October to remember

Well, I remember thinking that this would have to be the month we crack down on kids and hold our ship tight. We had 5 fights in the past two days and 2 kids taken away by police in the past week. The kids haven't been that bad though, just slightly more adamant than usual. Our response however has been intense. Kids have been constantly threatened that we'll take basketball, dance, etc. from them. We have been needling the fact that we are ultimately the ones in control of their fates and they have responded, predictably, with as much rambunction as they can muster. Today and Yesterday we did a surprise "Lock Down" where the kids don't move all day and the teachers change classes for them. This has responded some kids to act as crazy as they can. One of our basketball players just decided to go run around with fire extinguisher just to show that he could, and then I guess he was resisting so much we needed to have 7 or 8 extra cops show up just to get him out the building. Ironically, he could be back to tomorrow, so could all of the kids who were involved in all of the fights. It is illegal for us to deny any student their education, so they can show up the next day and fight someone else if they want, and this might happen later today after the last fight. We are showing them resolve though, but obviously lock down is unsustainable. How can we have another day without the sturcture and not expect to be without the peace as well? Lockdown is also unsustainable because very little learning is getting done, since kids feel like they are in jail. But having a lockdown society, a society where martial law can be imposed at the whim of the leader also seems unsustainable as well. There needs to be some kind of democracy, the kids and teachers need to feel like they have some say over when a lock down is important or not and when structures need to be tightened or not. This must be the story of November, figuring out what sustainable structure is necessary to get the kids learning