So today is “Four Twenty” or “National Weed Smoking Day”. And it’s funny because most of the people who partake in the activities implied by this day have NO IDEA how and why it even came about. If you ask them, they have no idea. They just know they are supposed to smoke all day. Rumor has it that “Four Twenty” was originated at San Rafael High School back in the 70’s. Basically it was the code phrase for the time a group of friends (the Waldos) would meet to get high and look for an abandoned crop stash by a statue. I am not sure how it translated to the day 4/20 but, here we are. The emphasis and advertisement that goes on this day is just ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong; a person’s choice to smoke marijuana is all theirs. I am not against it. But the creation and advertisement of this subculture holiday is over-done and overrated. And I have a problem with this…
Although marijuana didn’t ask to be placed here, it is at the center of a huge problem in the United States. Smaller scale, it is a huge problem in urban communities, namely mine. This past weekend, there were numerous arrests made here, all drug and gang related. That type of activity has nothing to do with me but… Majority of the people arrested were students of mine at some point. See, before I became a writer, I was a teacher. For 5 years I taught in my neighborhood Middle School where these kids went to school. It was the same school that I attended some years ago. I felt personally connected to all of the faces that I recognized. And as their teacher, I felt a sense of failure. I remembered their young, vibrant personalities sitting in my classroom eager to learn. Yes, some of them were a challenge but for the most part, they were kids.
Now people are quick to point the finger. Politicians, law enforcement officials and community members all blame the parents. Given the fact that students are in school for about 6.5 hours a day, some of the responsibility lies within that establishment. When there isn’t music, art, sports, foreign language, vocational or extracurricular programs in place as an outlet, doesn’t that change the game? Thanks to underfunding and budget cuts, this particular middle school had NOTHING to offer these kids. After school activities became limited to going home to the projects and smoking weed and getting into a host of other things that could have been otherwise diverted.
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Smoking weed goes from an activity to a business opportunity to a lifestyle quick in the hood. I mean there are other factors that cause those behaviors but at least with distractions to look forward to, a lot of these situations could have been avoided. Eventually, the school was phased out and reopened as an “application only” academy. Given the changing demographics of the area, I call it a modern day segregation tactic but that is a story for another day. As teachers, we tried and did our best to make do with what we had but making blood from wine is left to a higher power.
Closing schools and cutting programs is a surefire way to guarantee more situations like this. Running the education system like a business is not the way to do it. So much money is redirected and wasted on shit that doesn’t matter, it’s ridiculous. Students need more than reading, writing and arithmetic. Music, art and other electives are necessary to balance out the learning process. We are supposed to be preparing these students for the future. In some places, we are preparing them for failure. Something has to change.
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