We are having an interesting situation in our community. In a 9th grade class two kids of color were having an argument and one call the other The word. The teacher intervened and asked the kids “did you just call her The word” but used The word. The kid was shocked, said nothing, so the teacher repeated the question and at this point he was being recorded. You can guess what happened from there.
Here is one of the many interesting things I am seeing. The kids who can start to hold a more integral response to this are actually responding with “it’s just not worth it”. The senior president of the SGO is my friend’s son and what he told her is “too many kids just can’t get it if we make it too complex so it’s just easier to make this black and white”. This is actually integral in a way. I wouldn’t call it mature integral, but he is sensing it at least.
Maybe this inquiry is a bit in line with the “our we are regressing or is this just what fighting for the next stage of development looks like” question.
It’s interesting to see it happening in real time and working through my reactions to it all. I get the “it’s not worth it” response but then I think what would happen if that is what we all did? Then it’s also interesting to work through what is a real integral response in the real world? It’s easy to talk here, next to impossible to do this out there. This is going to take extraordinary skill, more skill than I have, let alone to expect young adults or teens to pull it off, especially when they are, at best, in early stages of it.
The parents who can hold the integral response are really torn right now. I don’t know, I just wanted to share.