Killers
Michelle on Sep 21 2007 at 3:08 am | Filed under: The Teaching
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Two of my previous students have committed capital crimes. One of them robbed and murdered a prostitute, and the other raped and murdered a five-year-old girl. Most of the time, I don’t dwell on this fact. Obviously, I wasn’t the teacher who changed their lives and led them to better pastures.
The thing is, you never know who they will be. The latter was a kid I really liked. He seemed really sweet. I had no idea who he really was. The former, well, he was cold. It was no surprise.
Today, I was playing a vocabulary card game with four of the kids. One of the kids mentioned that he likes to hurt animals. I shut him down real fast. I made it clear that he would get me 97 kinds of pissed off if he kept talking about it. Of course I’ll refer him to the counselor, who will do nothing.
This kid looks like a tweaker. He has sores on his arms and face. He is skinny, unwashed and apparently never sleeps. He’s funny. I like him, actually. He’s a bit like a young Billy Bob Thornton, at least how I imagine Billy Bob might have been. Scrappy. He’s got some pluck that he probably shouldn’t still have at this point. I like that.
I have a wooden cat that sits on my desk. It has arms and legs that move back and forth. Yesterday, he picked it up and its arm went backwards at the elbow. He looked at this toy in that unnatural position and said, “Its mom must have been real mad at it”.
I have no idea what kind of hell this kid lives in.
He says mean things to others. His peers called him out on his remarks today. He was confused. I told him that he said mean things to others frequently, and that I would point it out each time he did it, whether the other person noticed or not. Surprisingly, he agreed.
Monday, we were discussing the (il)llegality of marijuana, a topic that seems to arise often in my group. I asked, “Since you can obtain marijuana easily in the Netherlands, why are so many people strung out on drugs like heroin?”
“Because, Miss, life sucks so much that pot just ain’t enough to get rid of it all,” he volunteered.
What on earth can I do besides model what it is like to be treated respectfully as a human being?
I wonder who he will be? I think he has already fathered one child. Will he be a horrendous parent who passes cruelty along to his child? Will he continue to look at other living things from the distance of one who has been so abused that he must remove himself from as many feelings as possible? Will he kill someone someday? Himself? Or will he pull himself up by his emotional bootstraps and save himself, looking back on his life when he’s 40, passing on wisdom hard-learned to others?
I guess you never can know.
ITK code for Singing The Sky:
Geez, Michelle! I don’t think I could stay in the same room with those two you mentioned. Especially the one who hurts animals. They say that people who are the more serious killers of people usually start out in life by harming animals. I wish I could be as forgiving as you but my first inclination would be to get him locked up for as long as possible. No wonder you are feeling burned out. Having to face kids who are coming from such dismal situations has to be one of the hardest teaching situations. Some things are just beyond our ability to help. I guess we can just do what we can and hope that they change.
Even the guilty need our compassion, eh? That’s just so much easier to say than to actually DO. That you do it on a daily basis never ceases to impress me, Michelle. I always say it, but I’ll say it again. Take care of YOU.
Oh, wow. This makes me think of the one crazy kid I have now, who supposedly has severe ADHD (according to our school psych and our observations), has anger and attachment issues, and has already gotten into two fights in the past month. The few times he’s gotten really angry for not getting what he’s wanted, I’ve feared for my own safety, mainly because of my pregnancy. The kid didn’t even realize I was pregnant until a few weeks ago, even as it’s so obvious. During the first week of school, he even picked up a hole-punch and tried to throw it at the AP, who just laughed it off. Then there were my students from McHell Middle… the guns, the knives, the drugs, the sex. I wonder what’s happened to them. Their family lives were so difficult, I can’t even imagine keeping it together in “normal” society.
Hang in there. Be safe.
It’s hard to look at kids who have been traumatized, neglected, abused, who’ve witnessed horrific things and wonder which direction they’ll go … will they become victims or perpetrators? Or will they somehow have enough resiliency to come out the other side unscathed? The problems are so much larger than one teacher or one school. Thank God, however, that there are dedicated people like yourself who are willing to foster the strengths and assets that will give them a fighting chance.
Peace & love, JP/deb
I can’t say anything relevant or helpful except to reiterate that I continue to be amazed by you Michelle. Much respect.
I would like to have more control over the lives of these kids, and their misery–but that’s a pipe dream. I guess we just have to do our best by them along the way, and hope that they turn around. Some do, and some don’t. As you observed, certain kids we really like do unexpectedly horrible things. Others who seem hopeless end up surviving. I read somewhere that if kids have at least one person who loves them and that they love(a grandparent, a neighbor, etc…) they have a better shot. So, we have to continue to do what we can.
I had no idea that this was your reality. I have no real idea of that kid’s reality, either.
Damn. What chance has that kid got?