A short, discouraged rant
I just don't get it. I'm trying very hard to understand, but I just don't get it.
I regularly defend my workplace to the world at large, because there is such an immense perception that an urban school is dangerous and populated by bad people, which is completely false. I've worked for several years now in one of our city high schools, and I have for years now freely stated that the vast majority of the students are great people and with as much promise as anyone else, and having also worked in the suburbs prior (allegedly so much safer and better), that the environment is as safe and amiable as any other.
However, I can't help but really feel let down over the past couple months. This same school I have defended, that I have said such great things about for so long, has in just two months hosted several thievings of my belongings (total value: several hundred dollars), some isolated but immense regular occurences of pandemonium where one can count on going to see unmonitored students acting extremely wildly, and a severely increasing trend of irresponsible and reckless behavior combined with a refusal to acknowledge their own actions. Over the past 24 hours, I have been hit by flying objects twice (once by accident by a thrown book, and once on purpose by a thrown AA battery to the back of my head) and observed several other instances... over the past 24 hours, the exact same lamp in my room has been upended and the bulb shattered twice (once by honest accident, and once by someone not paying attention to what they are doing pushing someone else into it)... over the past 24 hours, three students have related to me stories of having unprovoked violence visited upon them while simply traversing the halls.
It hurts because I really love most of these kids... the representation from the criminal element and the sociologically impaired element is still in the vast minority, but why does it have to be such a vocal minority? Why do so many great kids have to suffer for the transgressions of the small but very troubling and visible set of dispecable peers?
I regularly defend my workplace to the world at large, because there is such an immense perception that an urban school is dangerous and populated by bad people, which is completely false. I've worked for several years now in one of our city high schools, and I have for years now freely stated that the vast majority of the students are great people and with as much promise as anyone else, and having also worked in the suburbs prior (allegedly so much safer and better), that the environment is as safe and amiable as any other.
However, I can't help but really feel let down over the past couple months. This same school I have defended, that I have said such great things about for so long, has in just two months hosted several thievings of my belongings (total value: several hundred dollars), some isolated but immense regular occurences of pandemonium where one can count on going to see unmonitored students acting extremely wildly, and a severely increasing trend of irresponsible and reckless behavior combined with a refusal to acknowledge their own actions. Over the past 24 hours, I have been hit by flying objects twice (once by accident by a thrown book, and once on purpose by a thrown AA battery to the back of my head) and observed several other instances... over the past 24 hours, the exact same lamp in my room has been upended and the bulb shattered twice (once by honest accident, and once by someone not paying attention to what they are doing pushing someone else into it)... over the past 24 hours, three students have related to me stories of having unprovoked violence visited upon them while simply traversing the halls.
It hurts because I really love most of these kids... the representation from the criminal element and the sociologically impaired element is still in the vast minority, but why does it have to be such a vocal minority? Why do so many great kids have to suffer for the transgressions of the small but very troubling and visible set of dispecable peers?
posted by Greg J. Hipius | 11:02 AM
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