With our children’s future, we are reaping what we sow

In the service of gathering material for my column, I had an upsetting 30 hours recently.

My story begins in the maximum-security section of the Adult Correctional Institutions, in Cranston, where I’d gone to sit in on a literature class. In the course of discussing two short stories, the inmates had gotten to talking about the powerful appeal of having a “bad boy” image.

One inmate said “I knew from an early age — 13 — that this was the life I wanted. And that I’d go to prison. When you’re 13, you know it all. I went to the Training School, but I didn’t admit I was wrong. I wanted to make my mark and be spectacular. I was out in seven years ... and then caught 25.”

He paused. I realized he meant a 25-year sentence. “It was only then that I knew...” He trailed off, but the other men nodded, presumably because they, too, had figured out too late that the bad-boy dreams would not make, but break their lives.

Thirteen. His dark road was mapped out when he was 13. As luck would have it, the next day I’d arranged to shadow an eighth-grade girl, following her from class to class, from the first bell for homeroom to the end of her school day. While standing in the hallway waiting to see her face in the throng of pubescents burbling through the doors, I wondered how many of these 12-, 13- and 14-year-olds already knew their path. Who among them wanted the sex, drugs, and danger of the appealingly “bad” life?

It seemed like there might be a few, judging by the ugly sentiments blaring from the front of T-shirts. The school is a typical urban school with large classes, a big, old building and a population mostly eligible for federally subsidized lunch, which is to say their families are poor. The school hasn’t time, staff or inclination to find out why a child would wear a skull and crossbones on his chest, as though he himself were toxic. Or why a seriously overweight girl with a sweet pink top would sport a necklace that boldly said “bitch.”

Coming off my prison experience, I wanted to jump in and interview those kids to see if there weren’t some way to guide them away from the dark ideas they seemed to be embracing. But I was not there to keep anyone from trouble.

When the last bell of the day rang, I dashed back to my office to deal with business. I could hardly concentrate, thinking about the kids and the prisoners. Then that very evening I went to another low-income community to follow a “tracker,” local slang for a community worker.

This young woman is responsible for helping maintain 25 “state-involved” adolescents in their homes. Various red flags — often raised by the schools — brought these kids to the attention of the state’s Department of Children, Youth and Families. The tracker’s job is to make sure the kids get to school, monitor what happens at school, take them to appointments and intervene when there’s trouble, of which there is plenty. In the evening, she checks on them at home.

So I went with her into the homes. Some were pristine, with pictures on the wall, homey arrangements on the table, and great pride in the details. Others were slovenly. Clean or unkempt, though, they all had massive, omnipresent televisions, and literally every one of them was showing a spinoff of the crime series Law and Order. I asked about the family backgrounds and the genesis of the kids’ troubles, but the tracker gently waved me away with, “Let’s just say they have lots of issues.”

Toward the end of the evening, there was one boy in particular who was in bad shape, beyond enraged. He found malice in the slightest statement of his peers and teachers. He felt duty-bound to stand up for himself and fight. The tracker and the mom tried to reason with him, but he would have none of it.

All I could think was: Is he 13? He could have been. What on earth got him going in this way? And assuming he’s already fixed on a dark road leading to a bad place, who would be in a position to pull him back? Could this rage have been prevented? That’s when I had to call it a day.

I’m a gardener, so especially in the early summer, I think in horticultural terms. And I’ve always felt that our high-tech, speed-obsessed, time-strapped culture has a tendency to forget that kids are organic. They have a nature. You can cultivate them or you can let them grow wild in troubled families, dangerous neighborhoods, low-expectation schools and crime-obsessed media culture.

In the last heady 30 hours I felt like I’d seen the life cycle backward, from the harvest of prisoners, through one patch of soil — a school — and then on into the planting of the seeds at home. I had not seen a promising child garden.

I generally focus my attention on schools, but that night the whole life cycle seemed problematic. I had seen so many kids and adults in a short span of time who were not growing well, largely because their contexts were not nurturing.

The schools still seem like the best hope for redeeming the life trajectories of our more troubled populations. Schools are well positioned to reach out to families and to affect neighborhoods. Most do not yet choose to do so, though to be fair, most do not feel they have resources to put toward such work. But to improve the schools, our educators, parents and policymakers need to care more about what’s happening beyond school.

Julia Steiny
11 June 2007

http://www.projo.com/education/content/se_educationwatch10_06-10-07_BL5TTUK.2399e00.html

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