Taylor the Teacher

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Our school has increasing gang activity and violence. I find this extremely disturbing. Not because I’m afraid for my safety — I’m to foolhardy for that. This upsets me because I hate to see what these kids are doing to their lives, and I feel we’re partly to blame. Or at least, we’re in a position to do something about it and we aren’t being proactive at all. We break up fights and write kids up and go through expulsion hearings. But in 2+ years of growing violence at the school, there is no program in place to teach the kids anger management, conflict resolution, self-respect, or whatever value we feel might help the situation. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

But the administration was sure to threaten students that if they left their trash on the lunchroom tables they would get a $1000 ticket for littering. Spluh.

As my teacher friend said on the IM: Because that’s what we need, litter free gangs.