Paris, the world famous city of art, literature, culture, fashion and romanticism was rocked (and the rest of the world along with it) by a series of terrorist attacks this weekend. Trying to explain to my own children what had happened, I found myself pausing, moving back and forth from the details or facts to inevitable pauses when it came to explaining the why. I found it easier to narrate these events when my emotion, be it sadness or anger or both, rose back and forth between the what and the why of these tragic events. Emotion lends certain fluency to tragic narration.
I began thinking how the children we serve in our schools in Newark and Detroit might be processing the deaths in Paris this morning as they head back to school. Did their parents discuss these events with them? Did they find it difficult to narrate and explain? And how are the children processing this information?
When you grow up in a neighborhood where the sound of gunfire is part of the routine, how does that affect your thoughts on Paris? If, even at a young age, you’ve lost friends or family members to violence, what does terrorism mean to you?
Last year, one of our students in Newark died unexpectedly. The year before, we lost a student in Detroit. Religious fanaticism may be something they are not familiar with. However, the sudden loss of life without warning or explanation, including those close to you, is something many of them know all too well.
There’s a numbness that sets in for children around tragedy. I realize that is a generalization. However, I observed first-hand how our students, coping with death and violence, continually absorb these forces even though they have not yet developed the intellectual or emotional apparatus to communicate these events and release their pain.
Because of their life experiences, our students expect the world to be quite unstable. In some ways, they are more advanced or realistic than we adults are. They are less rocked by these events because their baseline of tolerance for violence and loss of rights, freedom and even certain values is much, much higher than we have as adults.
How do we communicate with our students about these complicated issues? We create schools that are, at least for a few hours a day, a sanctuary. We let them know that there is at least one place where they can count on being physically safe – a place where the adults are sensitive and caring.
Before the school year started, we polled our teachers and asked them how many of them grew up in conditions similar to their students. More than half of them raised their hands. These teachers had grown up in very tough conditions. They’d never say “poor” conditions because they generally had at least one parent who shielded them mostly from the realization that they were poor – a fact they only later realized as adults. At least half of these teachers lost a loved one during their early years.
When we’ve had to make difficult staff retention decisions in the past, we recognize that these decisions are often felt most deeply by our students. Our new Principal at our charter school in Newark has been asked repeatedly by parents “Will you stay for the long term with us?” Hugs, high fives and long personal conversations are the norm in our schools between faculty and students. We seek to provide a sense of permanence that’s missing elsewhere in their lives.
We operate an alternate universe in our schools. I think all schools do in some way. Inside our schools is where the numbness of reality erodes and is rebuilt by an emerging new reality of stability, continuity and hope. Maybe we all need to be back in school for a while.
