>> From my time a few years ago in inner city class
>> rooms, I can tell you what teachers have said about what inner
>> city students write in journals about their lives. The kids
>> aren't writing about missing meals. They write about who
>> they're attracted to and sometimes about the problems of sex
>> and of course a lot of real blather.
james,
you talked to the wrong people.
next time you stop in on an inner city classroom, please do not pass go, do not go to jail, go directly to the Nurse's office. spend some time in there as they deal with various children's day-to-day problems -- the one's the teachers cant or don't know how to handle. Discover why the school nurse, if his/her position is still left standing and funded in your city, is essentially the community's bare-foot doctor.
i believe -- contrary to Carrol's more ineffective and implicit suggestion of a pop in the kisser -- that if you do this for a few month's time, you will at a minimum understand why Carrol doth protest so loudly.
chow....
p.s. and, oh, when you visit the Nurse's station, be sure to bring some kind of medical dictionary. believe me, you will need it.
-- ____ Les Schaffer godzilla at netmeg.net ___| --->> Engineering R&D <<--- Theoretical & Applied Mechanics | Designspring, Inc. Center for Radiophysics & Space Research | Westport, CT USA Cornell Univ. schaffer at tam.cornell.edu | les at designspring.com