1
I have heard the predictable slew of insults, threats, epithets, and curses. Underneath all these, I hear their fear. They don’t want to hurt me, though I may serve as a stand-in for a man who they do want to hurt. They want to scare me because fear is the only way they have learned to feel powerful.Thomm Quackenbush
2
My students tag tables, walls, and chairs because their greatest fear is that no one will ever remember them. They do not believe they can give impassioned speeches, rally people in protest, paint masterpieces. They think they will die, small and forgotten, and it dictates their every action.Thomm Quackenbush
3
The most compassionate thing I can do for them is continuing to see their potential. They need to know that people are not going to abandon them because of their bad behavior. Only in the security of this can they let themselves learn better strategies.Thomm Quackenbush
4
They tell me how they are not scared to die, but they are terrified of the lives circumstance forces them to lead.Thomm Quackenbush
5
I look at my students and have no trouble picturing just how successful they should be, if only we could remove them from the impetuses that brought them to the facility. If we could move them away from gangs. If we could get them into a rehab that stuck. If we could take them from people who abuse their trust, safety, and bodies.Thomm Quackenbush
6
Society tells my students that people like them should aspire to prison the same way I understood I would go to college. They only listen to media that reinforces what they’ve been told all their lives: that they are worthless and that they will die or be incarcerated before they reach twenty-five.Thomm Quackenbush
7
I cannot think who my residents hurt but how I can give them tools to remain on the right side of civilization.Thomm Quackenbush
8
Whenever my colleagues and I encounter a boy who acts "normal"–not explosively violent, not oppositional to every word, not obsessed with killing and dying, not focused on sexual objectification–we are overjoyed with his potential. Here is one who has a stronger foundation on which to build, one who will not knock down his every success like a child with a brick castle to see if the adults will keep helping him rebuild.Thomm Quackenbush
9
Most of the time, all the separates a class president and a gang leader is numbers: a zip code, a paycheck, or a drug dealer’s phone number.Thomm Quackenbush