special thoughts from today's troubled youth.

this isn't a review of the new flick freedom writers - as *inspiring* as the ads for the movie make it seem, we probably won't be catching it. loveandcyanide doesn't need hollywood's sanitized version of inner-city education - our mother is a teacher in one of the worst elementary schools in nyc, so we get to witness firsthand what is really going on in the mind's of today's youth.

when she's not too busy warding off threatening parents, scrubbing curse words that were written in white-out off her car windshield, and/or writing suspension notices, our mother is a superb teacher doing her best to try and teach children who are high on ritalin/need ritalin/too damaged from the crack they ingested in the womb/can't speak english/are abused/just don't care all they need to know. she puts a big emphasis on writing, trying to help the kids use their brains and express themselves. an arduous ordeal, for the most part.

so imagine her delight when the other day she was informed by one of her students that his friend, we'll call him timmy, was upset with the substitute teacher they had had the day before and had written down how he felt about it. mother checked in with timmy, and indeed he was quite upset about the substitute teacher, and he got all bent out of shape while telling her how much he disliked the sub, and how she wasn't nice to him, etcetc. he confirmed that he had written down how he felt about the situation, and my mother commended him on having listened to her and taken the time to write down his emotions.

she asked if she could see what he wrote. he handed over a piece of paper that read:

slap that bitch. choke that ho.

these 9-year-olds today. what will they come up with next?