The first time I knew a kid on house arrest, I was in seventh grade. He was a sixteen-year-old eighth-grader who rode my bus. He could go to and from school, and that was about it. He wore an ankle bracelet. He sat in the seat in front of me with his girlfriend, a fourteen-year-old who swore she’d break up with him if he got arrested again.
I don’t know what the boy on my bus did to end up under house arrest. I never asked, or maybe in the years since I’ve simply forgotten. That boy stopped riding my bus partway through the school year because he brought a gun on the bus. He showed it to our bus driver as soon as he got on.
That afternoon, a phalanx of squad cars surrounded my bus as we went through that neighborhood. The boy was missing. I never saw him again.
I think about this boy from the bus when I reflect on the kids who disappear from my neighborhood every day. I work with youth whose older siblings are under house arrest or in juvenile detention, youth who’ve been in and out of a rehabilitation program for youth who committed crimes while on drugs. We’ve even had disappearances due to gang-related shootings.
Every day I have conversations with my students that I hope will keep them present, keep them visible, keep them there. I ask them if they really want to stand by their actions when they do something objectionable. “Really?” I say. “That’s really the choice you want to make?”
The youth sometimes nod, and I let it go. They live with the consequences of that choice, which I outline every time. Mostly, though, the youth shake their head and we can reach a point where we can talk about other alternatives. I try not to back them against a wall. I try to give them choices, options, to talk through those options with them. When my youth are acting out, I remind myself it’s probably not me—or the after-school program I work for—that they’re reacting to. It’s something else. It’s academic frustration or that they’ve just found their parents mainlining or they’ve moved to a third apartment in as many months. It’s that they’re hungry or tired or overwhelmed.
It was easy to disappear the boy on my bus, to erase him from our collective memories. We talked about him for a few weeks and then lost interest. Even the other kids who lived in his neighborhood didn’t mention him. Sometimes I wonder if he made it to adulthood. But now I remember him when I hear that prison beds are based on third-grade reading scores. I remember him when another teacher complains that the youth in my program are rude. I think of him when I focus on redirecting youth, give primarily positive attention, encourage them in their successes and overlook their shortcomings as often as possible.
I don’t want the children I work with now to disappear. Every time one of the youth has a bad day, I remind them, just before they go home, “Tomorrow is a new day.” It lets the youth know that—whatever happened—I’m not going to hold that against them. It serves as a reminder that they can come in with a new attitude, with increased focus, with kinder words for their peers or for me. It also reminds them that if today was a day I got on their nerves (or on their case), tomorrow will be a new day for me too. When I see them next I make a point of greeting them with a smile. I try to ask questions about a test or a project or a game. I try to let them know I want to see them there and that I care. In this way I can do my part to keep them from disappearing.
Clift is a writer and a substitute teacher with a focus on youth labeled with behavioral issues. She also develops and delivers programs for seventh- to 12th-graders in nontraditional settings.