Romanowski;820983; said:
I hear you Grad...my cousin is a middle school teacher for an inner city school in Minneapolis where the poverty rate is 99%.
We could trade stories all day...its a terrible situation that is easier to sweep under the rug or toss into the stereotype bin.
The one story I always tell people who need some perspective...took a ballplayer home one night and insisted on seeing his mother because we needed a permission slip signed for early dismissal...he was a freshman and a phenom. This is after a week of excuses and hedging from the kid...I was young(er) and naive to what I was doing to this kid by insisting.
Pulled into the trailer park...that is a story in itself. The first thing I noticed was that his trailer did not have a doorknob but instead had a stick turned sideways across the door and the place where the knob would normally be was simply a hole. After the boy pulled the door open, I saw the stick was tied by a rope to a rock on the floor...that is how they kept the door closed....no lock, nothing. I wasn't ready for what I saw...trash on the floor, a baby in dirty diapers crawling, mom passed out cold on the couch and her breast exposed. The boy ran over and covered up mom. I looked in the kitchen area. No stove...a hotplate. No fridge...a cooler. I was sick physically and mentally.
We got the kids some help financially and I swear I kept as close of an eye on that kid as I could...but the other influences were stronger than what I could offer. He never graduated, never played another year for us even though he was one of the best natural athletes I've ever seen. He's been involved in minor scrapes with the law on and off.
We gave him a path out but he couldn't take that step. There were too many other things that he needed to handle when he had no business handling them...the boy was carrying the burden of a grown man from the time he was 10 or so.
How many of us comprehend that? I don't mean feel sorry or sympathasize...I mean how many of us can actually say that we would be strong enough to overcome that? Sure, some people do...Im not saying it doesnt happen. However, more times than not, we lose that kid and end up reading about him later. In 8 years, I've taught or coached over a dozen felons including 1 convicted murderer and 2 up on murder charges now. The scary thing is, I thought we could help them and we came damn close...but the other stuff outweighed us. I would have never ever considered that they were capable of killing.
The path we offer isn't easy...in fact, its one more burden. However, I have a hard time simply saying they made a choice and now have to deal.
That simplification of the situation should lay even more fault at our own feet...if it is that simple, why aren't we helping EVERY kid?
