The "Baggage" they Bring

I'm really glad that in Bill Ferguson's post in early April, he linked to the ABC Newsline broadcast comparing "The Wire" to the reality at Baltimore middle schools. I had heard about that segment, but never had the opportunity to view it in it's entirety until I watched it this morning. I have similar mixed feelings regarding the ABC show's racialized depictions of Baltimore. They significantly gloss over the fact that the middle school that they visited (what middle school wears navy polos? I would love to know which school they went to) was under control and teachers were teaching. This directly contradicts their opening assertion that middle school is where it all falls apart. Clearly in some cases, it doesn't. Why didn't they talk about what makes for a successful middle school in Baltimore and what factors indicate failure? That would have been a more interesting and honest angle to pursue. Also, I was troubled by an administrator's statement that the students bring so much baggage (and so few schoolbooks!) that we cannot expect them to perform. It's true that many students face significant problems in their home lives, but many of those same students cling to school as a stabilizing force in their lives. We cannot excuse them for our expectations because of what they are going through. Perhaps we can modify what we want for severely troubled students, but to say that we don't expect them to do anything is ridiculous.

City Paper has an interesting cover story this week that examines the plight of one family whose children bring the "baggage" to school mentioned by the administrator on the Newsline report. The reporter Erin Sullivan follows the saga of a West Baltimore family who are run out of their Section 8 house by local corner boys who think that they are "snooty" for not doing drugs and going to school. An altercation occurs between the father and son of the family and two corner boys that results in a minor shooting, the family's house is firebombed, and they drift around for three months trying to get a new housing unit. Navigating the dead-end bureaucracy of city agencies, they family is final able to find a new unit and pull their lives back together. All throughout the piece, Sullivan refers to how much the children want to go back to school and pick up their studies. She makes it sound as though that is their lifeline to normalcy and the site of many of their dreams. And the children are by no means perfect, all but the youngest have criminal records (possession, assault, gun charges), and they have lived amidst drug dealers and users all of their lives. Still though they reach out to school as a stabilizing influence. The family's story speaks volumes about the attitudes of our students. All but the most jaded see some value in education. They are simply not able to translate that abstract value or purpose into consistent, concrete action. They know how to do right, it's just a matter of getting through all of the mess to allow them to do so.

It seems as though one service that could be added into the all-ready strained budget of our schools is a program that would teach students how to function in school. How do you sit, take notes, organize information, make a study schedule, ask pertinent questions? But most importantly, how do you do all of those things in the face of adversity and contingency? I envision that this kind of program would be entirely practical and get students to think about what they are going to have to do in each situation to maintain their focus and success. Maybe I'll just try and propose this at the next school board meeting...