This Week In Education: Thompson: Trauma Treatment At Heart Of "Harper High"

This Week In Education: Thompson: Trauma Treatment At Heart Of "Harper High":

Thompson: Trauma Treatment At Heart Of "Harper High"

by john thompson

This American Life's brilliant radio documentary about Harper High School describes a "Turnaround" school as it comes off a year in which 29 current and recent students were shot. Eight died, and there were dozens of other incidents where bullets were thrown.
Reporter Alex Kotlowitz, author of the masterpiece, There Are No Children Here, reporting with Linda Lutton, Ben Calhoun, and Ira Glass, spent five months at Harper.
Nearly every time Kotlowitz visited the school's social work office, a student named Thomas would be there. Asked why he hangs out there so much, Thomas replied in a "muffled and sluggish" voice, as if he's "speaking from deep inside a cave:"
"Nay, I ain't gonna give you no answer for that. Every time I come here, you come. And I'm for real."
Thomas sounds like the type of black male who frightens so many people who don't understand his world. "His braided hair hangs over his eyes. He often has a hood on. He won't look you in the