Duquette adjusts on the fly and asks them to write down where they think they'll be in ten years. The kids get to it, once prodded, and at the back of the room, Bunny tells Parenti, "She's young, but she's good." Parenti exposits that she's a doctoral candidate in the Psych department, working on a thesis on social alienation and analysis. Duquette asks for a show of hands on how many kids wrote down "NBA"; there are at least two, one of whom says he's only going to play for the Lakers. These kids really have a strange idea of how professional athletics work, I have to say. Albert pipes up to say he wants to be a pediatric neurosurgeon like that one nigga -- what's his name?" "Ben Carson," Parenti supplies. That is indeed the nigga to whom Albert was referring -- and not one of the other ones on his pediatric neurosurgeon trading cards. Parenti quietly tells Bunny that Ben Carson is a black surgeon at Johns Hopkins, and has a high profile. Duquette tells Albert that if he wants to be a surgeon, he'll need to go to medical school. "Whatever," says Albert, I guess because it was just an idea and not, like, a plan.

Duquette asks how many kids wrote down that they'd be dead. "Shit, you saw that coming, huh?" says Namond, raising his hand. Duquette says it's a shame that they all have so little time and have to spend it in her class: "You know where you're going, and we can't teach you anything you don't know about that, right?" "That's what we've been saying," says Namond, flicking a page of the magazine open on his lap. Duquette tells him to put the magazine away, and Namond instantly says (a) that he isn't reading a magazine; (b) that it's not even his; and (c) that it was there when he arrived. Excuse hat trick! Bunny can't help himself and chuckles, "Y'all little pissers." Namond turns and gazes at him balefully as Bunny tells Duquette, "We're giving them a fine education. 'It ain't even mine. It was just laying here when I came in.' You know, this right here -- the whole damn school, the way they carry themselves -- it's training for the street. The building's the system. We the cops." Zenobia mopily agrees. Bunny says that they come in there every day and practise "getting over" and "running all different kinds of games," as "practice for the corner." There aren't any real cops, or real danger, but they're all getting something out of it: "Bet you didn't know that." "Still rather be out there," drawls Namond. If it's any consolation, Namond, I'd also rather you were out there, possibly in the path of a stray bullet. Bunny asks Duquette if he may have the room, and she steps aside as he asks, "Corner boys, huh?" He asks what makes a good corner boy, and the answers start flying fast: keep your eyes open; keep the count straight; don't trust anyone; etc. The kids are finally engaged and talking over each other, Parenti writing furiously at the back of the room, and Duquette stunned practically slack-jawed to see, at last, what it looks like when these kids care in a classroom.