"People locked up the animals..."

J. is a soft-spoken 3rd grader at Malcolm X Academy with liquid brown eyes, round cheeks and a beautiful smile. He’s a serious, thoughtful boy, who gives a lot of attention to his paintings, so I looked forward to seeing what his painting would look like on the day’s topic: if you could be any type of animal, what would you be? He grew restless and agitated during the brainstorming portion of our last class, which surprised me, but he didn’t let his bad mood stop him.

Instead of picking one animal to represent himself, he painted square cages across most of his painting, with a dog and a lion standing outside. He told me that people had locked most of the animals in cages. When I asked him about the dog and the lion, J. said they weren’t caged yet, but they were about to fight each other because the people who caged the animals made them. He said it wasn’t possible for them to disobey; they had to fight even though they didn’t want to. Across the page, J wrote: Jail. I’m ready.

It seems clear to me that this is what his future looks like to him. I’m just heartbroken. We have to do better for sweet, beautiful children like J. What can we do to give them hope for the future?