Fearing for our Future

So a few weeks ago our local bar association put out a call for attorneys to teach law for half a day to middle or high school students. And for some inexplicable reason, I was compelled to sign up for this.

"Don't worry," they said, "We'll give you a curriculum."

Yeah, they gave me a curriculum--covering the 4th Amendment. I'm a commercial litigation attorney. The 4th Amendment NEVER comes up in my practice area. EVER. But I read the curriculum, and did a little brushing up the night before, and got a pretty good handle on what I would be speaking about.

Anyway, I can't say it went well. I was assigned to speak to two 10th grade classes in a not-so-great part of town. There was no diversity--every single kid in both of the classes I spoke to was Hispanic. (I suspect I was assigned to this school because my married surname is Spanish.) The kids were completely checked out and apathetic. I'm not a teacher and I'm not the most engaging speaker in the world, but nothing I did could grab these kids' attention.

I tried to ask questions, find something they were interested in, but got very little reaction no matter what path I wandered down. When it was clear they had little interest in legal issues, I tried talking to them about higher education and getting in to college--but going to college did not appear to be in any of their futures. I've spoken to my kids' classes before, and worked with 6th graders in an inner city school and I have never had this much trouble getting kids' attention.

The only kid who asked any questions was one who made it clear that he had plenty of experience with the legal system and he kept asking me specific crim law hypotheticals, mostly related to when and under what circumstances he was allowed to shoot someone.

I left frustrated and trying to figure out what I should have done differently. And a little annoyed that I had just wasted half my day when my schedule is jam-packed right now. I called my teacher brother to whine, and he said what I was feeling but hadn't figured out how to put into words--this school had already given up on these kids--and nothing I could say was going to change anything.