The candlelight vigil was yesterday after school. Originally we had heard that it would be maybe at her home, which would have left me a little more apprehensive of going. It was nice to be able to go, but a few things in particular were very sad. First of all, except for about two or three students, it seemed as though the only attendees were our black students, which reminded me still how far we are from having a diverse student body in the sense that everyone gets along. Racial issues are still strong, and cliques at school leave rifts between Latino and African-American students. Secondly, it is very clear that a lot of our male students don't have a positive male role model in their adolescent lives just based on the fact that no one has properly taught them the correct way to express their emotions. So many of the boys at this vigil were incapable of sitting in silence and we downright disrespectful simply because they don't understand that it is okay for them to be visibly affected by the death of their friend.
That is the story of this week though - I have a handful of students that are acting out in ways that make me feel like it's the beginning of the year again. It's horrible to say, but I hope that these behavior problems can be attributed to their response to this week of madness, and aren't instead some freak coincidental development that I will have to deal with for the next month. I'm already at wits end at this point and I am counting down the days until spring break. It's hard not to be a little fed up with school when you have to wrap your head around the fact that somehow your administration is STILL moving new kids into your classes with only two and a half school weeks left until the state test. Oh yeah, and they were failing their other math class, so I'm so very glad that I have now inherited their sure-to-be-amazing test scores.
Still no word on when the funeral will be; the family is trying to raise money right now so that they can even have one. So sad.
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