Lost Innocence/Innocents

So it's been a while since I've posted about... stuff. I've only been back at school a week and there's so much going on, so much swirling around in my head. When I get more of it sorted out, I'll write, but for today, one thing I've been trying to figure out how to write about...

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This semester, I'm beginning my job reading to six 3rd graders in a Harlem public school who have been designated 'struggling readers.' Our group of Buddies is assigned to four different schools around the Harlem area, and the past couple of days we've been visiting schools.

On Tuesday, our visit to a school in central Harlem involved talking to a social worker affiliated with our school who also works in the elementary schools. She brought in guests from two of ten preventive agencies in Harlem to talk about their work and provide us with a mental health context for the kids we may work with. Certainly I have heard my share of stories about the troubles that beset youth in low-income urban areas, but never could I have imagined what I was hearing.

She told of students exhibiting 'strange behavior' that warranted concern that they may harm themselves at school or at home... so much so that while they prefer not to call the paramedics because of the sirens and disruption and their general opposition to children being strapped down, sometimes they have to... or how even when they don't call the paramedics, they make sure the child is taken to the emergency room and sometimes hospitalized. These are children, I cry out to myself inside. I cannot conceive that the world we live in is one where eight-year-olds are intentionally trying to injure themselves... of a world where a social worker needs to accompany her six-year-old student to Bellevue Hospital where she or he is receiving outpatient mental health services... and that this is not surprising to those who work in the schools. That while we see multilingual posters throughout the subways proclaiming free medical insurance for all who need it, that this qualifies a family to only three mental health visits a year. Try telling that to the parent of this child.

Heavy stuff, I know, but it's been weighing on my mind ever since I heard it. Nothing like a harsh dose of reality to put things in perspective. But don't get me wrong -- I've also been seeing many things in these schools that give me little ounces of hope, particularly the people: the teachers, the principals, the school district staff, and the preventive agency reps that are so deeply and firmly committed to helping these children in any way they can. You've got to believe that that's worth something.