his head. She pulled the trigger, but the gun didn't go off. He ran out of the house while she tried to fix the gun. She's in prison, but now the grandfather who's raising him is dying. I don't wonder why he's stoned most days and doesn't care about predicate nominatives or Romeo and Juliet. He's not the only one of ours whose parent tried to kill him.
If all you've known is poverty, constant moving around, hunger, fear, and death of loved ones, it's awfully difficult to care about school, let alone trust the adults there. We spend a lot of our time in school developing relationships, connecting with kids, getting them to write about what they've been through as a way to process it, and getting them the help they need. I could go on and on about the ones we've helped get the medication they've needed and the difference it's made. I've even hired students to help out at the house with chores I have a hard time doing, as have other teachers, and even got a great babysitter, too. I've sat and cried with students when they've talked of not knowing where they're going to sleep that night and when they've wanted to kill themselves. We give out a lot of side hugs at our school--only if a student asks for it or says it's okay.
I'm not saying we don't have fights (we had a memorable three in 15 minutes a couple of weeks back and wondered what was going on). We do, but we focus most on preventing them. We have group and individual counseling, and our administrators are amazing when it comes to conflict resolution. We all run when we hear something's starting, or if we can't, we lock the doors to keep other students from getting involved. Anyone caught fighting is automatically sent home for the rest of the day (which can really be a problem, as we have a limit on absences for class credit), and sometimes they are suspended for longer until their parent or guardian can come in for the meeting to decide about whether or not they can come back.
We don't graduate everyone who comes to our school, but we work darn hard and try. Last year, we graduated 77 students who would not have graduated any other way, and most of them are in a trade program of some kind or at least in community college. We've had many students who are the first in their family to graduate from high school who've then gone on to graduate from community college or a trade school program, and we are proud of our grads.
Not all alternative high schools are as wonderful as mine, as I've found in subbing in the other ones in the area. As our students say, ours is the one that cares. If you take these students, get them fed and whatever else they need, and make sure they know that you care, it's amazing what can happen--all without metal detectors, cops on site, or teachers hitting the kids. Our students get hit enough and need school to be a safe place, a place where they can be themselves and focus on their futures. Once their basic needs are met, it's amazing what they can do. I could spend pages and pages on all the times they've awed me in their perceptions, their abilities, and their intelligences, but I won't. Instead, I just ask you if using violence on kids who are so used to it at home could ever work as well as love and respect can.
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