Anger comes in all shapes and sizes, masquerades as male or female, and implants itself in little people as well as big people. It doesn’t matter in this day and age of rage. Through my years of teaching, Anger’s presence has always been a constant, an ever-present underlying discord that permeates each class ready to erupt at any given moment in the form of argumentative altercations, bullying behavior, general disrespect, or fights.
Many children come to school ready to learn, and many others simply pack their multitude of issues in book bags, and bring them to school. Turbulent times find the American child acting out, spacing and racing through the day, not caring or worrying about tomorrow. Destiny beckons but they perceive no need to heed the call. It is an American problem, not a black problem, or a white problem. Inner city children suffer from the repercussions of poverty. They are mirrors of societal issues confronting us as a nation. Violence, hunger, homelessness, ghosts of parents dead from AIDS, and drugs all have seats in the classroom. Many middle class and rich children suffer from loneliness and alienation. They go home to empty houses, where the Internet is their babysitter “My spacing” and “You tubing,” some learning about weapons and how to court hatred, and others possibly risking their virtue in Cyberspace, a no-man’s land filled with adult predators. They too are reflections of the surmounting issues that confront mankind today. Many of these young multicultural minds bond with violence, then grow in confusion and separation; yet, academia is concerned about test scores, not alienation or deprivation.
American education stands in the classroom seemingly oblivious to the brewing social unrest, spouting esoteric objectives from a pinnacle of higher order thinking skills, and I, the teacher am a pawn in this pedagogical web.