I had a great opportunity earlier this week to lead two journalism classes at the Walbrook Homeland Security Academy. (also check out our school reporter Sara Neufeld's blog on another school visit). I met a great teacher, Philip Turner, who introduced me to more than 35 of his students.

It's heartening to talk with young people who are interested in your profession, even when your profession is up against hard times. For the most part, these young adults were engaging, insightful and challenged me with questions about my job and forced me to confront some of my own preconceived notions.

Yes, some of these kids are growing up in difficult homes and dangerous neighborhoods, and some have had run-ins with the police. They wanted me to write about how the police rough them up for no reason. But most wanted to know how we interview mothers who have just lost sons, and whether we cry later. They wanted to know whether officials from City Hall try to get us not to write stories, and wondered whether I'd be afraid to publish what really goes on in a city high school.

I was so engrossed in the conversation that 90 minutes flew by, and at the end I honestly couldn't tell you if I was in an inner-city school or a freshman class in college. That is the fun part of this job. I hope they learned something; I know I did.

That said, no, I'm not afraid to tell what I saw in the school. First off, this is the Homeland Security Academy, but I think they forgot the security part. The students told me there are metal detectors (after a series of fires set in bathrooms) but apparently they're only up in the mornings (one student told me the school borrows them). I walked in around 9:15 in the morning and went straight to Mr. Turner's classroom on the third floor without ever being confronted, stopped or questioned by anybody. I walked right by the main office and several kids hanging out in the lobby.

During class, the disruptions were constant. Announcements came often from the main office, everything from calling students to different rooms to requests for attendance sheets. Kids roamed the halls, and weren't too quiet about it either. After class, I roamed the school again, chatted with teachers, police officers and paramedics (who are there to teach the public safety theme), but again, no one ever asked what I was doing there.

After all, this is a school that once tried to get students to wear royal blue shirts as part of their uniforms, until fights broke out and teachers realized that blue was the color of the Crips gang and the Bloods didn't much like the choice of attire. Can an adminstration that runs a PUBLIC SAFETY school in one of the roughest neighborhoods of the city be that out of touch? They now wear yellow.

One student seriously asked, "Is crime always bad?" Another asked, "I want to know what makes a person fight over a color."

Yes, I said, crime is always bad. But I also tried to explain that crime is something that is against the law, and we get to make the laws. Then a student told me, "All you do is write." True, but it's more than just sitting at a computer and writing. I want to talk with real people -- not officials -- but real people, like them, who feel ignored. Tell those stories, I told them, and it makes "just writing" all the more worthwhile. In addition, I said it gives me, and potentially them, a license to question authority.

Mr. Turner was gracious enough to let me have several papers the students wrote for one of his projects called, "Crime in my eyes." The biggest complaint these kids had was that they feel they are being cheated out of a good education. Three principals in four years. Constant interruptions in the hallway. Classes that repeat basic information. Said one student: "These teachers are doing a good job teaching kids who don't want to learn." Reading their essays, I was even more astounded, not by the crime they describe in intimate detail, but that the kids I enaged for 90 minutes in smart conversation could survive in such heartwrenching conditions.

Here is their work: