The Tattooed Teacher

About 80% of my students are at poverty or below, the rest are not far off. Based on family income, the child is to receive a free lunch provided by the school, paid for by the government.  Sounds like a good service…but that’s until you see what the lunch is…. 

MENU:

Hamburger and fries.  Everyday? Yes.  There will sometimes be an alternative selection like chicken patty and corn, or turkey casserole with cabbage (many times these choices are very scary). Milk, juice, and fruit also come with the lunch.

QUALITY:

The burgers and assorted side almost always arrive warm or cold, never fresh.  Our school has no kitchen.  Our lunches are provided by a local high school, so a representative is sent over to pick them all up.  By the time he arrives back with the lunches, most of them are not hot anymore.

It has even been found that sometimes burgers were green, or not fully cooked, or that the bun was moldy.  Complaints to the school of origin got us nowhere.  Even when a call was placed to school dietician for the school district, she assured us that the lunches were healthy and beneficial to our students.  Yeah, what lunch are her kids eating?

NO LOGIC:

I’m still waiting to receive the nutritional fact sheet about the lunch.  Burgers and fries everyday?  Healthy? And French fries are considered the vegetable side dish?  It’s unbelievable. And 75% of my students are African American and many of them are lactose-intolerant, yet they are given milk everyday.  The juice says on the box that it is only 5% real juice, and the rest is sugar and artificial colors and flavors. 

Is this how we are to feed the poor?

All I want to know is if this is what the urban city schools are eating for lunch, what does a school lunch in the suburbs look like?

I just happened to catch a radio sermon of some religious conservative preacher the other day.  I’m not sure how it was tuned to such a fire-and-brimstone AM station.  (What’s AM again?  How far are they behind the times?)  Once I was cued to the target in his cross-hairs I was had to keep listening.  He was decrying public schools as liberal wastelands that corrupted our youth with a new religion of secular humanism.  Wow. 

Do people understand the reasoning behind the wall between church and state? Maybe not.  Straight from the First Amendment it says, “Congress shall pass no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” 

I frequently hear people complain “Well, kids these days can’t even pray in public school anymore.”  Well if you believe that, it’s a lie.  Kids can pray anytime they want to and school officials cannot stop them.  The free exercise of religion by a student cannot be stopped under the First Amendment.  They can wear religiously related clothing and jewelry, they can talk openly about their religion, and they can talk to other students openly about religion.  The only restriction is if there is what is termed a significant disruption caused at the school by the students’ religious talk.  If the student was harassing another about religion, or if a student was loudly preaching and calling for repentance on the playground (a true story), these would not be examples of protected speech. 

The difference is a teacher or school official cannot freely express their religious ideas or lead a prayer in school.  This would violate the same Amendment according to the landmark court case Abington v. Shempp (1963).  If a public school official does, it is seen as an establishment of religion by the school.

Other people complain that there is no religion being taught in the curriculum.  Well it is allowed.  The same Abington v. Shempp (1963) court case never said to keep religion totally out of the curriculum.  Studying about religion is permissible (ie., comparative religions, the history of religion, religion as a significant aspect of our culture).  The point being, public school is not a place to be indoctrinated or proselytized to any particular religion.  If you want that, go to church.

Many people don’t know, but students actually have the right to leave school property while school is in session to go to receive the religious instruction of their choice off campus.  Another landmark court case Zorach v. Clausen (1952) established this as constitutional for students.  This instruction should be off campus and not taught by any school staff, but there are no other restrictions on the type of religious instruction received.  There’s one most people probably don’t know about.

Non-curriculum related groups or clubs are allowed to meet before or after school.  This would include any religious groups that would want to participate.  The only restrictions according to the Equal Access Act (1984) are the school cannot discriminate against any group unless is goes against the moral standards of the community or if it goes against the educational mission of the school.

So thinking back to that fiery preacher on the AM radio, I don’t know if that man has ever been in a public school before.  I also doubt that students, parents, and even school officials know their full rights and know the precedents established by landmark court cases on the subject of religion in public schools.

Gang activity in the South is surprisingly high. Crips, Bloods, Gangster Disciples, Vice Lords, Brown Pride, Sur 13, on and on the list could go, subsets upon subsets of each one abound. If you know what you’re looking for you’ll see it everywhere. From cryptic graffiti messages, numerical codes, hand signs, handshakes, color-coded outfits, shoelaces, bandanas, etc., etc…

Each gang has their own way of doing things. This goes beyond what is typically thought of about gangs – violence, drugs, prisons, guns, protection. It is about identity, survival, family, and even education. The founders and the “O.G.s” (original gangsters) pride themselves on having a unique way to define and carry out these goals called knowledge. Knowledge is everything, and is kept very secret. It often what establishes rank or hierarchy among gang members – the more you know, the more powerful you become – knowledge is power.

The South is open territory. There is no true established hierarchy or organization among these gangs, as opposed to the East Coast and West Coast and North where areas and “knowledge” are established. Gang members who move here with their families or the countless wannabes start up more loosely established groups claiming to be one of the above mentioned groups. The interesting thing is that most of these people do not know very much or do not have much knowledge, so what they do and stand for often just comes down to violence, drugs and guns. They really don’t know what they’re doing or what they stand for.

Well if the gangs in the South are not largely organized, that sounds like a good thing, right? Not exactly. With no hierarchy and no established order comes and need by gang members or wannabes to become established. This often means they will do whatever they can to prove themselves.

In my experience the wannabes are more dangerous than the gang members. The wannabes are constantly looking at the gang members for approval. If the wannabe can prove himself, he’ll get in. This could include hitting a teacher or administrator, fighting with a rival gang member, shooting, robbing or killing someone, holding drugs, etc. And if the person is Special Ed., they are much more susceptible to being taken advantage of because might not be mentally equipped to know exactly what they are doing, what they were asked to carry, or what they were told to do and the consequences for doing such things. A person who is Special Ed. has been rejected so much, they will do anything to be accepted, even if it means degrading themselves, getting into trouble, or worse.

All my students are in Special Ed. Most are from the inner city. Some are gang members, many are wannabes. I deal with this everyday. Many people would never give them a thought. They would say something like “weren’t those kids raised right? Where were their parents?” Good question. Divorced, dead, in prison, on drugs, in prostitution, bringing home different partners every night, being physically, verbally and sexually abusive. And in poverty, always in poverty. If any of you get the chance, you should drive through “the hood.” It can be very enlightening.

If you’ve ever been in the hood, or talked to someone who has, they’ll say that there are some people who reside there that are not so nice. They are always looking for prey, an easy target. Who is an easy target? Someone by themselves, a kid, someone who is Special Ed. If you don’t want to be a victim, you join the pack.

I’m going to pick this up again later….