Bad Ass Kids

This is the biggest problem with the public education system within our inner cities. Sure there are a myriad of issues we could choose from, including the swelling bureaucracy, outdated curricula and ineffective teachers. However, nothing is tantamount to the prevalence of bad ass kids. I teach in Brownsville, Brooklyn-the hood. And as we all know, the hood is plagued with bad ass kids.

I know y'all might be sayin, Le Chele, how you gonna talk about kids like that, especially when you want to be a teacher? Le Chele, what's really good with your grammar right now? Whatever.

Seriously, though. It is impossible for anything constructive to get done in environments like this. Teacher's can't teach and students can't learn. And it is mostly because of a relatively small, yet significant number of bad ass kids.

Sure there are reasons for why these bad ass kids are so bad, but those of us in the education profession need a better plan on how to deal with these bad ass kids. And therein lies the problem. Nobody wants to deal with these bad ass kids and so these bad ass kids aren't dealt with. Allow me to explain the following scenarios based on everyday occurrences:

• In class, lesser bad kids get fed up with bad ass kid, isolates him*. He's no longer being engaged, so he becomes embarrassed, angry and therefore continues being bad.
• Bad ass kid is monopolizing the teacher's time, get kicks out of the classroom and sent to the Dean. He's back in five minutes and surprisingly, starts back acting bad.
• The Dean sees bad ass kid three-five times in a school week. Between the paperwork and dozens of other bad ass kids being sent to the office, there is not much that can be done other than just yell at the bad ass kid for a minute or two. After the hood version of a pep talk, the Dean desperately wants to get the kid away from his sight. Wanna bet the bad ass kid is still bad?
• Bad ass kid finally does something horrendously bad like kick in the glass of a door or kick a classmate's face in. The Assistant Principal eagerly suspends the bad ass kid. Now he can be bad at home.
• After another incident, the school tries to involve the parent (Mother) of the bad ass kid. The Mother is mostly truant, and has not answered most of the phone calls made by faculty involving her bad ass kid. She finally shows up to a meeting to discuss her bad ass kid. She visibly is tired and stressed and quite frankly, would much rather not deal with her bad ass kid.

They make you go to school where nobody wants to deal with you. This is the life of a bad ass kid.

*I decided to use male pronouns for the bad ass kid because most of the bad ass kids are male.