Word: homeness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Fatigue and missed assignments aren't the worst of it, either, says Faye Walker, a teacher at Webster for 23 years. "Too many kids are missing that quality time," she says. "When the parent gets home, the child goes to work. When the child gets home, the parents are asleep. Kids can work and get good grades, but when do you see each other...
...Jonathan is a slacker; at home he cleans, cooks and takes care of his three younger siblings when his mom and stepdad are working. During Jonathan's freshman and sophomore years, Norice says, "he was playing football and basketball, was in show choir and concert choir, rehearsing for a play and working part time stripping furniture. He was overwhelmed. The commute was wearing him down. But he's cut his schedule down, and is really doing better...
Counselor Thomasina Hassler says many black students' grades suffer because of family problems or responsibilities at home that distract from studies. To make her point, she brandishes a ranking of last year's 267 seniors; of the 34 who graduated with a 4.0 or better GPA, none was black. Searching the list for the highest-ranking black student, she runs her finger down the second page to No. 59, Tanya Hoard, who graduated with a 3.67 average. Hassler, who is black, wishes there were more like Hoard and thinks both black and white teachers at Webster must work harder...
Even Sally Roth, whose best friend is black, admits that amid Webster's relative racial harmony, there are unsettling contradictions, which she experienced first-hand while dating a black guy at school. When she would visit her boyfriend at his home, some of the "popular white kids" at school would "make these rude comments about me going to Little Africa, Hershey Hill or Browntown. They were his friends too. It really pissed me off that they would say that behind his back." When Sally's black friends came to visit, new neighbors blamed them, without evidence, for a recent burglary...
...Just home from football practice, Bobby Granderson perches on a stool in his family's kitchen. Normally he shaves his own head, but tonight his dad Bobby Sr. is running the electric razor. It's an awkward moment; this is the most the two of them have spoken in weeks without throwing a gibe. His father compliments Bobby's handling of the clippers. He's been trying to talk his son into going to trade school or perhaps opening a barbershop with him. The remark hits a nerve, but Bobby hides it. Will his dad ever understand...