Please Leave Your Hammers At Home, Dear Students

People sometimes ask me if I am afraid to teach at my school. They say it with wide concerned eyes, like they imagine me dodging sniper fire in the hallways. (This has yet to be the case.)

I’d be foolish not to recognize that a classroom situation can turn dangerous. But I also keep in mind that all schools–not just mine, not just the ones on this side of town–can be dangerous.

Being a human can be dangerous.

Some examples do hit close to home though. Like today.

Two of the students in my class were sentenced for their part in beating a man with a bat and a hammer.

This of course is not the sort of headline you look forward to reading about the kids you spend 40 hours a week with (or however many hours they turn up for school).

Its the sort of thing that makes you think about adding a new rule to your syllabus: please leave your hammers at home.

But darkness–consequences, suffering, hardship–forces us to places where we can see things we can’t always see in the light.

And in the darkness, I choose to see hope.

I hope my students do too.

Do you?