Walkout update

Despite what most local media is reporting, not all of LAUSD was on lockdown today. In fact, although we were told that we may go on lockdown at the start of first period, it was cancelled about 10 minutes before school started. There were no walkouts by any students today at our school, although I heard there may have been some in other schools. However, there was nothing significant enough to report.

There was varied response from students. Many of my students made fun of those that participated in the walkout because they wanted to ditch. I asked those that did walk out if they would have gone to an after school rally. About 1/2 said that they would not, at which I suggested that they may be involved for the wrong reasons. I shared my views of the pending legislation and talked to them about protest a bit. My biggest point came in asking them about the news coverage that they saw about the walkouts. They all noticed that most of the coverage involved the students jumping fences, walking on the freeway, and the few that decided to throw rocks or bottles. I pointed out that the same people that supported this law will likely use these as examples of why some immigrants should not be allowed in. If anybody denies this, then they are simply clueless because that is exactly what the conservative talkshows were doing yesterday and this morning.

Some of my students are actually coming to me to get help in writing to elected officials and one even wants to do research about successful latinos that are 1st generation born in the U.S.

One student asked what people who supported this law would say about the protest. I reminded him about what the news showed and also pointed out that many talk shows (Rush and pretty much every other KFI show) were saying that people carrying the Mexican flags at these protests should go back to Mexico. I also mentioned that the people that organized the rally downtown on Saturday asked people to bring American flags.

All in all, I think this subject will likely die down by the end of the week, although there was talk of another walkout tomorrow or Thursday. Maybe it all depends on the rain.