1. A student of mine told me, rather sadly, he remembered nothing of the summer between 8th and 9th grade because he was constantly high on a variety of pharmaceuticals his mother provided him. He said that although she didn't approve of his drug use, she felt that if she didn't provide him the drugs, someone else would. He told me that at first he thought it was pretty cool, but now that he can't think as quickly and the time loss is weighing heavily, he feels his mom should have been less of a dealer and friend and more of a, well, mom.
2. In 8th grade, another student of mine ditched out of her apartment to go smoke weed and drink whiskey with some friends. She became so intoxicated she was afraid of going home so she went to the apartment of a friend of her friend where she passed out. She regained consciousness in the bathroom early the next morning and remembered screaming something in the middle of the night. Then she discovered she had lost her virginity by being raped by a third "friend."
3. Last year, a junior at our school fell in with the wrong crowd and was found shot to death and dumped in a large drain pipe in the cross-over bridge near the junction of the I215 and
4. During football games, we are required to keep students away from the cyclone fence surrounding the stadium because students have been known to throw weapons over the top to accomplices on the inside.
5. A group of boys, mostly part of a large Romany clan that lives in the area, routinely get drunk in the school parking lot over the summer break. One of these boys was a student of mine two years ago and was badly injured when the truck he was riding in flipped over on the way to the lake. Like something out of a Mark Twain novel, he and his brother and cousins were ditching school to go fishing.
6. Today, a group of students identified the feature they most had in common was that they "blazed" and they were too lazy to get up and participate in the exercise. That is, they proudly declared their love of smoking weed and sitting on their asses, in writing, on the whiteboard, in an academic environment, with an authority figure present.
7. A small minority of students become pregnant during high school. One I remember in particular became pregnant at 14 while addicted to meth. Her limbs, face, and mouth (and I presume her body) bore heavily the sores associated with meth use. With her distended, eighth-month belly, mass of scabs, and young-old features, she made the perfect picture of responsible motherhood.
8. Overheard in a group conversation in my classroom with at least 15 other students present: "So he's like got me bent back like this, right, and hes banging away, and he's like pushing my legs further back and apart, and I'm like, ow!" Laughs all around.
9. Overheard in the same forum, different day: "I told I him I wasn't going to have sex with him even though I had sex with his friend. I mean, I might consider a three-some, but not just him."
10. Interestingly, a student was expelled from school for having medieval weapons in his van. He forget to take them out after spending the weekend at the local RenFair.
11. I work in a relatively affluent area with a demographic that is mostly white middle and upper-middle class (a small percentage are very wealthy) with a healthy dose of Asian and Hispanic middle and lower-middle class families. We are considered a desirable high school.
I could go on, but I have homework. I'm starting a program to become a school librarian.
