Last Train Out of Oakland

My last and hardest teaching job in California ended in death and destruction; literally. I managed to find a job running the afterschool program at an Oakland YMCA. It was the worst, most dsyfunctional place I'd ever worked(until I got into the Internet business in the 90's). It was in a school gym where the principal hated the program so much that she was always threatening to kick us out of the gym we used as our "classroom" if everything wasn't locked up in closets and out of the way for school assemblies. There were something like a hundred kids and a staff of 4.

The parents didn't like me. They thought I wasn't disciplined enough. The previous teacher had been a stern woman who apparently the kids were terrified of so that they'd  never act up; Miss Mamie. I had the impression there may have been some spanking involved. The staff was untrained, the kids were rowdy and the facility was awful. I despised every minute of that job. My forty minute Muni/BART ride from SF was one of complete dread and fear. I usually feel asleep from stress the minute I got on the  BART train. The one good thing that came up was that Lisa got a job offer in Seattle. I didn't want to move but the thought of leaving this hell-hole made moving seem almost pleasant.

My last day at this horrible job was also a school holiday. What this meant was not only would my center be open and filled with kids whose parents had to work but the other two programs in the other schools in the area would also come to our facility; maybe 120 kids or more. For all these kids I had 3 teachers that day plus 1 aid each from the other schools. My boss was furious that I was leaving and didn't give me any extra help.

It was basically crowd control at this point. We set up two TVs with kids movies, an art table and some games outside. After stopping 3 or 4 fights I decided that we needed a change of scenerey.

The one good thing about this place was that it was near the lake in Downtown Oakland. So after a morning of breaking up fights and not being able to get anything started I took the crowd over to the lake. I broke the group up into 4 groups and sent each group off. 

Things were going okay. My group was playing kickball when one of the aids from the group I'd sent to play by the lake  ran over screaming for me to come right away. I aksed what the problem was but she said "you just need to come." When I got there I saw a park ranger and a woman in her twenties and one of the first graders named Damien standing in a little semi circle. No one looked happy. Damien was a kid from one of the other schools who I'd already seen was troubled. He was very aggressive with other kids, biting, hitting etc.. He had no facial affect and he had already instigated several fights.

The young woman had tears in her eyes, the ranger had laser beams shooting out of her eyes directed at me. Damien who was from one of the other schools was a kid who a bad reputation. It can never be good when someone whose only been on this planet for 6 years already has a bad rep. The ranger icily asked me if I was in charge and I answered yes and asked what was wrong.

At that point the young woman started talking and crying. "I'm a park volunteer and I was down here cleaning up litter when I looked up and saw that boy come over toward the ducks who were sitting here getting sun. Before I could say anything he looked at that duck, jumped in the air and then...." she sobbed..."and then he jumped on that duck." She pointed and for the first time I saw a flattened, apparently dead duck."He killed that duck." It took me a full minute to absorb that. Damien had absolutely no expression on his face.

The ranger was furious and I don't know how, but somehow I managed to talk her out of giving me a citation. I didn't even bother trying to talk to Damien, he already had a demented look in his eyes. When I told his mom this story at the end of the day she screamed obscenities at him and threated to "beat the shit out of him." My last act at that center was to call my director tell her the story, tell her about the kid's mom and tell her that she really need to either shut that facility down or put some money into hiring a proper staff. 

As I road BART home to my apartment in SF my last image of that horrible place was of a flattened duck and psychopathic child. 20 years later I still think about him and if he's been able to overcome his problems.