Fighting

In the past two days, I've dealt with boys who have thrown punches. Relatively speaking, neither scenario was a huge deal. One was matter of invasion of personal space. The other happened after someone stole a churro off another's cafeteria tray. Citations were issued, lessons were learned, and one tough guy welled up with tears admitting, "My mom's gonna kill me."

Boys will be boys, but the thing is, this never happens at our school. Besides a few playground scuffles that never amounted to anything, I'm pretty sure these were the first fists I've seen after 2+ years.

To have it happen two days in a row jolted me a bit, especially because both times I had to drop what I was doing and rush over to the situation before things escalated.

What's been most surprising is that it's instantly taken me back to my former school, bringing vivid flashbacks of some nauseating fights I witnessed there. Two boys rolling over desks in the back of math class, punches to the face, splatters of blood and clumps of hair laying in the hallway, the girl who showed so much promise one afternoon and was never seen again after she beat up another girl the next day. The stress seemed to rise with the flashbacks, a heart heavy with the burden of the darkness inherent in senseless violence.

The school's been on my mind a lot lately after interesting discussions at grad class, some contact with former colleagues, and now this. I can't say I regret leaving, but there is some regret that I couldn't stay, some regret that I couldn't do more. And maybe it's just a mourning of kids who have lost their way and resort to lashing out.

Even if it is just personal space or a stolen churro.