I help out with an after school group every Wednesday. Our group has gone from 25 to 50 students in it’s 5 week run! During last weeks session we were talking about Sin and some of the ‘bad’ behaviors or things the students have done. The students were broken into three groups and I was with the 3-5th graders. Students were asked to tell something that they had done that they felt bad about doing. The responses started out as expected, things such as; I hit someone, I cheated on a test, I stole something… Then students started to feel more comfortable and really dug deep for what they had probably never told anyone. ‘I got drunk off Champale’ – 4th grade boy, ‘I’ve smoked weed’- 4th grade boy, ‘I put rat poisin in my sister’s drink’- a 4th grade girl, after which she began to cry. Then a 5th grade boy said ’I tried to shoot myself with my dad’s gun’. I found out from the Principal that they know of a few of the 4th graders had been having sex already! (How they figured this out, I’m not sure I even want to know.)
There is a particularly unruly 6th grader at my school who is four months pregnant! On one occasion I had the pleasure of listening to a few of her friends talk to her about girls they know who got abortions, or who have babies. And then to my surprise ‘how pretty them babies is, when they mamas so ugly’. The cycle of children raising children continues,and soon enough her child will roam these halls most likely following in her footsteps. The father is a ’special education’ student in the high school. Where as in these schools, all students with behavior or learning disabilities are labeledSPED and shuffled through each year until the graduate, or don’t, with maybe the reading and writing skills of a 5th grader!
