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« on: February 19, 2008, 01:53:28 PM »
I am a teacher who works with the junior high students you refer to in your posts, and I'd like to make a few points and suggest a possible solution.
First, the use of "these kids" and "they" implicitly demonizes a large group of children in our neighborhood who are at a very impressionable age--one that takes others' opinions very seriously. Kids this age are constantly looking for recognition from their peers, as well as from adults; a suspicious look on the sidewalk or a suggestion that "they get jail time" sends a very clear message: our community does not care about you. We teach children respect from kindergarten on though junior high, but they know that respect is conditional: we innately feel that we are obliged to give respect only when we receive respect in turn. I suspect that building a stronger sense of community between our neighborhood’s children and adults would foster mutual respect and make some potential vandals think twice before defacing public and private property. How to go about this, especially in a crowded neighborhood with very few facilities for community activities (youth sports, youth organizations, etc.) is a topic for another post.
Note that I stressed the word ‘some’ above. We must realize that we cannot eliminate the graffiti problem altogether. Young adolescents have been vandalizing community property since the Stone Age; no doubt some of the more lewd Mesozoic cave painting found in France were the work of angst-ridden teens. While we can strive to provide alternative activities and a rich community life for teens, there will always be a few who do graffiti, egg houses, smash mail boxes, etc. Teenage rebellion is not a modern problem, an urban problem, a gang problem, a racial/cultural problem, or a class problem; it is as close as we have to a sociological fact.
This brings me to my next point. APG7714 seems to imply that our graffiti problem is imported from Corona (our poorer neighbors to the east), where many of the students that attend I.S. 145 (one of our neighborhood’s middle schools) live. This is inaccurate. Most of these young artists tend to paint and tag in their own neighborhoods where they can show off there work to their friends. The motive is not to destroy property, but to gain respect and rebel status within their peer group, which would not happen if their peers did not see their work. It is pure classism to suggest kids from another neighborhood are responsible for our graffiti because our teens happen to live in expensive co-ops. Anecdotally, last year I happen to have taught one notorious vandal who left his “semi†tag on every above ground surface within a three block radius from his home—the doorman building on 76th Street between 34th and 35th.
I would also like to venture a suggestion to the community. Rather than demonize “them†for the fact that less than one percent of their peers occasionally wield a can of spray paint, why don’t we use the youthful energy and community spirit of the other ninety-nine percent to clean up? When I polled my 7th grade students for potential community service projects, 75-percent of them recommended graffiti clean up. So, if those of you who hate looking at graffiti on your way to work every morning can provide the necessary supplies and supervision, I can have 100+ pairs of tireless young hands ready to wield buckets and scrub brushes on any given weekend. Not only would the kids love the opportunity to do something positive with their friends, but I think that you adults would benefit from a little personal interaction with a few of the thousands of the caring and vibrant young people in our community.
Sincerely and in defense of the hundreds of talented and caring 11-15 year olds I work with every day,
Steven Carpenter
7th Grade Science Teacher
I.S. 145Q
Jackson Heights, NY
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