As you all may know, I am a high school teacher. My students qualify for special education and many of them are involved in gangs. Most of them have been labeled all of their life and to be honest, they have earned most of the labels they have. They have seen their share of fights and are not good at backing down. Push them into a corner and they will come out swinging.
Now, when my students break the rules, I am all for punishing them. Trust me, they are no strangers to punishment. They are actually pretty much used to it. What I do have a problem with is when there is a fight on campus or some type of new graffiti, they just assume it is my students who are responsible. As if the other 2,600 students are above that kind of behavior. Just the other day, I had the security guard come and pick up one of my students from class. When I asked him what it was about, I was told that he had just been in a fight. I called the office and explained that my student wasn’t the one in the fight that he had been in class. In the end, my student was suspended for several days. He had tried to tell them that he wasn’t in a fight but because of his past behavior, they didn’t believe him.
In is unfortunate, but I am beginning to believe my students when they tell me that nobody listens to them. I always tell them to just tell the truth and people will listen. I guess I am wrong. When students have made mistakes in the past, it can be very difficult for them to overcome them. As adults, isn’t it our job to always listen to our students and to not make judgments? Kids make mistakes. Some kids make more mistakes than others. Does that mean that they aren’t worthy enough to be listened to?
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