Maybe it really is true that the way towns were in the U.S. in days gone by...the way that that "world" seemed to a greater degree to have human decency as the norm...
That aspect of America back then lives on today in a place like Copán.
What's got me thinking about all this is something I saw in the school's outdoor cafeteria today:
The picture above shows what was to my right as I was eating. There was a plant close to my table, and someone had placed a metal bar beside the plant. It must have been a bar that came off one of the benches we use for seating at each of our wood lunch tables.
After noticing the bar, I had a little impulse to simply pick it up and remove it. Unfortunately, the reason for the impulse is that as a person who works with students, I have developed over time a reflex for ridding environments of things that might tempt students to make a bad decision. The actual thought I had in the moment today was that the bar should be put away so we never have a situation where an upset student grabs and uses it against another student as a weapon.
Might sound far fetched to think of young people this way, but as far back as high school, I remember a day when a kid got on the school bus with a small metal bar in his hand and then attacked another bus rider with it. Apparently, they had had a prior disagreement, and I guess one of them decided he needed a metal object to compensate for his smaller stature when physically confronting the other guy.
Anyway, in the middle of my thought process in the cafeteria, I realized there was no need to take the bar because fights and violence are something I haven't witnessed at all at our school. In fact, it's kinda hard to imagine a student here attacking another with a weapon.
My conclusion in that moment, as well as what it indicated to me about my view of small town Honduran teens (versus U.S. teens), struck me as interesting.
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