Gangsta Gangsta!

Professional development is the bane of my existence as a teacher. At no time do I loathe the teaching profession more than during yet another worthless day, afternoon, or hour of professional development. All professional development has done for me in the past few years is provide me with multiple opportunities to realize why nobody takes teaching--as a profession--seriously. Nine out of ten times it's ludicrous. As my old teaching friend Rhonda would say, "I'll cut my arm off--right here and right now--if you can give me something that will work tomorrow in my classroom that I don't already know." Let's just say that I live by Rhonda's creed and I still have both arms.

But I was super excited when my Assistant Principal told me she had booked a guy from the District Attorney's office to come give us the 101 on gangs for a department meeting, claiming it was professional development for us. Wow--it was.

I feel like I know more than most bougie While folk about gangs after my ten years of teaching in a NYC public high school, but the fascinating thing about gang culture is that it is constantly shifting. But Mr. DA's office came in with his PowerPoint presentation on gang signs, colors, graffiti, and a pretty comprehensive history of the big players in NYC: the Bloods, the Crips, and the Latin Kings.

Let me share some facts with you:

--Bloods wear red, but also light brown (brown as in dried blood). They'll often wear brown when in mourning. This was news to me b/c I have a light brown bandanna I wear to workout in all the time. Oops.
--Bloods do everything on the right (tattoos, roll up pant leg, half shirt off), Crips on the left.
--Various gangs frequent restaurants based on their colors and/or what they can spell out from the restaurant names. Crips go to Burger King, BK=Blood Killer. Bloods do KFC, KFC=Killing F*ckin' Crips. They also wear clothing that represent their gangs, Bloods will wear CK (Crip Killer) and Crips used to wear British Knight shoes (Blood Killer)
--the Center for Disease Control claims that the average lifespan for a young man/woman in a gang is 24 years old. Too damn young.

Seriously, I could not process all the stuff the DA guy was telling me. I wish I had taken notes. It was fascinating.

Of course, there's not much we can do if we recognize a student is in a gang. It is not illegal to join a gang. But they said if we start to recognize who is in what gang then we can try to keep their altercations to a minimum in the classroom or just be aware of whose allegiances lie where. Pretty wild shit.

I guess I'd be missing an arm, now, according to Rhonda.