Car Thieves and Bad Neighborhoods

This is not entirely school related, but I had my car stolen two weeks ago. Not from my school, but from in front of my house in Alameda. Apparently, according to our neighbors the rat-sitters (ok, it's really a doggie day care, but they're all bite-size yippy dogs, so we call them the rats, and hence, the rat-sitters), it's the 4th Honda to be stolen off our block in the last two weeks. Would have been more helpful information to me BEFORE it was stolen, but...Anyway, after a huge headache and a lot of worry, I got a new (to me) car, which the kids have named Shelby. I don't know why they named it Shelby, but they all seem to agree.

Having my car stolen gives me something in common with a lot of the students' families too. Not my favorite way to find common ground.

The kids are acting crazy this week and wearing me down. A lot of it is because of the shooting this weekend - even for kids who are used to this kind of violence, there have been more murders lately, this one was right close to us, it was a relative of two of the kids just in my class, and of course, it was during the day, which is unusual even for our neighborhood. Their parents are worried, the kids who are aware are worried or scared or sad or all mixed up, and everyone is acting out in a kind of plea for attention and security. It's exhausting me.

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A Loss

(I have been putting off finishing this blog post for months. You'll see why) Today, I was cleaning a bookshelf and I found the journal from one of my third-grade students, who I call Fred in my book , in 2001. I still had it because he didn't come to the last day of school to get his stuff this year and I guess it got put in a pile and somehow I've kept it with me. He didn't come to the last day of school, probably because his family was a mess: dad in prison, mom in an abusive relationship, all the kids (understandably) acting out violently. Fred was expelled from our school in second grade for hitting a teacher. Then he was expelled from the other school, I don't know why, at the end of second grade. He came back on the condition from the administration that he be in my class because I had him as a student in first grade and he listened to me and worked well with me. We had a really good relationship, although Fred was definitely not easy to have in class....

A New Prison, Part Two

Second very long part of the prison visit report. After we got all the paperwork filled out and went through the metal detector, we got visitation slips with the name of the inmate, and made our way over to the other building for visitation. This is not maximum security so thankfully you can just sit next to the inmates, and not be separated by glass or have to use a telephone to talk. First, you get a gate unlocked and go into a holding pen that is of course in direct sunlight (or rain if it's that season) and surrounded by fences topped with razor wire. You wait there until the gate at the other end is unlocked. This holding pen was a little bigger and less claustrophobic than the other prison (I do not have any claustrophobia and I came very close to a panic attack once at the other place) and they opened the other gate more quickly. Then you walk, again in blazing sunlight (or rain) to the visitation building. This one was less of a walk than the other pri...

A New Prison, Part 1

My former student, friend, and co-author was moved to a new prison during COVID. We (myself, Mitali, and his Abuela) have visited a couple of times via the video visit functionality they set up, but we've also been trying to visit in person, ever since in-person visits were allowed again. After four of them being canceled (sometimes we were told why, sometimes not), we finally got a visit. I was super nervous about this visit. (I felt better when Mitali mentioned that she was also, because she is an inherently positive and optimistic person!) I am not proud of this, but there was a large part of me that was hoping that the visit would be canceled, just like the previous four were. I felt a little better when someone I know messaged me privately to tell me that they had had very good experiences visiting a family member in that prison. But I still didn't sleep well at all that night, worrying about the guards, the many things that could go wrong, and the projected 111-degree hea...

Bronwyn Harris, Author

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