The Blackboard Burden

I'm coming down the stairs with both of my bosses yesterday to find three of my students, one of them my favorite in the whole class, being pinched by some teachers for tagging on the stairwell walls. One of them, the kid I like the least, was found with the marker in his hand. And when he was asked to write on the wall next to the tag the handwriting matched perfect. Dude was double caught. But he kept up the show. First her blamed the least likely of the three. Then when that didn't work, even with my boss translating that they were threatening to have the cops pick him up, he goes through this whole angry man tirade that instantly turns to begging and tears once the security guard takes the cuffs out. He's literally trapped in a corner with us in front of one entrance and a 300-llb black man with restraints right in front of him. If he admits that he did it all he and his friends have to do is clean the walls, but he won't, no matter how much evidence there is against him.

It's just like how he wouldn't participate in class activities (though I later learned this was because he's illiterate in both English and Spanish), or how he brought a cap gun to school, or how at 13 in the sixth grade he has a rep for harassing girls and is on his way to being pulled into the juvenile system full-time. All of this for a kid who's been in the country under a year, a kid who if he doesn't pull up soon could become just another statistic. I should be concerned about this, even if he is not directly my student. But while I stad there, making sure that there's no foul play in this whole procedure, what I'm really thinking about is how badly I wanted him out of my class, about all the things he did to throw a wrench into my educational plans. I think about all the kids I knew like him, the ones I fought, the ones who dirtied me with girls I liked and there's this deep pleasure I find in the idea of him vanishing from my day-to-day existence, a pleasure that I have to eradicate.

I have to push those feelings completely out of the frame. I can't let my own history in another place and time get in the way of me supporting my students. I have to believe that they can all bloom into young adults who will transcend the expectations set for them. I have to believe that if this kid walks the earth he won't become irresponsible baby daddy four times over and spend his life preying on people he knows are weaker than him in one way or the other. I have to put my cynicism in a block of ice to be left at the back of the ice box in my brain. And that's a new one for me.

Shoutout to Rich for the dinner, Kris for the wine and Ariann for being her usual crazy. I might have the Yellow Bug this weekend. Too bad I won't have the dough for a nice road trip home. I've been missing my people these days. I've been missing my friends, even if home ain't home no more. Two more days with the rugrats and I get a three-day vacation. I cannot wait. I cannot wait. Out.