This past summer I had the opportunity and privilege to work with adjudicated youth.
You can read the first two parts of my little blog series Working with Adjudicated Youth. In these posts I'm not offering advice, just sharing my experience as a first time summer English teacher of adjudicated youth in a detention facility.
The following are some random things I either heard or were
said to me directly.
They are random and I wrote them down as soon as I heard
them. For some reason or another, I didn’t want to forget them.
“See, this is why I like football. You can take out all your
anger!” (reaction while watching The
Blind Side)
“But I am a n---“ (~Latin American young man)
“It’s almost like jail. It’s like slavery.” (reaction while
watching Amistad)
“I got to read everything before I sign it.” (attendance
sheet)
“I aint signing Mr. Flemming’s” “I don’t like him” (my
attendance sheet)
“Can’t wait until the judge says ‘discharge’. Leaving and
won’t turn back.”
“I can’t wait to show the judge.” (particular journal entry)
“I’m not colored.” (~Latin American young man)
“Mr. Flemming, can you take us outside?” (from a kid who
gave me his butt to kiss all summer)
“He may seem like a nice guy, but he can get out his bag”
(one counselor to another who hadn’t met me)
“Yeah, go home ole head.”
1st day
Kid: I’m not going to be here long
Me: Good!! I wish you all the best.
Kid: Thank you sir
“Yeah, I do be disrespectin him.” (kid, somewhat contrite,
referring to me to a former student who was older than the rest of them and
present on this day - more on him in a future post)
“Chill, he good folks, that’s my teacher from back in the
day when I was a young bol.”
(former student referring to me while imparting knowledge to
the younger teens and preteens)
“I like writing. It comes natural.”
“Yoo! You got The
Bully? That’s my favorite book! Have
you read {other books in the Bluford series}?”
“I like {book title—I forget} by Walter Dean Myers.”
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