FNED 546 Weekly Blog Assignment #9 - Troublemakers: Lessons in Freedom from Young Children at School by Carla Shalaby
QUOTES REFLECTION
Carla Shalaby’s Troublemakers wastes no time in making its
point – connecting the dots in the first couple pages:
“According to the most recent data from the Department of
Education, black preschoolers are 3.8 times more likely to be suspended than
their white peers.”
“…children who do not read proficiently by the end of third grade are four times more likely to leave high school without a diploma. Securing a job with livable wages without a high school diploma is a challenge, to put it mildly. As a result, young people sometimes find it necessary to engage in unlawful underground economies in order to survive, and then we imprison them.
“This is a continuation of America’s historic legacy of injustice. In the era of slavery, teaching a black person to read was illegal because reading and writing are forms of power, tools for organizing, means to freedom. Removing young children from school, hindering their capacity to acquire such tools, inevitably relegates certain young people – black and brown people, in particular – to a life in modern-day chains.”
Her clear point is that there’s a LOT more to the systemic
racism in the American schooling than the skewed racial makeup of the students
in “good schools” versus “bad schools.” The three quotes above are pulled from
her text in order, explaining how with withholding or education from primarily
black and brown children can often lead them into low-wage jobs as adults, and
into a life of poverty that is sometimes desperate enough to point them to
lawbreaking activities in an attempt to pay for basic needs like food/clothing/shelter.
The ACLU examines this “School-to-Prison Pipeline” and
believes the core reasons for it are:
1.
Failing Public Schools
2.
Zero-Tolerance and other School Discipline
3.
The rise of Disciplinary Alternative School
REFLECTION: I don’t have a lot of personal experience to speak
from regarding differences in schools and racism in the American school system –
as I mentioned last week, I grew up in a very small town in the middle of
Oregon that wasn’t racially diverse. The part of this reading that resonated
with me most was when the author talked about remembering her “problem student”
Anthony, and how on her classroom visits teachers will sometimes apologize in
advance on behalf of the Anthony in their class. That reminded me of the
brilliant selective attention test video several
of us watched in Dr. Holtzman’s CEP 552 class a few weeks ago where we had to
count the number of basketball passes over about a minute. If you extrapolate
that test out to the classroom (through the lens of systemic racism) you can
see how kids as young as preschoolers and kindergarteners are potentially
singled out as being “problem students.”
Hi Mark- great post! This really highlights how early and systematically these patterns start, especially with something like preschool suspensions. The connection you made to selective attention stood out to me—it shows how once a student is labeled, it shapes what teachers notice (and what they miss). It makes me wonder how many “Anthonys” are being defined before they ever get a real chance to be seen differently.
ReplyDeleteHi Mark! I really enjoyed your post! I think the third quote you chose is a truly terrifying statistic, and I actually highlighted this quote in my own reading. There should be some intervention system put in place where we are able to have other teachers that specialize in this kind of intervention, be able to step in and work with these students, teaching them at their own pace, how to read. Being literate is an extremely important part of being human, feeling connected to others, and having hopes and dreams for yourself. It makes sense that these students who aren't proficient in reading would have to find work doing something low-wage or criminal.
ReplyDeleteThis reflection on disruptive students—as well as on the systemic patterns highlighted by Shalaby—is particularly pertinent. I especially appreciate the link drawn between statistics regarding kindergarten exclusions and reading proficiency, as well as the broader phenomenon of the "school-to-prison pipeline." It is alarming to observe the extent to which early inequalities in discipline and access to education have a lasting impact on life trajectories. Your analogy involving the selective attention test serves as an excellent metaphor: teachers may, inadvertently and influenced by bias, perceive certain students as disruptive, thereby overlooking their potential. This underscores the importance for educators to examine their own perceptions and to create learning environments where every child is fully seen and treated equitably. To achieve this, introspection is essential—as is the need to avoid succumbing to social criteria of judgment which are, for the most part, systemic and inequitable instruments.
ReplyDelete