Harper High School

After listening to Harper High School on NPR any complaints I have EVER had about my students and my District and our problems seem really minor.  Instead of wise and mature my students seem immature. Not a bad immature a naivety which comes from living in a safe and over protective area  

I am in awe at the idea of having to move my students to a street would cause them to automatically have an affiliation with a gang. 13 years ago I graduated from a High School outside of Portland, Oregon. We had many gang affiliations at our school.  I can remember we weren’t able to wear certain solid colors or items such as bandanas and jump suits.  When I graduated I was asked if I could speak with teachers at a district in Eastern Washington where they were just beginning to have gangs.  I was to talk about my experiences and the meaning of different gang symbols.  It seems as if the factions and clicks have changed rapidly.

As a parent I cannot imagine moving to a street would automatically cause my child to be affiliated with a gang.  To walk to school in the morning they would be safer to walk down the middle of the street than to walk down the side of the street with a group of people, but not too large of a group.  This seems like too much for youngsters to have to deal with.  Yet for the school and the state the solution has been to pump money into it so they can afford counselors and the right people to help these kids become positive members of society.  It seems like such a tragedy that when they are just starting to do well the money will end.  Everything that is helping everyone to get along inside of the building will go away.

My brother-in-law, a teacher in Chicago, posted on Facebook this comment the other day, “One of my students in my special education class wants to get out of a gang because things on his block are getting too real—shankings, shootings.  At the same time, he thinks going to Mexico to work for a drug cartel would be cool because they behead their enemies.  Another wants to be a “good boy,” but he also wants to use a gun to defend his block against rival gangbangers who shot his gangbanger friend.  I let them talk pretty freely and try to get them to think about consequences.  Other students join in the discussion in support of safer choices.  Getting out of a gang doesn’t happen over night.  Staying out of a gang is a daily choice.  Over the course of the year, I see growth in moral reasoning, good judgment, and ability to stay out of trouble.  None of this measured by the AT.  With the gutting of tenure, how does a teacher evaluation system based heavily on growth in test scores encourage teachers to spend any time on what is really important to our students?  Students in middle class suburbs or small towns may face difference issues than students in cities, but the importance of teachers in non-academic growth is just as great.  Students deserve authentic assessment and teachers deserve fair evaluation.”  After listening to Harper High School his post has a whole new meaning. I am even more thankful to work where I work and to live where I live.