If

Today we made it onto Channel 9 News.

Riots are actually a much calmer sight than you’d imagine. Waves of children surge slowly, then pick up speed, their brawls rippling outwards until it seems not a single child remains peaceful, except for the few dotting the outskirts with their phones, wild to record the scene. Perhaps it just feels like slow motion because that’s how the adults react, gently moving towards the widening epicenter until they hit the melee and vanish into the crowd, to re-emerge later with black eyes, bruised ribs, and ripped-off id cards clutched in their hands.

The front of the school

Today our campus resembled nothing so much as precinct headquarters. By the end of the lunch riots, the parking lots were cluttered with cop cars, and by the office building, a paddywagon was stuffed with children (“What’s a paddywagon? … Oh, that’s a paddywagon.” “You ain’t been here long enough, Ms. W”). Long enough to reflect that maybe the word “paddywagon” has racist origins? Huh. 

A policeman poked his head into my IB class, in between lockdowns, while my students stared at him in trepidation.

The back of the school
(yes, those are all cop cars. you'd think it was the precinct parking lot)

“What grade is this?” he asked.

“Juniors,” I responded with confidence, certain that none of mine were the ones he was looking for. He nodded and moved on. The kids returned to work, as I pondered their tremendous strength to ignore their surroundings.

Ten minutes later, a facilitator who had been on duty all morning came in. He gave me some things to sign, and then sighed, loathe to leave.

“It’s much calmer in here than it is out there,” he told me. I nodded in commiseration: my duty post seemed a joke, as fights surged around, too many to even comment on, let alone stop.

Before we knew why we were in lockdown, some of the students
got a little nervous... and hid under the table. Adorable!

As I walked through the school, everywhere I went, I heard teachers picking their students out of the crowd: “You stay out of trouble, you hear? That wasn’t you, was it? And it won’t be, will it?” We’re all checking up on our most at-risk, well-aware that come Monday, some of our kids will have vanished into suspensions and the courts. The vibe is still cheerful, however, as even in the midst of the chaos, teachers teach and students learn, and every teacher delivers this lesson in some variation to the students who need it most:

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!