my first glimpse at the recession

A few weeks ago, a kid set fire to a bulletin board in the main hallway of the third floor. we scoffed at it because frankly, the rising number of crazy fights seemed more important.

Then yesterday some kids set fire to three separate bulletin boards in our school on two different floors. One that was in front of a classroom, trapping all the kids in. Our school building is over 100 years old. It is in the shape of an H, and one of these fires was at the top corner of the H. The teacher had to make the decision as to whether to keep the kids in the room and hope the fire wouldn't rage out of control, or have the kids run THROUGH the fire to get out. He did the latter. Everyone was fine. The fire was put out in a matter of minutes, as where the others, but scary nonetheless.

A colleague and I were talking about WHY this is happening. Amid the school discussion of installing metal detectors and surveillance cameras, Louise and I sat for a brief chat this AM wondering aloud if it was the recession. The holidays typically stress our students out. The lack of family, lack of money, and increase in materialism is just a toxic combination in a low-income urban environment. Then add the recession to this equation (ie: make money tighter for folks for whom it was already as tight as possible) and we have a disaster. Anger, fear, sadness all manifest in behavior issues at school, and we're stuck trying to keep the kids from beating each other up or setting us all on fire when the real problem is much, much deeper.

My friend Lisa is moving back to the USA from Serbia next month and she keeps asking me about the economy. I keep telling her that I'm not feeling the recession (safe teacher job, we rent, no uncontrollable debt...), but I actually think I am--indirectly--at work.

If you're someone like me who is not struggling amid this recession, please consider giving money or time to organizations that are helping those who are hurting. There was an article in NY Mag that outlined the many non-profits who lost money b/c they were mainly funded by Wall Street banks/firms that have gone under. I'm about to write a check to the NY Food Bank now.