Yellow House

Last night I dreamt one of my high schoolers shot me.

I have started working half a day a week at a high school which people continue to refer to as "urban." This is a completely coded word, which in this case if unpacked means poor, mostly black, and a plethora of other things I have not asked about. Not because I don't want to know, but because the information I get will come in the guise of concern but really reflect more about the teller than the neighborhood. What I will be told will come down to low expectations, a healthy dose of fear mongering and a dab of general unpleasantness. I would rather discover these things as perceived by the youth who live there. Actually I lied, I really don't want to know about the neighborhood, I'd rather know about them.

What I do know however is there is much in the literature about the 'performance of school' and this establishment is a perfect example of what they mean. The halls are quiet, the doors are closed, students are in classrooms. The end. It is possible Wednesday afternoons are just special R & R periods, because I saw some teens watching a video, and I saw many teens sitting in clusters on tables, chairs and windowsills talking to themselves, despite the fact a teacher was present, but apparently busy working at her desk. I even saw some teens on computers. What I didn't see was teaching. One room had a teacher talking to her students. The rest were supervising at best and the students with no books, no pencils, no anything, genuinely appeared to be entertaining themselves. Quiet was the key here. Unspoken message: I don't care what you do, as long as it doesn't involve drugs, weapons or text messaging, but do it quietly.

So, in my dream, one of the girls on my caseload (who has no interest in speech therapy and I don't really blame her) came to my school, busted in and threatened to shoot me (but didn't). We instead had a discussion about accidental gun related deaths in the States. Do you know America has more youth gun related death than the next top 25 industrialized countries in the world combined? That gun related death is the second killer of youth in the country after traffic accidents?

Anyway, then in a second dream a group of boys came to my house and did shoot me while I was making them tea. Not very hospitable really. My response was one of general relief at not having to work towards my phd any more and then I said 'you all really need to stay out of jail, perhaps you should go to Kenya. We'll get my mum to fundraise.' (The American incarceration statistics are crazier than the gun ones)

And so this is why I am up at 5:21 am even though I don't have jet lag.

Not from fear of being shot but because I got thinking about this, seriously thinking about this notion of taking a group of American "urban" youth to Kenya, and perhaps their parents if they wanted who may well be younger than me.

P would say something along the lines of 'great, just what we need in Kenya' and then give me a lecture about being such a bloody white girl. But in a fit of idealism, imagine for a second the layer upon layer of interesting things you could talk about and learn about and read about with a sufficiently interesting reason to do so. A trip! An exchange. People have been doing exchanges for years. Why only the wealthy kids? Arguably kids who have less access to cash need it more. We can fundraise as a group as part of the lead up to the trip.

Yesterday morning I heard a teacher say 'he came to school high this morning, he was sent home and given a 30 day suspension.' Which part of this "punishment" makes sense? I'd love a 30 day suspension right now.. I bet he will sit home every day and repent his sins. Isn't it just permission to have a 30 day pot binge? Now he doesn't even have to bother with that pesky business of getting to school in the morning. How can an administration like this even claim they want to see their high schoolers graduate? what about a bit of community service in a drug rehab centre, or a bit of toilet cleaning duty in a retirement village after school? Have we totally lost our sense of creativity? Kids have grown dull because they don't even need to out smart the adults these days. The adults are mind numbing..

We spend a lot of time in my classes talking about school, race, inequity, literacy, achievement, expectations.. but it has been a long time since I have spent any time in a high school where a lot of these things play out one way or another in real and life impacting ways. It's been researched, it's been written about, we have solutions, there is just no systematic will to enact them. In America, people of European descent control the power structures including the education system and most of these white people are basically afraid to allow for a better education of African Americans, Latinos and minority populations. They are afraid it will mean less for them, less opportunity, less access, less money. These are not even tangible fears for most people. And there is a cost to not educating everyone. The cost is in what the public pays for all those inmates (25% of the world's incarcerated population are in American jails!) and the general insecurity. All these things are well written about, they are the big acknowledged structures the no one is really willing to do anything about, because it might involve effort, discomfort and well.. because there is something good on television tonight.

So I digress.. but back to my idea. Wouldn't that be a really cool experience? A service learning project culminating in a trip? For both the Kenyan and American high schoolers.. I would stay in Columbus to do a project like this. Now.. how to get my dissertation committee to agree to it?