Risky Business

 At Risk. These are the words we use to describe a large number of the kids who go to the school where I teach. At risk of being hungry. At risk of being homeless. At risk of being below grade level in reading. At risk of being below grade level in math. At risk of having to repeat a grade. At risk of being left behind. 

At Risk. 

Swallowed up by a city and a state and a country and a world because for whatever reason they have been bumped out of line or pushed aside in favor for those kids who have two parents. A home where warm meals are available morning, noon and night. A safe place to leave their backpacks and a grownup who will check to see if there is homework or a note from the teacher inside. A neighborhood without sporadic gunfire. With apologies to Charles Elliot Cheese, a place where a kid can be a kid.  

It should come as no surprise when kids scream at us. It is the favored tenor of conversation in many homes of the students I teach. Sometimes the parents drop by the school to scream at us. Because they are at risk too. It is quite often the case that they grew up in a household not unlike the one they described above, with the added complications of the stress compounded by generational risk. They are at risk of losing their homes. Their jobs. Their kids. Their minds. 

Into this trauma influenced reality we are going to try and inject a little reading. Some writing. And some basic arithmetic. And we are going to try to get those standards met while pouring in a heaping helping of social emotional learning. If we can get all of our kids to a place where they can learn by giving them the skills they need to be able to shut out some of the noise, we will have succeeded. The primary focus of this task is introducing them to empathy. "I care for others. I care for myself." Giving them all a chance to breathe and look around in a place where the threats have been removed, so that they can do the things they came to do at school. 

And meanwhile, those of us who are running this enterprise need to keep those words in mind as well. Why can't Johnny read? He's hungry. He's tired. He's homeless. He's trying to figure out how to keep himself going in a world that just might not care enough about him. Those of us show up to the school with a good night's sleep and a home to which we can return run the risk of taking that for granted. 

It's not easy.