"The Beast Side" and "Chasin' the Gram"
Being an inner city teacher, my favorite part in D. Watkins's great book, The Beast Side, is the chapter with the ironic title of "Chasin' the Gram." Watkins is a former drug dealer, so it would be easy to assume he is writing about cocaine. Instead, Watkins is sounding the alarm about another addictive threat - Instagram.
Although Watkins now teaches English 101 at Coppin State University, he had attended a school similar to the one where his nephew, Butta, was stuck in an in-house suspension class of some sort where:
School seemed like a jail, and level two - Butta's floor - was the psych ward. Students bolting up and down the hallways, desks taking flight, a trail of graded and ungraded papers scattered everywhere, fight videos being recorded on cell phones, Rich Homie Queen blasting at highest decibel, crap games and card games going down with children named Bitch and Fuckyou ...
Watkins and his sister had sought to get Butta out of a class covered by a sub who texted through the class and back to his "real teacher." But, "she was gone that day anyway - stomped down and beat up, we later learned, by eight-grade girls mad she had confiscated their cell phones."
Watkins and his sister had sought to get Butta out of a class covered by a sub who texted through the class and back to his "real teacher." But, "she was gone that day anyway - stomped down and beat up, we later learned, by eight-grade girls mad she had confiscated their cell phones."
Back when he was in school, Watkins couldn't appreciate the required reading, such as Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Now, he knows differently but "my perspective was different when I was a kid. I came from a neighborhood with shootouts, dirt bikes, police raids, junkie fights, block parties, and hoop tournaments. Adventures happened every day and Twain seemed corny to kids like us; fences "The Beast Side" and "Chasin' the Gram" | John Thompson - Linkis.com:
