Conversation

Today I had a gig! Seriously, do you know how much easier it is to get up in the morning and stay up when you know you have something to do that day? All week long it has been next to impossible to get up at 5:00 am. Give me a day though where I know I have work and it is easy!
The teacher I was subbing for today is a history teacher. I get so few calls to sub for history teachers. When it does happen it usually doesn't matter how bad the class is, it is just amazing to be working in a subject matter that I actually know. Today's assignment for the 8th graders was to write to either the city counsel or to the state assemblyman about issues that the kids were concerned with. It is always interesting for me when this happens because I see all kinds of letters. Some letters are well written and well thought out. Some are well thought out but poorly written. Some are well written but poorly thought out and some are just poor letters no matter how you look at them. The important thing though is that the kids are learning to get involved in government.
As I have opportunities to help kids with their letters I often have opportunities to explain things to kids in ways that they hadn't seen or understood before. An example would be the state budget. Is the state picking on schools or is everyone hurting? Who else is hurting from budget cuts. If the schools received full funding who would feel the pinch? How does the budget actually work? Often by presenting different aspect of these issues the kids have an opportunity to see that the issues are actually pretty big and not at all simple. It might even change the way that they see things.
A great example happened today. One of the boys asked me to look at his letter to the state assemblyman. As I looked it over I saw that it had to do with immigration issues. Understand that the vast majority of the students at this school are either immigrants or the children of immigrants. Most of them want wide open boarders and forgiveness for illegal aliens. For all I knew this guy and his friend next to him were the sons of illegal immigrants or had relatives that were illegal. So I asked him what exactly he wanted. Well they wanted open boarders. Let everyone come to the United States so that they can find jobs and have a better life. I asked them if they were aware that over 5% of the people in this country are unemployed. Suddenly they weren't so sure about the whole open boarders thing. I asked them what would happen if we let everyone in. Well, unemployment would be really high. The next question was whether the people would be better off for coming here or worse off. Worse off they said. So how can we keep this from happening? They said by setting quotas. Great, these guys were getting it!
Next they asked about the illegal aliens living here. Can't we do something to just make them all legal? Ok, remember that I don't know what their status is or that of their families. I decided to play it safe. I knew that the family of the Indian kid next to them had their papers straight. Let's say that your parents waited for two years to get their visas. During that time they went to the consulate, paid the fees and did everything that they needed to do to make sure that they got here legally. His parent's snuck into the country over a two month period. Remembering what it cost for your parents to get here how do you feel about his parents? Both boys said that it wasn't right that the parents of the Indian kid be given all the same opportunity as their parents who had worked so hard to get here legally. It wouldn't be fair. His parents needed to be sent home. Amazing. These kids had just been writing the assemblyman to push for open boarders and forgiveness for illegal aliens and they were starting sing a completely different tune!
What about people who's visas expire? When I told them that I knew people from Australia and England what had to leave the country when their visas expired these guys were blown away. White people had been kicked out because their visas expired? Wait, this is something that everyone experiences? Yeah, in fact when I grew up in another country we had to get our visas renewed every other year. You are responsible for getting it renewed. Suddenly realizing that the policy is not racially biased against Hispanics they were more inclined to hold people accountable for keeping their visas current.
The last dilemma was what about illegals who have American born children. Did I think it was fair that the government kept their children here in the United States but deported the parents. When they understood that the parents could take their families with they were shocked. They were under the impression that the government didn't allow them to take their American born kids with them to the home country, that the government had a policy of splitting the families based on their legal status.
Over all it was an amazing conversation. It was cool to watch them and see how their views were affected when they were presented with the facts on immigration. It was interesting for me to see some of the rumors and misinformation that swirls around this particular neighborhood. Hopefully these guys continue to think about what they learned today and help others think more about some of the things that they are hearing as well as the things they believe.