I spent a semester in an “at risk” middle school teaching sixth graders for about 90 minutes once a week. Mostly black and hispanic kids, a few whites thrown in as well. I loved my kids and we ultimately did some good stuff together. But the basics of what this guy said are true. My sixth graders were not yet young adults like the high schoolers being described here are. They’re not just as big, strong, or as far removed from the childhood years. But you could not get them to sit still or be quiet unless you gave them a very handson task to do. And you could see that most were heading for the future laid out here. I would not have written the same essay that this guy wrote but I could have written one that resonated in many ways with what is here. I think the big difference that I would say is that all my kids save one had good hearts. The one exception was a kid that my sources told me had a dad that was high up in the gangs. One day this kid spent 20 minutes doing nothing but tossing a padlock up in the air and catching it. He dared me to grab him physically because they know how THAT game is played. I had one kid go out a first story window during class (different kid).
The one thing I learned is that until you have spent some time in a classroom either like mine or like the author’s - you have NO IDEA of what goes on - and all the usual ideas that get tossed about more this, more that, less this, less that, are at best, delusional.
Great post.
>>One day this kid spent 20 minutes doing nothing but tossing a padlock up in the air and catching it.
Once upon a time, that kid got to spend time with the vice principal and a paddle. Now, that’s un-PC, and you of course can’t have ill-behaved black children getting disciplined at higher rates than whites.
Two parent black families are an idea that will definitely help but it is an idea that is absolutely anti-PC so Democrats will never discuss or endorse it.