Yesterday, Trayvon Roberts was killed in a fiery blaze following a car accident (the early reports are that he was joyriding in a vehicle with other youths) in the early hours on the west side of Chicago. He was going to be an 8th grader this fall. He had been a student of mine until this year. Given birth by a mother addicted to drugs, growing up in East Garfield Park and being a male, life was never going to be easy for Trayvon. And it was not. He came to us as an energetic 5th grader lacking skills in almost every department. Yet he had a personality that could light up the Earth. At the beginning of the school year this fall, as his mother was trying to resume a role in his life as his guardian, we saw the effects of this within our walls. Within a period of about a month, he had received at least three detentions, as well as being suspended twice. In the fall, we made the difficult decision to no longer have him as a student. **As a private school, we did not have the educational/psychological services to deal with a student with such drastic needs**.
Trayvon was like and unlike any other student I have had in my years of teaching. He was like my other students in that he was black (as were 99% of the other students), low income, and from the west or south sides of Chicago. He was like them in that they signed up to go to school from 7:30-6pm each day. But he was so very different. It was apparent that he had seen (and I am quite sure participated in) things no child should see or do at that age. It was all the more amazing that he made it two years in a school where the emphasis on academics and behavior is rigorous.
We graduated our first 8th grade class last month. When they entered in 5th grade, on average, they tested at a 3rd grade level. When they graduated, they tested, on average, at an mid-10th/11th grade level.
I point that out for two reasons: 1) I am proud and honored to serve at a school where we are doing roughly two years of progress in 1 year and 2) It was highly unlikely that Trayvon would have ever hit those heights in such a short period of time. It was not that he wasn't motivated. Just the contrary. It wasn't that he didn't have a caring guardian. His aunt (his mother's sister) took him in when she certainly did not have to. It wasn't that he did not possess the intelligence. He would frequently get C's in my class. This is all the more amazing when you realize that even by 7th grade, his reading skills were 3rd grade at best. Moreover, if you examined his writing (both spelling and appearance), you would bet your house that it was the writing of a struggling 2nd grader. He could barely read, his writing was barely legible (he had never been taught how to write properly - when we write, we don't even think about it; write a C on a piece of paper - you start at the top, then draw a half circle to complete; Trayvon started the other way. He wrote backwards or in some other unorthodox fashion for almost every letter of the alphabet), and yet he would get C's on tests. How? He would memorize almost everything I said in class, ask questions, and then recite back the correct responses on assignments and quizzes.
I saw Trayvon twice in the past three months. The first time was when I was leaving school in the evening. I was aboard a bus when I saw him hanging out on a street corner with five or six other boys at least 4-5 years older than he was. The second time was when, unannounced, he showed up at our school for a couple of hours (during a school day, mind you) to pay us a visit (his doctor's appointment had been scheduled in the morning; his school would not allow a student to come to school for the first time past 11am). While we were excited to see him, it left an indelible impression on what he thought his new school was like. Yesterday when I received the news through the phone, I didn't think about a life lost or what he would have become. Instead I thought back to the two times I saw him in the last three months. Why didn't I get off that bus that spring day and give him a few words of wisdom? Why wasn't I more excited to see him when he came to school and caused only a MINOR disruption by walking into the lunch room? Surely I could have done more. Surely we could have done more. Yesterday, Chicago placed another tally mark next to its saddening list of Chicago Public School students to have died this year. I write this to highlight the details of one of those lives, a student given a deck of cards rife with GD's and Vice Lords, pimps and crack mothers, schools that quite literally set up their own 'Fight Clubs' (among students), food and liquors with bad food, no vegetables but plenty of liquor, crap teachers with resources (a proper education is so much more than resources; if I gave you the choice of having your child educated with a laptop included, a new school bus, new books and a terrible teacher who yelled at kids all day or a good, hard-working teacher with 3-year old books that students had to share, what would you choose?) who do everything but teach, babies pushing babies and liquor bottles and needles that grow from concrete.

Dealer wins--again.

quickie

This is my first blog. I write with an open heart and mind/write to put my mind in rewind/write to reminisce and wish/of moments filled with sadness and bliss. So without any delay, I'll begin.

I'm sitting here on a beautiful Saturday here in Chicago. There are few things better than sitting on a couch, blinds open to let the sun in, feet up on the ottoman with good music in the background (current artist is Adele - just in case you're wondering).

I want to get blog #1 out of the way so I'll end. Here.