Incidentally

I had a really good day at school today. Which is good, because yesterday had me thinking I should throw in the towel altogether. Isn't it funny how life can swing back and forth like that? My math lesson went well, my kids were generally kinder today toward one another, and we packed up for dismissal without any problems. Let me tell you: that was an accomplishment. Because if you think it's easy to pack up 23 6-year-olds without a hitch, you're delusional. But when I got home, after I sorted the mail and dropped my stuff on the floor with a thud, I sat and stared at the wall. Because even though it was a good day, it didn't feel like a good day.

It didn't feel like a good day because there was an incident.

An incident, of course, means that something happened with a weapon, violence, or the gangs near my school. An incident means that something unsafe just happened and now you need to react. Today's particular incident involved passersby carrying a firearm near our older elementary kids on the playground and asking them to look at it and take it from them. A ten-year-old was asked to take a gun and shoot it today. During his recess. That's the world we are living in. That's the Chicago we are living in. 

When you hear that there's been an incident as a teacher in my school, you kind of just shut up, listen to directions for contingency plans that you need to know right now (dismissal locations, Gym/Recess schedules, and other logistics), and go read your email or meet with the administration at the end of the day to get the more descriptive details after the fact and after everyone is safely home with whomever picked them up from school. It's happened more often than once in the last year, and it's even happened more often than twice in the last year. For the sake of my parents and other people who worry about me and where I work in the city, I'm going to leave it at that for the count of incidents around which I've had to maneuver my class of children. Today this incident meant that my kids had Gym in the classroom instead of walking down the street to the big space where we usually go. There are only so many running in place games, jumping jacks next to your desk games, and rounds of "heads-up-7-up" you can play with kids before they get to the point where they just need to go run around in a big space. But, because of the incident, it was the safe decision to have Gym in a classroom. And I'm thankful for my awesome principal and co-workers who keep it together in the midst of chaos for the sake of my kids. 

It's odd to me, though, that we call these things incidents. I naturally think of the words "incidental" and "incidentally" when I think of the word "incident." "Incidentally" means that something happened by chance or a random occurrence. You know, you might incidentally run into an old friend in the frozen pizza aisle one day. You might incidentally trip on the sidewalk and scuff the side of your new shoes. You might incidentally catch that you have a virus or infection on a routine checkup at the doctor. But these incidents at my school are far from incidental. They're not chance. They're not random. They're not happenstance.

These incidents are symptoms of the growing beast that lives in the poorest neighborhoods of a powerhouse city, the beast that gains momentum every time a kid loses his or her right to just be a kid. These incidents are not incidents at all, but real stories of the patterns of violence and injustice that continue to make the act of growing up and achieving your goals and becoming something new increasingly difficult for kids like mine. 

No one will hear about this incident on the news tonight. No one will read about it in the paper tomorrow. To most, it's either something you shake your head at or worse...just something that's happened...incidentally. Oops! Bummer! Another weapon incident on the West Side! Change the channel. When will this stuff start to really matter to us?

You know what's the oddest thing of all? This incident happened in the same exact spot where, exactly 24 hours earlier, there was an Anti-Violence Rally where teenagers and community leaders spoke out about keeping the peace in East Garfield Park. I suppose one could say that the rally and the subsequent day's events, so closely related and also contrasted, happened...incidentally? 

I, for one, do not even believe in the term "incidentally" at all. I believe that things happen because something or someone causes them; things don't just happen. Chance doesn't cause things. People, both broken and also redeemable in the most confusing and wonderful of ways, cause things. We cause things. And when we cause things, they are for good or for harm. We need more people to decide to cause good to happen. Even when I'm not capable of causing good to happen on my own (because believe me, I mostly just mess things up), I have to rely on the One who can make it happen for me and through me in my life. We all have to. No more incidental incidents happening incidentally. It seems to me like it's time for us to stop pretending that things happen by chance in Chicago and to start causing things to happen in Chicago instead. For good.

Until then, my kids will be living, as 6-year-old kids on the playground, from incident to incident.