'They Were Fighting Over a Woman . . .'

By Jonathan G. Silin

As the newly elected Republican majority in Congress threatens to eliminate prevention programs from last year's crime bill, and as the President vows to veto any such action, violent crimes committed by young people continue to rise. Appropriately, the attention of educators turns to the adolescents who either witness crimes by their peers or are victimized by them. But what of their younger brothers and sisters who, if lucky, fill our Head Start centers and preschool classrooms?

Early-childhood educators have always been prepared to help individual children cope with family crises. Unfortunately, many of us now find ourselves working in communities in which families are undergoing continual stress and violent crimes have become the norm rather than the exception. Even if our students have not been the victims of violent crimes, the imminent threat of violence affects the quality of their lives. Beyond creating a physically safe and emotionally supportive environment, is there anything else that we can do to respond to the violence that permeates the lives of so many young children today?

I believe the answer to this question begins with listening to the children themselves. On a recent visit to a Bronx public school, I accompanied a substance-abuse-prevention specialist who informed me that a young teenager had stabbed and killed another in the schoolyard two weeks earlier. As a 1st grader carefully explained it to me 20 minutes later, "They were fighting over a woman and one of them had a weapon." Many of the children knew the antagonists, who were friends of older siblings; some were relatives. For the children, relating news of the killing appeared to be an appropriate way to greet an unfamiliar visitor, perhaps the only way to make an...