Today was a really intense day at school. Some of the craziest moments came during the NYPD officer visiting my classroom and talking about gangs with the students. I was not happy about this when the social worker told me about it. I got my own cop issues, and I wasn’t into the idea of some dude coming in and talking down to my kids about how to act or whatever. But it turned out pretty well. He was really engaging and gave the students alot of useful information and I hope some perspective. I learned a lot of things, actually, which was unexpected.
The most unsettling thing was how much all my students know about gangs–how much of a day-to-day thing this is for them. I mean, I knew that. From talking to them and being familiar with the neighborhoods where they lived. But it was more intense today hearing them talk about the way to get sexed into a gang by rolling a dice and then having to fuck that many members to prove your loyalty. It was one of the moments that I was forced to recognize that the safety, respect, and positive atmosphere I work hard to create in my classroom can only go so far in keeping them safe, respected, and positive.
There is one student in that class that I know is in a gang. I watched him during much of the class. He was very respectful and quiet (not like some kids who walked by in the hallway and screamed “fucking cop! get outta my school!”), though quite angry at times. The worst part, though, was his face when the officer talked about the only two ways to leave a gang: to get beaten out or death. A flash of fear crossed his face before disappearing just as fast as it came. He’s a very smart and kind young man in a bad situation, like too many of my fabulous kids, and times like this it’s really hard to pretend that everything’s cool. Because it’s really not.
On the lighter side, I have been spending a large chunk of my evening checking research papers on poc mathematicians and inventors. Lots of plagiarizing going on, oh yes. But not this last paper I read. This was my favorite part by far: “George Washington Carver was so poor that he couldn’t afford a pencil. So he used one that was 1/4 inches long. It was hard to hold it.” Where do they come up with this stuff? At least it’s original and not the wikipedia entry cut and pasted, complete with hyperlinks in tact. Sigh. Back to work.
1 Comment
January 10, 2008 at 11:35 am
i have had quite a few run-ins with plagiarizing students, but these were juniors and seniors at the university of michigan. some of the papers were so grammatically poor that they were literally impossible to read, as if written in some secret code. here, the penalties for getting caught include failing the course, or even getting expelled, but my professor was very understanding so that did not happen in any of the cases i found.
you’ll have to let me know how you deal with this situation–i don’t mean whether you fail them, but what, if anything, comes out of the talks that you have with your students. for mine, i suppose i blame the lack of school funding and teachers who allow these students to slip through the cracks. i know a lot of people also point to lack of parental responsibility or oversight, which, though important to a child’s upbringing, i feel takes away from the role of the educational system as an institution that should be accountable to the kids for the education it claims to provide…