This is REAL
It is interesting to see when life really becomes real for a person. People have these epiphanies at different times in their lives and it seems, especially in my case that it happens a lot. It mainly becomes real to me during a birthing process (not me) or during death.
Right now where I work, there are a lot of low income people and for some reason that seems to lead them to being exposed to an excessive amount of violence. Call it society, desperation, whatever but that is what they deal with.
In any case, I only have about six students that I am currently working with and three of the six have stated that they are going to the funeral of a friend. Of the students who are not in my cohort, there have been about 4. That is real talk and most of the funerals they are going to are for people who are in some type of high profile situation. They're death was on the news in some capacity. It is strange for me to see my students walking around with t-shirts saying things like "Carlos (Sad Eyes) Medina 1983-2006. RIP" I mean how do you address that? I usually tell them I am sorry for their loss and then they tell me the story. Most of the time my question is, "So was that the one that was on the news last week?" and inevitably I will get a, "Yes." So I guess what I am saying is that wow, this shit is real.
Ambandenva
2 comments:
Sometimes the hardest part of working with kids is having to talk to them about death. I feel your pain....
And unfortunately it's so easy to get caught in the mentality that "but there's nothing I can do about it".....when in fact there is, ESPECIALLY people like you who have access to these kids/people. "Each one Teach one" is more than just a catchy little rhyme.
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