Our community lost a young man this week in a situation that, frankly, frightens me. Last week, a shooting of the boyfriend of one of our alumni occurred. The two events are related — both gang-involved events. Horrible events, at that.
When I was at the gym last evening, I took occasional glances at the TV screens on the wall in front of my workout equipment. Almost all of the nine channels were turned to local or national news channels. All of those were flashing images of the recent developments in the Holloway case. How many times do we need to hear that particular story? Certainly, the disappearance of someone’s daughter is news and awful news at that; but how did that particular young lady’s story capture the attention of so many reporters, while other deaths and disappearances didn’t or don’t make a mark?
Why do some stories get so much attention in the media, while others are neglected?
And how do teachers deal with the real issues of the day in the midst of frightening extracurricular events like these? Frankly, learning about language arts right now doesn’t seem all that important. #
Her mother kept Natalie’s name in the news. http://www.Foxnews.com has consistently posted up to date Natalee news for a whole year.
Bud,
That’s something I struggled with every day at my former school. It was a place for students with discipline issues but the problems were usually caused by utter chaos in their lives and environment.
It really got to me that I couldn’t help them in so many of the areas where they really needed help. Not that I saw myself as their savior but I cared about those kids (I still do).
How do you make learning state material seem relevant when their friends and family are dying? Why should a girl who was raped by her mother’s various boyfriends care about anything I had to say? I tried hard to at least make it fun but in the back of my mind on many days was the thought that I wouldn’t even show up to school if I’d been through half of what these kids have experienced.
I was busy trying to cram SOL material into their heads when I really felt like they needed something else. It’s students like these- who are living in unsafe environments, who’ve been violated by family members, who are esentially raising themselves- that seem to be get the short end of the stick no matter what.
Of course I can’t answer your questions, not that I think anyone could but I can echo your feelings. I think a lot of teachers out there can. I just had to rationalize that if, if I could just teach them enough and maybe be a decent example I might be able to change an action here or there so they might not repeat the cycle. Maybe.
Like I said, a rationalization and naive but what I had to do.
Natalee Holloway is a blonde white girl. White girls going missing is a “news” story. Black and brown children who go missing get almost no coverage. This happens time and time again. There was a good piece in the New York Times about this back in August by Rick Lyman (unfortunatly requires subscription at this point).
Dear Bud, I am so sorry that you (and your students) are having such sorrow.
Language arts–indeed I think by telling the age-old stories — the Greek myths are full of gore, random violence,family violence, and loss; the Illiad & the Odyssey, the Greek dramas (Iphegenia comes to mind), Shakespeare, first in terms the kids can grasp then dipping into the original language.
I had a situation yesterday while I was backing out of a parking space and a high school boy nearly rear ended me as he zoomed around the corner. When I drove over to confront him he started swearing obscenities at me and I did the same and drove away, but it really got me thinking about how I responded. I started to think about how angry that boy was and how I am going to deal with that anger when I become a teacher. What a difficult task.
I agree with Tom, Bud. I don’t think any of us really have a nice way of dealing with a tragedy such as those you’ve experienced. And to try and answer how I deal with these issues may seem impractical to the next teacher. I do know that being honest and open about your thoughts and feelings with those around you helps (sorry for the after-school special moment there).
You already have a great start at coping with the losses through the community you’ve created here and no doubt have with your students as well.
I have to admit that the Natalee case makes me kind of sick at my stomach – all of the resources that have been expended on her, all of the energy that has been spent mourning her – and yet, every day in this country, younger and more innocent kids have worse happen to them, but because they’re not pretty and blonde and budding sexually and have a parent who’s going to bulldog her way onto the networks…you never hear anything about them.
Maybe I’m callous, but I look at the Holloway case and see a spoiled drunk rich girl who made a really bad choice, a choice that ended her life. Maybe it works as a cautionary tale for other young women (don’t drink alone, don’t accept drinks from strange people, don’t become impaired unless you have a big circle of people you can trust implicitly to take care of you) but all the attention the case gets borders on parody for me.
And I am also disgusted by the case – by the way cases like this (and earlier, the Smart case and the missing-intern case) become the cause celebre and it’s the ONLY thing you hear about – to the exclusion sometimes of bigger deeper more important geopolitical stories.
I’ve seen the “tragic circumstances” students – I’m a college prof and I’ve had students have miscarriages, have close relatives killed, wind up as a sole caretaker for a parent with a terminal illness…and it’s really hard NOT to feel useless at a time like that, to have the sense of “why am I expecting them to be able to do pH analysis when they lost the baby they were expecting?” But you soldier on, and you remind yourself that for some people, going to school in the midst of chaos is a taste of normalcy (I’ve had students tell me that) and it’s welcome to them.
I had similar feelings after 9/11/01 – I spent more than a week fighting with the idea that what I should really be teaching my students was basic first aid, and how to build a shelter in the wilderness, and which plants were edible and which were poisonous.
but I don’t know. Like I said, you find some way to soldier on even if that means putting on a good face in the classroom (and repeating “taste of normalcy” over and over again in your mind) and then going into your office, closing the door, and putting your head down on your desk because you’re overwhelmed.