Just Because It Makes Sense, Doesn’t Mean It Should Be This Way

Lizette Hernandez
Nov 8 · 5 min read

Someone once said that money is the root of all evil (I think it was the Bible). And I believe it. With marketing seemingly strategically targeted to teens, the rise of vape pens and e-cigarettes has young people addicted and schools scrambling to curb students’ habits. As of the past couple of months, and more recently these last couple of years, there is an ever increasing population of middle schoolers vaping, drinking, and smoking marijuana. Not only at my school, but around the country as well. In Texas, some schools make their students roll up their long sleeves so that they can’t hide the vaping devices. In Nebraska, schools are randomly testing students for nicotine. There are vape sensors in Illinois and New Jersey school bathrooms. These are kids that are only 11, 12, 13 years old!

And I think it is very easy to judge parents off the bat. Do these kids’ parents just not care? Do they know and allow it? What is allowing for this to happen? But then you step down from your privileged crystal throne and peek into the environment in which these students live out their day to day lives and realize what a completely different beast this is from what you could have imagined.

When you are faced with eviction, incarceration, deportation, drug violence, gang violence, unstable housing, and poor health care, I don’t care how strong of a teacher you have — those kids are still going to struggle in a very, very profound way.

I can’t speak for families elsewhere, but at least here in the predominantly Latino community of North Fair Oaks, Redwood City there are often 3–6 families living in a 1 or 2 bedroom studio/apartment/home. That’s up to 12 or more people crammed together into a tiny space! An overwhelming majority of parents work two or three jobs not only to provide sustenance for their family but simply to be able to pay the luxury that is rent in the Bay Area. Students wake up early to go to school and either walk home after school or extend their day into the late evening attending after-school program. And sometimes, these are students that are coming home to no one. Mom or dad is still at work and kids may not even see their parents until the next day. These kids are essentially little grown ups learning to fend for themselves. And that’s when trouble shows up at the front door offering a warm embrace, a way out, a promise of companionship.

Middle Schoolers in general are extremely intelligent. They can see right through someone and they possess a special knack for detecting genuineness. They are not given enough credit for their ability to, at such a young age, navigate the world around them (school, peers, social environments) with the limited personal experiences they have obtained. And to me it makes perfect sense why some students who grow up with absent parents would crave attention and community and either act out in disruptive behavior or join a gang. It makes sense to me why some students who have experienced unspeakable traumas would choose to self soothe in the ways that they do or maybe even shut down and remain silent for years. It makes sense to me why some students whose families are riddled with drugs and violence would feel like that is inevitably a part of their future as well.

What fails to make sense to me is how we can continue to live in a country whose educational and economic systems were built and continue to work to suppress minority communities of color in order to keep those at the top in power and with money flowing from their pockets. Whether its big pharma funneling opioids into the inner city, politicians promoting blatant racism, multi-billion dollar corporations gentrifying communities and profiting off modern-day slavery, tech giants moving in and igniting housing crises, or schools serving as prison pipelines, the truth is that at the end of the day, all of this affects a child’s ability to receive a quality equitable education.

And yet so much of the pressure to fix these inequities in education falls on teachers’ shoulders. Better teachers, better instruction, more academic rigor, more SEL, less time. Since when did educators become therapists to a country of more than 76 million students? When in reality, the true culprits at large run rampant through the streets dictating our countries policies and answering to no one.

Our least-reached students (students of color) do not have access to social-emotional well being, learning, or developing as independent thinkers and leaders. And because of this lack of access, they are in turn perceived as being underperforming-academically and behaviorally. It is not because these student are inherently under-performing; they were not just born failing. Inaccessibility drives perception.

I want people to understand that educational failure is linked to poverty more than any other cause.

Explain to me exactly how a 12 year-old can come to school and focus on what he/she is supposed to be learning in the classroom when all they have is “this” waiting for them at home when the bell rings at 3 o’clock. Explain to me how a family can fully participate and have a say in their government by voting when they are too busy figuring out where their next meal will come from, or knowing where their children will sleep at night, or are too frightened of being stopped by a cop lest they find out they are here illegally and separated from each other. And I do not want to pitfall into continuing the stereotype of the struggling minority narrative. But when these these are situations I am witnessing and privy to on a daily basis, explain to me please, how?

Now I don’t have any answers to this problem, but I am also not going to sit back and simply complain about an observation. Let’s create dialogue. Help me to learn what I need to learn to be a part of creating a solution.

I am of the idea that if a 13-year old is able to navigate the world of finding a drug dealer, figuring out how to bring that into school, and finding a way to pay for it, then they have the capability to navigate school systems and translate those skills into learning, academic achievement, and accessing higher education. Academic excellence and success need not be fairy tale stories or an unimaginable future. But in a world in which adults, and so few little of them, run the country, a child cannot navigate school on their own. This country is in dire need of holding up a mirror to our attitudes and practices in order to interrupt the inequities inherent in our practice, educational system, and society at large.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade