Post 9: Troublemakers

 

Troublemakers by Carla Shalaby

Quotes:

“Understanding supposedly broken children as miners’ canaries focuses our attention on the toxic social and cultural conditions of schools that threaten and imperil the hope of freedom” (xxiii). 

The author is using the miners' canary as an analogy in connection to student behavior. Like the canaries, Shalaby believes that students most sensitive to the toxic school enviorment have the greatest negative reaction to it, often resulting in challenging behaviors that label them as “troublemakers”. As educators, we must seek to understand the environmental factors causing these behaviors and focus our efforts towards removing the toxin rather than training kids to tolerate it. 

“In short, the policies and practices that we use to discipline children–starting in the earliest grades—have the potential to set off the first in a long line of falling dominoes that might end in a young person facing the direst of circumstances” (xxix).

Many schools have a zero-tolerance policy for misconduct that rely heavilty on punishment in the form of isolation or exclusion. As a result, often already struggling students are forced to miss school during formative years. According to the author, children without reading proficiency by the end of the 3rd grade are four times as likely to drop out of High School. Shalaby refers to this as a withholding of education and points out its political ties to maintaining an economic and social underclass. Similar to what Patrick J. Finn discussed in Literacy with an Attitude, many schools are training students to tolerate this oppressive environment to create the perfect workers, ones that keep their heads down, mouths shut, and follow orders. Those who are defiant are pushed out. 

“Every time a child breaks a rule, never mind the purposefulness or lack thereof, she exercises her human right not to comply, and she signals something about the demand she refuses to meet. Maybe she can’t meet the demand. Maybe she doesn't want to. Whatever the case, her noncompliance marks the need to evaluate the demand, not just the child” (xxxiii).

Shalaby acknowledges that most children are not intentional in their fight for freedom, but that does not mean their rebellion should go unnoticed. 46 percent of kindergarten teachers report that more than half their class has trouble following directions. Such a large-scale struggle, and yet, it's hardly ever questioned if this strict obedience is reasonable to ask of a five-year-old in the first place. As educators, we must take a step back and evaluate what we hope to shape our students into and if the environment and policies in place are supporting this goal.

Comment: 

During one of my observations in an elementary school, a second-grade student asked to use clay, and the teacher told him no and explained that it was not today's lesson. She saw he was upset and validated these feelings, but asked that he act responsibly. In response, the student got angry and threw the supplies he was given at the wall. The teacher sent this student to the classroom next door, where that teacher would seat the student off to the side, talk with him about his behavior, and set a timer. Initially, I was surprised, as this felt very similar to a “time out,” which these kids seemed a bit too old for. Though when I placed myself in her shoes, I’m not sure what I would have done. She's alone in a classroom of 30 kids, with a student throwing things because she said no. She's an elective teacher who sees each group every three weeks, which is not ideal for building those relationships consistently. Even if she had the budget to give out clay whenever a student requested it, would it not reinforce the unsafe behavior? At the end of class, she pulled the student to the side and had a one-on-one conversation with him. It ended with him telling her that he hates art and her saying, that's okay and that she hopes someday he comes around to enjoy art.

For an article on increasing choice in the classroom:

https://www.nwea.org/blog/2025/how-to-engage-students-by-providing-more-freedom-of-choice/