Fighting and Mixed Numbers

The day after the Police shootings, things settled down a bit. More kids showed up today, but our absenteeism is so high it's difficult to point to the shooting as the cause of Monday's absenteeism. Mondays and Fridays are tricky in poor areas. Many families share childcare arrangements between several houses. It's common for kids to spend every weekend across town. Often those kids go there on Friday and don't make it back by Monday. I have a student who has missed 48 days of school already and he didn't even enter my school until early November. He's seriously behind. I'm sure that surprises you.

I'm shaking things up to try and grasp the quickly fading attention of my students. As the temperature heats up all thought is replaced by hormone driven action and reaction. Recently four of my 5th grade girls have be fighting with two 3rd grade girls over a 5th grade boy. The boy is the biggest mess you can imagine and when I see one of my brightest girl drooling over him my latent paternalism surges to the surface. It's all I can do to keep from shaking her and screaming, "He can't read and he has no desire to. He's been suspended over a dozen times. The number would've been higher, but the principal's given up on him and refuses to have any more meetings with his mother. You are smart. You have a future. Please, please, don't throw it away on him."

But I don't. I can't. She wouldn't listen, the principal would get wind of it, the boy's mother would find out, Mr. Bobb would would probably hear of it, for Christ's sake, and I'd catch three kinds of Hell. (That's six less than they catch over at St. Aligheri's Roman Catholic School, but it still ain't fun.) So, the kid is on her own. Praise the Lord, and pass the birth control.

The only excitement to make the police blotter today was a fight around mid-afternoon. The classes were changing, which is a very orderly sounding way of saying that the middle school doors were sprung opened and for the next fifteen minutes about a hundred middle-school kids run screaming through the halls, in and out of bathrooms, up and down stairs, banging on doors, knocking people down, kicking on and slamming classroom doors, groping members of the opposite sex, eating, drinking, cursing, hiding, throwing things, ducking out of the way, and generally reenacting the Fall of Troy and the first night of the Bounty's arrival in Tahiti.

There is often a fight, but they usually get broken up quickly by kids, the fighters dragged away. It's very formal and a bit like nineteenth century dueling, but in baggy, sequined clothes and with lots of witty repartee like "Bitch" and "Gay" being bandied about. A few insults, a few punches, the seconds swoop in, and honor is upheld.

But then there are those kids who don't recognize the rules. On such kid is Jawan (not his real name). Jawan is crazy. He is a 6'2", 170-180 lb aggressive, erratic, 14 year-old, ball of fury. He tells teachers to fuck off. He calls one teacher "You Fucking White Bitch." He regularly suggests to another teacher sex acts he like her to perform on him. He sits in class and throws pencils and books at the teachers. He has smashed: 2 windows, 1 computer, 1 monitor, 1 glass door panel, 1 trophy case, too many students to count. He doesn't mess with the two Black male teachers because they have made it clear to him that will take him behind the building and beat the crap out of him if he tries anything. Last month he threw a clock into my room, smashing it against the far wall. I still don't know where he stole the clock.

Today Jawan was angry. I could tell because he was breathing. I don't know why he went after the kid, but there really doesn't have to be a reason with Jawan. I heard the security call and considered heading down the hall to help. The call was from one of the female teachers' rooms and our security guard is in her late fifties and not exactly an intimidating presence. But today, I felt I couldn't leave my room. My kids were on edge and the noise of the fight was stirring them up. If I left the room, if I even turned my back, I'd have kids running to the door and out into the hall. I stopping teaching, walked backwards to the door and quietly pulled it shut. I kept my eyes on the class the whole time, flicking my stare to the kids most likely to rush toward the excitement. They twitched, but my silence and and stare nailed them to their seats. Learn how to that in your summer training, TFA Wunderkinds.

I positioned myself so that I could see what was going on, but the students couldn't. So much of teaching is positioning and peripheral vision. I saw one of the middle school teachers standing back and letting it happened. Jawan's victim had turned on him and slammed Jawan into the lockers. There are times when fights don't need to be broken up quickly. Jawan careened off of the locker and got his legs tangled up with the other boy's. They fell in a heap and Jawan was on top.

Before Jawan could punch the kid in the head, the teacher and the security guard stepped in and dragged the boys apart. The other kid went limp and turned away. Jawan was furious. He had been beaten, all the kids knew it, and he would have killed the kid if the teacher hadn't grabbed him. He yelled and screamed obscenities, which stirred up the crowd to no end. At least four boys had torn off their shirts and were frantically waving them around above their heads. The din was overwhelming.

To my astonishment, the police showed up. Two serious cops closed on Jawan and grabbed him. He shoved one policeman and, before he knew what happened, he was handcuffed and being dragged none too gently to the police cruiser. I bet he bumped his head on the roof of the car as he was helped into the back. Those cops were a block away from were five cops were shot last night and one was killed. They were in no mood to be sworn at and shoved by some kid.

My kids stayed more calm than I expected them to. They did a good job. But let's say learning was slowed a bit. I find Mixed numbers interesting and you can make them dance around a bit with a little practice, but it was tricky getting my students' minds back on the need to make Improper Fractions into Proper, good little Mixed numbers. A fight always stirs the juices and closes the mind.