“Every single kid in this class been suspended at least once.”

It was a fair claim, and honestly speaking, I knew the girl who said it might actually be right. At least for half a second, that’s what I thought. A quiet voice beside me reminded me that that probably wasn’t the case.

“I haven’t.”

The shy words came from one of the best students in the class, a hard work boy who never has any behavior problems. The two girls with whom I was speaking — with whom I’d drifted so off topic from our classwork that I felt somewhat guilty continuing it and did so only because of a perceived need to explain some basic facts to some confused girls — the two girls just looked at him. I jumped in.

“And in fact I can show you a whole class of students that have never been suspended.” I had in mind my honors group, but times are changing, and being in an honors class no longer necessarily means perfect behavior, so they argued, tossing a couple of names at me. Knowing they were likely right, I persisted nonetheless in asserting that none of them had been suspended.

Finally, the girls turned to the fatalistic refrain of at-risk kids: “Well, that’s them, not us.”

“But it could be you,” I suggested, and one would think I’d suggested that they could fly to the moons of Jupiter by their own power, such was the looks of disbelief.

“That ain’t us!” they insisted.