Meditations on Inner-City Substitute Teaching
This is not a new story. It seems to happen everyday.
He’d woken to the sound of screams piercing the wall of his apartment. It wasn’t until after he’d had his breakfast and coffee that he’d noticed that the screams were coital.
Sunshine avalanched his senses. The springtime had slipped up on him when he’d gotten off the plane, and it seemed reluctant to retreat having seen no threat. It lingered in the background slammed the pavement beside, receded for an hour at a time pummeled with punches to the ears. When he avoided the winter, the winter took it personally and avoided him back.
Work was whatever three-story, spray paint-covered detention center hole-in-the-ground that called him at 5:30 in the morning. Desolation led him to the room he would call office for the next 8 hours. Throughout the day, teenaged kids who never cared about the room to begin with will notice the only incentive not to burn the building down is gone and won’t be back until tomorrow. Work will be to act as warden/babysitter, making sure no one wets themselves (figurative) or writes on the walls (literal).
His task was made difficult by a fact he couldn’t change. His family hailed from Wales, Great Britain and Warsaw, Poland. The students he taught were nearly all from the Northern states of Mexico, or some region on the Western coast of Africa. All assumptions were of his wealth, his education, his car, his hometown. The blue of his veins were plain for all to see. His eyes were green. He was hated.
So there was rebellion. Rebellion against a school that deigned to hold them for 4 years. Rebellion against an entire race for subjugation and ridicule. Rebellion against a 23-year-old man for simply looking young and expecting common human respect for one another.
Just a matter of time before the backlash, and then it happened. There was no violence, no malice, no tangible evil to speak of. Just apathy. Apathy for the true victims. Apathy for the very ones he was able to help. Apathy for all save those who look like him. Because, by coincidence, by sheer consequence, those who like him look like him. Those who do not, do not.
This is not a new story. But it was to me.
He’d woken to the sound of screams piercing the wall of his apartment. It wasn’t until after he’d had his breakfast and coffee that he’d noticed that the screams were coital.
Sunshine avalanched his senses. The springtime had slipped up on him when he’d gotten off the plane, and it seemed reluctant to retreat having seen no threat. It lingered in the background slammed the pavement beside, receded for an hour at a time pummeled with punches to the ears. When he avoided the winter, the winter took it personally and avoided him back.
Work was whatever three-story, spray paint-covered detention center hole-in-the-ground that called him at 5:30 in the morning. Desolation led him to the room he would call office for the next 8 hours. Throughout the day, teenaged kids who never cared about the room to begin with will notice the only incentive not to burn the building down is gone and won’t be back until tomorrow. Work will be to act as warden/babysitter, making sure no one wets themselves (figurative) or writes on the walls (literal).
His task was made difficult by a fact he couldn’t change. His family hailed from Wales, Great Britain and Warsaw, Poland. The students he taught were nearly all from the Northern states of Mexico, or some region on the Western coast of Africa. All assumptions were of his wealth, his education, his car, his hometown. The blue of his veins were plain for all to see. His eyes were green. He was hated.
So there was rebellion. Rebellion against a school that deigned to hold them for 4 years. Rebellion against an entire race for subjugation and ridicule. Rebellion against a 23-year-old man for simply looking young and expecting common human respect for one another.
Just a matter of time before the backlash, and then it happened. There was no violence, no malice, no tangible evil to speak of. Just apathy. Apathy for the true victims. Apathy for the very ones he was able to help. Apathy for all save those who look like him. Because, by coincidence, by sheer consequence, those who like him look like him. Those who do not, do not.
This is not a new story. But it was to me.
