"Gary, Indiana; Gary Indiana...

my home sweet home.”  I am usually able to begin a blog with the title.   Tonight was different:  I wanted the title to reflect how adults assume that children are naïve, clueless and without sensory perceptions.   And so now it occurs to me that I will title this blog with the beginning lyrics from the Music Man. The school administration  has decided that a large majority of our school children in Gary, Indiana will now be walking to school. And of course such a new adventure  will be met with youthful abandon;  parents and guardians will be reminded of their carefree days of being able to walk to school.  And my intention, as I sat down, was to write about the effects of trauma.  And how sometimes the very fabric of our children's lives is rooted in trauma.  Many families are experiencing poverty and unemployment, severe illness, separation, alcoholism, not to mention that they themselves may be victims of abuse or neglect.  Because you see, our city is no longer the idyllic community that Meredith Wilson made famous.  Instead we have a poverty rate over 28%, we have a 13% unemployment rate; a fifth of all of our housing, churches, school buildings and other structures are vacant and boarded up.  And our children live amidst this poverty, in this blighted community, on blocks where violent and not so violent crime occurs on a daily basis.  "The wheels on the bus go round and round..." but those elementary school children who live within a mile of their school will be walking this school year, and those middle and high school students who live within two miles of their school will be walking as well.  Because of budget cuts,  our school system can only run 50plus buses, last year they ran 150plus buses.  What's trauma got to do with it?  Many of the children in our community experience the effects of our blighted and crime ridden neighborhoods on a daily basis.  It effects them, it effects their relationship with their friends, their family and it causes them stress...stress that they don't understand, stress that they can't process because they can't name it.  It causes them fear...fear about when the next robbery may occur in their neighborhood, when the next person may get shot, whether that next person will be their neighbor, or their cousin, or their auntie.  And now each day, before they get to school many will walk through their neighborhood and the adjoining neighborhood to get to school and they will see what, of course, they have seen everyday.  But it will be different...they will experience it, inhale it, kick at it...and they will arrive at school more stressed out than they are after a rowdy bus ride.  After all, the buses are clean; after all, the buses were not a recent crime scene.  Are our school staffs prepared?  Has anyone thought about the effects, of that not so healthy walk, on the psyche of our children?  My guess is that they haven't; my guess is it will take months, if not the entire school year to figure out why so many kids are having a hard time focusing early in the day and perhaps again in the afternoon as they prepare themselves for the return trip home with the scents of despair that will accompany them on their walk.