valentine's day rant

In a school of about 120 students, I hear weekly of someone's grandmother or grandfather or sister or father or mother who has died or who is close to it. A death in the family is something I almost never dealt with as a child, teenager, and even college student. The same with illness in the family. So why is it so common with these kids?

I have a student who takes sleeping pills every night to sleep. I have a couple with anxiety disorders and a few more who struggle with migranes. I have asthmatic kids, obese kids, and too many that eat way too much sugar. I see more Monster cans (and other energy drinks) in the recycling bin these days. I can outrun almost all of my students - they who supposedly are entering their fitness prime - and I'm not even a fast runner. We run in first period sometimes to wake everyone up, just one loop around the parking lot, and a third of my class opts out because they can't even run that far.

It's diet. It's lifestyle. It's philosophy. What are we doing to these beautiful bodies we were created in? I love southern cooking, but if you raise children on that, they will struggle for the rest of their lives because fried and sweet is what they crave. And then there'll be medical problems. Since when did make-up = beautiful? One of the vainest students in our school is always taking pictures of herself on her cell phone, but I'm sorry, she's fat. She doesn't have the beauty that comes with a healthy, active body. She's missing the point, but you can't fault the child. Fault the greater culture.

Teaching public school has given me a window into the America that my friends don't accurately represent. Honestly, it worries me. I can talk myself blue, but how do you change habits?

I had a child ask me today, "Ms. Chang, what is an overdraft?" He had just opened a savings and checking account at the bank, and get this, he was reviewing all the brochures and papers they had given him. I have taught plenty of students that work, but never one that had a bank account. I asked him if he knew how to write a check. "Only what the booklet taught me," he answered. He was reading the booklet! How many adults have enough financial literacy to teach him?