Long Time No Post

I've been wanting to post for a long time...but I haven't had the energy or desire to rehash everything that happens in a given day. I've started about 100 posts, but they all end up depressing and preachy and I can't even stand to re-read them myself, much less send them out for the entire world (or at least my entire world) to read. But today gets an entry because my mom requested it. She said it helps her to hear my words-so here they are, Mom.

Today was terrible. I'm sick of talking about it, thinking about it, and replaying it in my mind, so the description will be brief.

There was a gang-related fight in my closet-of-a-classroom today. My students were working in groups, somewhat cooperatively, surprisingly, when one of my IEP students got into an argument with one of his group members, a mousey kid whom I love partially because he does not speak. Feeling the tension from the other side of the room, I was weaving in and out of the tables to get there before it erupted; I didn't make it. In the name of the Hoover Crypts, the IEP student shoved his table at the other kid, pinning him with it long enough to get in 5 or 6 hard licks to the face. It seemed like it went on forever before I could break it up--no phones in the classroom or set protocol for such an incident left me isolated, dealing with this chaos on my own. The IEP student was crazed, an animal, throwing desks, injuring other kids in his rage, throwing everything off of my desk, punching holes in the wall. Finally, one of my co-workers came in to restrain him. The class was a mess. I was a mess. Completely helpless. These are children--15 and 16 year old children. They live and die by their gangs and I am completely powerless against it. Teaching literary devices and predicate nominatives? That is the least of my concerns. I have to teach these kids how to make peace in their neighborhood before they kill each other, in my classroom.

I'm scared for my students. After the 15 minute fight diffused, the other 26 kids in the room, who I expected to be as traumatized as I was, were not phased in the least. They are also in gangs, rival gangs; they shown no shock or shame about what had just happen. Emotionless, they puffed up their chests and declared that "it don't matter what happens at school, they always finish it in the streets."

Phillip got suspended...for 1 day. Joshua was given no consequence at all. They will both be back in my class on Monday....

This feels impossible.