Listening to Student Fears About Crime in ESL Classrooms

How often do English students fear being cheated, robbed, or even physically attacked? How many have been victims of crime? How often are student experiences and fears of crime acknowledged in our English classrooms?

Outraged by some exceptionally disturbing murders of students around Los Angeles, the United States, and the world, I’ve chosen the chapter “Crime and Punishment” as the conversation sample. We need to hear student fears, understand their experiences, give them a chance to reflect, and speak in our classrooms. Students have many stories and insights to share - and they often need the vocabulary to effectively communicate. Sometimes we share a sense of disappointment. Yet we often also can also share resources, provide additional information, and review safety tips.

Few topics engage students more than candid discussions and writings about crime. From bribery, scams, and kickbacks to stolen bikes, violent fights, and hit and run accidents, students have stories to share and classmates can learn from experiences. Ask students to suggest suggestions for safer schools, safer communities, and safer trips. You will hear a range of ideas from the practical and polite to wild, crazy, and rude. Lively classroom discussions can lead to poignant, personal problem-solution essays.
An experienced teacher should be able to hear the fear, acknowledge the threats, and help students confront a real problem facing far too many English language learners around the world.

Do international students sometimes have an exaggerated sense of danger in American cities? Sometimes. Are schools immune to the violence, crime, and chaos of surrounding areas? Certainly not. Will ignoring fears and crimes make them go away? Never.

Let’s provide English language learners, whether adult students or college students, both the place and time to reflect on laws, crimes, and the search for justice.

I hope that the conversation lesson called “Crime and Punishment” inspires compelling conversations in classrooms. Please visit www.compellingconversations.com , look over the material, and see if it works in your ESL classroom.

PS. Every school that I have taught in - from inner city high schools and urban adult schools to world famous community colleges and private universities - has had students attacked, robbed, and even murdered during my time teaching there. For worse or for better, this experience has influenced my sensitivity to student fears and concerns about crime in the United States.

Why are so many guns and bombs invading our schools?

“He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it,” warned Seneca, a Roman philosopher almost two thousand years ago.

Guns, bombs, and murders in schools and shopping malls fill the headlines today. What is going on? How many more young people have to die because of the violent urges of psychopaths armed with guns, bombs, and hatred?

Look at some of today’s headlines and stories:

An undergraduate UC student is arrested, with two pipe-bombs, in Southern California. A frontpage L.A. Times article notes “The Homocide (murder!) Rates Rise in Los Angeles”. Another headline, in the letters section, reads “Local Gangsters Are Terrorists”. Two other letters to the editor discuss recent murders of young Americans raised in tough neighborhoods. In the last month, several mentally disturbed individuals have gone to their school, pulled out their gun, and brutally shot fellow students and strangers. How did these crazy people obtain guns? Where was security? What is going on at American school campuses?

Yet the violent madness in schools and shopping malls extends beyond just the United States borders. Today a gunman murdered at least 8 students and shot another 30 human beings at a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem. Religious hatred appears to have motivated the gunman, and deluded fanatic probably expected to go to paradise. Crowds in Gaza cheer. What is going on?

In a Baghdad shopping district, people went shopping and were enjoying the simple pleasures of daily life. Another religious fanatic changed their morning plans - and blew himself up and murdered several surrounding people. When horrified humans went to help the wounded and dying, a second man filled with hatred and wrapped in explosives decided to murder some more humans. All the victims were Iraqi, and probably Muslim. What is going on?

Why are so many people filled with so much hatred, violent fantasies, and armed with dangerous weapons? What is going on?
Schools and shopping centers should be safe places where people gather, smile, and enjoy life. In our public schools, universities, and ESL classrooms, we celebrate diversity and individuality. We share stories, exchange insights, and encourage each other. We see the positive possibilities. Respect, tolerance, and the search for more information and knowledge guide us.

The terrible headlines today emphasize how fragile our schools remain. Our classrooms, often seen as an oasis of safety and possibility in dangerous neighborhoods, no longer seem automatically safe. I want more security and more sanity in schools. I want stricter gun control laws in the United States. I also want less hatred, religious fanaticism, and violent bigotry in the world.

Why are so many guns, bombs, and psychopaths entering so many schools? What are we doing to prevent future school shootings, massacres, and funerals? Or are we turning away, pretending their is no problem, and encouraging more tragedies?

Ask more. Know more. Share more.

Create Compelling Conversations.

Visit www.compellingconversations.com