The Sonikcycle Syndicate

We’re just beginning to settle on a groove, which means there’s still a fair bit of discordance as newcomers get acquainted with oldcomers, students come and students go, classes start taking shape, and choices begin to take effect.

On Tuesday, Isaac, myself, and 7 students went to the Step Up for Kids rally at the NY State capitol building where, plied with the promise of pizza, some of our students “volunteered” to represent up on the steps in front of the crowd ;o)>>>

The highlight of the week came Wednesday when a troubled young lad got kicked out, never to return. His violent outbursts on the basketball court and in the subsequent all-school council meeting were the last straw. Then there was the fact that he kept saying he didn’t want to be at the Free School, which is the prime condition. The fact is, the whole scene just broke my heart. I won’t go into the details, so, suffice it to say that this kid has A LOT stacked up against him and at the same time he can intentionally be very provocative (especially for other teens with plenty of their own issues) which makes it really hard to figure out how best to help him. The Free School elders believe that had he come as a youngster under the “no medication” policy of the K–8 Free School and with all the time and room he might’ve needed to settle his issues, things might’ve worked out better. Alas, that didn’t happen and now the poor lad is quite damaged and I can hardly bear to imagine what’s in store for him in this life. I pray for the best.

On a more upbeat note, the week ended with a fun and interesting field trip with my ethnoexperimusicology class to a sound installation in the Nott Memorial, and to Jackson’s Garden, both of which are on the campus of Union College in Schenectady.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 22nd, 2008 at 11:09 pm and is filed under Earth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.