Skip to main content

Homicides

Oakland just had its 42nd homicide of 2006. Last year at this time, I think there were 18. The tribune ran a story about last year's homicides that is interesting - also one about the families of some of the victims.

One of the people killed is the uncle of a student in my class. He owed someone money, so that someone killed him. I have not yet known any of the homicide victims in the years that I've been here, but I have no doubt that I will eventually. That is not to say I haven't been affected by the violence - most of the students I've had have had a relative or neighbor killed, and many of them witnessed it. One child saw her dad shot in the face when she was six years old. One boy's dad was stabbed to death - luckily the kid wasn't living with him at the time. Another victim a few years back was an honors high school student - the shooters meant to get someone else. Once someone's uncle was killed because he was Mexican. Someone else's cousin was shot in the head (in front of her) by the rival gang from down the street.

Most of these kids come to school the next day because they don't have anywhere else to go. It's not like they're going to get grief counseling, and everyone else is just as traumatized so they can't really help the kids. It's a strange mix of being such an everyday occurrence that it seems normal and no one having any idea whatsoever of what to do. So many of the kids are here with PTSD trying to learn - or just sitting in the chair shaking, as the case may be. And I don't know what to do. Except just be there.

A side note: the teachers' union scheduled a strike for tomorrow. (I'm not striking - I listed my reasons here). The district was hiring subs for $300/day, saying that they would not stop the children from coming to school. Today, AFTER SCHOOL, they decided that we just won't have school tomorrow. But since they didn't decide until after school, parents don't even have one day notice to find somewhere for their kids to be. So many of them will be on the street or at home alone. I can't decide if I'm more upset at the union or the superintendent, but I certainly don't think anyone around here is putting the kids first like they all claim to.

So, if you pray, please pray for this situation.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Stuffed Animals

There are several much more serious stories I was going to share, but I'm not in the mood to be made sad tonight, so I'll tell you all about the stuffed animals.  This is a post that needs images so someday when I have or borrow a working scanner, I will add the photos. A few years into teaching, I joined Freecyle.  For those of you who don't know Freecycle, it's a group of people in any given community who are on an email list to get rid of their old stuff and get stuff from other people.  It's a fabulous form of recycling. Somebody posted that they had a huge bag of stuffed animals in good condition to give away and I decided to grab it for my class. I thought that some of the kids would like the stuffed animals, but I certainly didn't think they'd all be into them.  Kids grow up really fast in that neighborhood, and when you have six-year olds talking about how they walk to school alone because their parents say they're "grown," and how

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 prison but I still