On Street Smarts

Watching the Sandy Hook students performing at the Superbowl, I started bawling. The music, the children, and the symbolic healing that is coming from the brilliant foundation: sandyhookpromise.org

Back here in Oakland, there have been a lot of ramifications for the Newtown shooting. The most recent notion that teachers ought to be armed in dangerous schools. Um yeah... Oakland School Board... way to put on the thinking caps with that one.

The interesting thing is that the week before the Newtown shooting, there were several other shootings... the one near Andrea's sister's elementary school, the one just outside of Isaac's home that lodged a bullet into their wall, the one that killed Loxxi's sister, or the one that startled Alyah's grandmother into a heart attack. When my students heard about Connecticut, they felt sorry for these kids, but not for reasons I'd expected. They noted that the Newtown kids grew up in suburbia, so nobody taught them how to run away or how to protect yourselves from stray bullets.

They know.

Some give it the detached term "street smarts," which seems to indicate a savviness in the way the world works. If ever the topic of funerals were to come up, these kids have an entire series. Lighter news comes in the form of the boys discussing video games and how to deal when CPS takes you away for awhile. Girls share tips on mascara and how to react when your house is broken into in the middle of the night... when you should feign sleeping, when you should hide, when you should run away, and when you should brandish your parent's weapon.

Yes, "street smarts." As thought there's no difference between being aware of your surroundings and living as though you're in a war zone... day on top of day... trauma on top of trauma. It's enough where I just want to rip out my hair and shout:

MY KIDS ARE NOT STREET SMART! 

They are more detached than anybody from the way the world ought to work. 

STOP F-ING TRYING TO SOFTEN IT BY CALLING THEM STREET SMART!!!!

Please... just allow them their innocence... just one more year...


Andrea's mom stayed in my classroom late today. Twirling her fingers, with very few people to speak with frankly, she shared with me the fear for her girls... the feelings of failure when she was unable to shield her six-year-old from seeing her first murdered body. At least Andrea was nine when she saw her first. I just hugged her, and that's really what we should do in the face of trauma... create the ways in which we know how to promote healing. Otherwise the kids become hardened... defiant... angry perpetuators of the "street smarts" they've seen modeled.

I'm glad that the Superbowl showcased these kids, and for the healing that it promoted in their community. I just wish that my students had the chance to isolate their individual trauma, and experience the same scale of healing for themselves. Praying for my kids in the car... and I know that they will.

They will.