My people,
I recently wrote an article for the upstart mag The Enemy, expounding on my thoughts about the relationships between teachers and the police, pulling together Mobb Deep, Frank Serpico, and others for a piece that was / is absolutely necessary. Here’s a glimpse:
To the eyes of the American public, it might seem like none of these are connected, but, to many people of color, the school-to-prison pipeline has been lifted out of the underground and become part of the mainstream understanding of how this country works. When teachers continue to reinforce their allegiance with the darker elements of police brutality, we signal to disenfranchised communities that in fact, their lives don’t matter, from the time they step into the classroom to the time they’ve been pushed – not dropped – out.
As early as five years old, students of color start seeing a education of a different type than that of mainstream America. Suspensions of pre-K students of color get served at three times the rate of white pre-kindergarteners. These zero-tolerance policies are more prevalent in public and charter schools that are predominantly comprised of students of color, so a student getting arrested for wearing the wrong uniform or insubordination becomes commonplace for many of them. Police officers patrol schools in the name of keeping them safe, but, with metal detectors and cell-phone vans serving as the gatekeepers for these schools, does the heightened focus on safety keep students out of school as well?
To read more, click here. Please share this article as well. I would love your feedback.
Jose
That schools should be safe should be obvious and expected. How you get that safety is the challenge. We’ve had our share of students who show up at our school as transfers from other schools with their shields up on red alert, and after a few weeks they are as goofy and open as the rest of our students. These young folks are embraced, accepted, and loved as if they were our own children, and while we are demanding (I already have the 7th graders ‘scared’ of my 8th grade class), the students accept the expectations because they know we care about them.
Young people are very keen at sensing the vibe from adults; if that vibe is negative, cold, and uncaring they will respond in kind, which creates a hostile environment that does indeed require metal detectors and cops.
Yet, schools can’t operate in a vacuum. When students come from homes where they are cursed at, screamed at, or not talked to at all it makes a school’s job much, much harder. The school-to-prison pipeline doesn’t start at school; school just happens to be a conduit that can and should slow and divert the flow.
Good article. I saw many similar elements happening in my high-poverty rural school which was white and Latino, and I have to agree about the degree to which the school-to-prison pipeline is being intensified over the past few years. The degree to which special education is slowly and certainly being undermined also is setting up a situation where in a few years only the affluent students with learning disabilities will get services–the underclasses (both racial and economic) will get prison.
To paraphrase William Shakespeare, “There’s something rotten in the States of America”.
A statement that caught my attention, among many others, was “The ones who stay cling onto many of the ideals, but they still feel generally unprepared for the task at hand. People never tell new teachers that inspiration and vigor only go as far as their pedagogy and understanding of the students in front of them goes.”
I have mixed feelings about this statement. Yes, it is certainly true that teacher training and preparation leaves much to be desired. I obtained my first teaching job, unknown to me at the time, due to the fact that the local school board decided that payroll costs were to high. So, to reduce costs, they fired every educator in the district from the superintendent on down and hired brand new first year people at the bottom of the salary schedule as replacements. That year the school district got the quality education program they paid for. In short, my training was the sink or swim school of teacher prep. It took a number of years to develop the understanding I needed before I felt a level of competence, and confidence, that I am able to make a difference to my students.
I have mixed feelings because your statement is a bit of a conundrum. Of course new teachers are limited in terms of pedagogical skills and understanding of their students because they are still new to the profession. This is how things have pretty much always been. New teachers simply need time and support to develop their skills and understanding. Some veteran teachers, on the other hand, never seem to get past their earlier experiences. It almost seems that they are “frozen” in their development. They seem to have lost their sense of mission. Often I hear teachers wonder aloud if what they do makes any kind of difference. Such statements are sad and tragic for their students if this is what their teachers really believe. I would reference Isaiah 58, vs 6 and 7. What does it really mean to “remove the yoke of oppression?”
You also mentioned in this and earlier articles that teachers would wear NYPD t-shirts perhaps to show support and solidarity with local police. I think that those teachers and others who deliberately inject politics into their classrooms, regardless of the issues, are making a mistake.
IMHO this is an issue of professionalism. Yes, students will have questions and concerns. Yes, schools are not isolated from their communities. And yes, teachers need to be aware of issues so that when students do ask questions, and they certainly will ask questions, teachers are able to listen, and then respond constructively and with sensitivity. However, I do not believe it is a teacher’s role to instigate or some how insert politics into a classroom setting. I am not suggesting that teachers lose their free speech rights at the school door. We are charged with responsibly teaching our subject matter well. Kids need to know that despite all of the insanity and stress that may be going around them, the classroom is one area in their lives of sanity, safety, security, and predictability.