Things I don't understand

Interesting incident today. K----- said something about M------’s mother this morning, so M------ got up, walked all the way to the back of the room, and pulled K-----’s chair out from under him while he was sitting in it. Of course, K----- jumped up off the floor and got in M------’s face and the two started fighting, pushing and shoving up to the front of the room, I, meanwhile, alternating between demands that they stop what they are doing and commands to the rest of the class to stay seated in their chairs. Then, M------ slammed K----- into the wall at the front of the room, at which point I directed him to leave the room and go to the office. He responded by walking to the back of the room, picking up K-----’s backpack, walking back to the front, soundly shoving it into the trash can, and resolutely spitting on it as a last blow. I again asked him to leave, and he finally did, only to come back five minutes later, retrieve K-----’s backpack from where I had placed it next to K-----’s desk, and return it to its place in the trash can.

I don’t retell this merely to vent or even to enlighten you about what exactly goes on in inner city classrooms in Kansas City. Rather, I have the very particular purpose of asking the question: what is it, what combination of experiences, what sort of psychological make-up, causes a ten year-old to behave in such a way? Lack of attention, surely, but there are many other ways that children demand attention that are not so extreme or so odd. M------ has a very rough life. He is homeless. His father is in and out of the picture. He is considered a thief by the other children and a miscreant by the teachers. But how all this translates into the actions I saw today is beyond me. My background in psychology is far too limited.

If M------ were my only student who did things like this, and if this were the only time that he had done something like this, the questions would stop there. But many of my students do things that are equally bewildering, some of them on a daily basis. How did each of them become the way they are? How do their interactions play into these extreme actions? How does their common socio-cultural environment create the impetus for such behavior? I really don’t know. I'm working on it though.

Places

I’ve been reading this book lately, Coast of Dreams: California on the Edge 1990-2003. First of all, I highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in any way in California. It is superbly written, totally fascinating, and extremely enlightening, especially for a born-and-raised Californian ex-pat such as myself.

            Reading it has brought up all kinds of interesting reflections along with bouts of nostalgia and homesickness. One of the most intriguing of these has been a new way of contextualizing my place here in a place like Kansas City, Missouri as well as this place’s place in my life. California really is a place of extremes and I do think that growing up there had a really affect on my psychological development.

Kansas City, on the other hand, is in the odd position of being in the “mid-west”, “west” in the American lexicon signifying the frontier, a place divergent from the norm, and “mid” at the same time implying that it is at the center, the core, of American life. Kansas City really embodies both of these. I recently took a trip to St. Louis and was struck by how distinctly “eastern” that city felt compared to KC. The prominence of more ornate old world-influenced architecture in St. Louis starkly contrasts with KC’s distinctly western eclectic mix of hyper-modern (P&L), faux-Spanish (the Plaza), and turn-of-the-century industrial (crossroads, west bottoms) buildings. Of course, KC can hardly be considered a frontier of any kind in modern times, when competing with SF or LA, but it does retain that hardier and more rough-and-tumble feel than many places to the east. At the same time, a look at the people crowding into the Shamrock gas station on 47^th and Mission for a taste of Okie Joe’s barbeque on a Saturday afternoon provides what every Californian would recognize as a typical slice of America’s heartland (though I always feel a little uncomfortable in the company). The same can be said for the numerous churches dotting the landscape, the party-goers packed into O’Dowd’s on a Friday night, or the fans in the field level seats of Chief’s stadium.

All of this provides a very interesting backdrop for me as a Californian. On the one hand, the things that make the west coast so different from the rest of the country never have seemed so stark. At the same time, I feel a deep, guttural connection to elements of this place, especially after my first bite into a Z-Man sandwich or after hearing the anthems of a rock band from Joplin blasted through their Fender amps. I have never felt so homesick in my life, but at the same time I know that there will be things that I sorely miss about Kansas City.

To close I want to make note of the fact that I am referring in this post to white Kansas City. Black Kansas City is another world entirely, and one which I have a much different and even more complicated relationship with. Of course, the two are closely tied, but I would argue that they truly are two different realms.

Ideals and reality

I think maybe that's what this whole ordeal will end up being about: finding the intersection, the functional relationship, between ideals and reality. My belief in social justice, through my daily interactions with my students, is transformed by my love for them as people. Which is prior to the other? Of course the ideal was the motivating factor in my positioning myself thus in the first place, but from whence were these ideals born if not from my love of humanity, that love which now manifests itself in my relationships with my students.

What is a teacher? This exchange begs the question. On the surface, a giver of knowledge and an organizer of daily life for children. A layer deeper he is a moral guide and a role model, a sculptor of character and behavior. But there is a deeper, more human layer. This layer is borne in deeply personal exchanges of hatred and love, in screams of anger and proclamations of joy and pride. It is something akin to the relationship of parent-to-child, but it has yet a different character. It is deeply personal, perhaps the deepest non-familial, non-romantic relationship I have encountered.

Given this it is no surprise that such a genteel, sheltered person as myself would be absolutely destroyed by engaging in such a relationship with a group of children that harbor so much anger and frustration as my students. In this dichotomy we begin again to run into the relation of ideal-to-reality. The difference in our identity, and its presumed sources, is a reification of those motivating ideals of social justice.

How then does one conceive of the struggles of the classroom in this context? I have to find something in my own peaceful, reflective, intellectual (bourgeois?) soul that is stronger than their anger and frustration. It is an unknown enemy to me though. Or maybe conceiving of it as a battle or a struggle is wrong outright. Perhaps the quelling of that anger will come through recognizing it, accommodating it, and ultimately redirecting it.

All of this is complicated by the social structure of my school context, where I am the clear outsider.