Flying Breakfast Burrito

Postcards from the front lines of the fight for the future

I went by the place where I like to get a bagel sandwich this morning on my way to the farmers’ market. I noticed that their menu has something called the “flying breakfast burrito.” I asked if the burrito really flies, and the staff says it was a reference to a rock band. It’s a rock band themed cafe so that made sense.

It made me flash back to a day in my teaching career when the kids threw what a called breakfast burrito, but really isn’t (they are doughy looking pastries with “strawberry cream cheese” in them, so they’re basically pure carby sugary junk, as is all school breakfast), across the room. Eighth graders love to throw things. It is known.

I’m exhausted by the end of a day of teaching, and I hope I am making some kind of a difference. It’s definitely better for them to see the same person, day after day, and for me to enforce the rules to the best of my ability, than for them to have a different sub every day or teachers covering on their prep periods. I can provide consistency. I just wish I could do more.

We are fighting an environment that glorifies violence, laziness, and getting away with whatever you can. We try to instill values, a sense of security, and teach some things that will help these kids get a good job and provide for their eventual families. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose, and sometimes it’s hard to say.

It’s very hard to engage higher order reasoning when you are in survival mode. Constantly dealing with flying objects, kids who say and do things that most people who have not been in these situations find shocking, and riding public transit where it’s normal to hear parents cursing at their kids conversationally, one becomes exhausted just from surviving. I’m constantly on alert. I’m responsible for everyone’s safety in my classroom, and my school is way better than most, but when kids are used to roughhousing, they will do it. I’ve been in many situations in the past where kids seriously hurt each other. They are both used to seeing violence in their neighborhoods and unaware of how big they are now.

Kids in these neighborhoods have to operate in a kind of survival mode that makes it very difficult to focus on higher order learning. I admire those who can do it, the parents who teach them multiplication tables (that schools rarely teach now - they get multiplication charts!), parents who read to their kids and follow up to see if their kids are doing their work. I know the parents don’t have it easy.

Growing up is full of confusing choices that young brains are not really developed enough to make. In other times and in other places and other circumstances, these kids would have been considered old enough or close to old enough to go through tribal initiation rites, marry and have families while providing for everyone in whatever way the tribe survived. In other times, places and circumstances, children are much more controlled by their parents, teachers and other adults. Their parents can control them so much and structure their lives to such a degree that they remain children when they should be maturing and becoming independent. My friends who teach wealthy kids deal with tons of problems, just a different set. Eating disorders, social media bullying, suicide attempts… it’s tough for them too.

It’s hard for me to imagine a situation where kids showed respect for teachers on a consistent basis. I have some kids who do, however, a much higher percentage than usual, and I always praise them for asking for things nicely, doing what they should be doing, following the rules, and anything special they do. My home room spontaneously cleaned the classroom last week, and seems to take a sense of ownership over the room where they start their day and return. I love this - let’s hope they take such ownership of their neighborhoods and places of work. When you walk through neighborhoods where there is trash all over the ground, you don’t feel motivated. The same is true of a school. I want my kids to feel motivated every day, and to get used to the idea that it’s everyone’s responsibility, not just the already overworked custodians.

I remember when I was at Yale and a member of the service workers’ union, sometimes rich kids would treat us dining hall workers or the cleaning staff badly or complain that their toilets were not clean enough or the food wasn’t good. For the record, the food was good (especially French fries of all kinds night - Yale friends, do you remember those? Or pasta night? And the salad bar?) and the dorms were kept clean. At the time I thought it was spoiled rich kid behavior to act like the cleaning or cooking staff was beneath them and to leave a mess for someone else to clean up. But no, this behavior is not limited to the rich. Perhaps for different reasons, many consider cleaning up, even after the mess they make, to be beneath them. I once asked a kid to help sweep the classroom and he asked if he would be paid. I explained that no, we all work to help keep our environment clean. He said that if he swept it would be slavery. I said something like, “'I’m offering you an opportunity to improve the classroom. Whether you choose to take it or not is up to you.”

Every day I am literally and figuratively cleaning up messes. All the children have potential to do well. Almost none of them seem to have any idea how important their day to day choices are.

I, on the other hand, do know how important my choices are. It’s scary to be my age and not have the security that most of my friends have, but as I watch them freak out because they have money in the stock market, own property they have to maintain, and are sending their own kids to college, I feel lucky in some ways to have a lot less of an attachment to security. I have freedom and flexibility. Yet I’d love to be in a secure long term sustainable situation where I could do some small good for my piece of the world with a consistent income and health insurance. And a bathtub, somewhere safe. I’ll get there.

At least for today I’ve done the best I could do.