"Troublemakers" by Carla Shalaby's review!

 Good afternoon and welcome back to my blog!

        Thank you for joining me again, Today we will highlight the key points/ quotes of the reading "Troublemakers." This reading is written by Carla Shalaby where she addresses and highlights, that children's behavior is taught and expresses how restrictive they feel in a school environment. She also highlights how our disciplinary system hurts the child because we categorized a student who is constantly in trouble a "problem child," instead of exploring the "why did the student go through with this actions?" Although this reading had a lot of important key points I want to highlight a couple of quotes that stuck out to me.

From Shalabys Preface:

"Thus, on the streets and in our schools, we are in the habit of incarcerating the people from whom we could learn the most about freedom."(pg.9)

She is referring to the "Black Lives Matter" movement when it was at its peek in 2020. When the protests was unfortunately the only way to gain the attention of the media, when they were not receiving justice during police brutality/in the public eye. Many of them were thrown in jail, whether it was a peace protest or a riot. Instead of listening to what they had to say we silenced them by throwing them in a cell. The protests were their way of gaining attention to speak up for their cause. I think this is Important to highlight because it shows that in our system the activists who try to explain their cause for the world to become a safer and equal environment are silenced. 

From Shalabys Introduction:

"Students who do not behave by our standards are then not permitted to progress by our standards"

This was a hard one to pick apart and that's exactly why I chose this quote. It led me to question: "what are our standards?" If a student is not getting straight A's or participating in sports/extra curricular, why are they not the "model student?" I think that's why she decided to add this quote because many students who dropped out as she says "They are pushed out." I think the system lacks the empathy component. The ones  who act out, typically are not receiving attention at home or most of the times, they are behind in school. Since they cannot complete the assignment they act out of anger. None of those reasons are simply because they are"bad children" they are just children who have struggles of their own. To some extent, Children take advantage of school and do act out of temper, but do not categorized students who want to learn but simply cant. 

Reflection:

I really enjoyed this article. As a teacher the last thing that crosses my mind when it comes to a classroom is categorizing a child, unless it will benefit their education. My connection to this is my Mom has worked at every school I went to besides high school, but my father was very close to the principal of the school, so the thought of "acting out" in a physical manner was off the table, but my mental "acting out" took over. I found myself not understanding a topic in math or one of my AP classes, which led to me resenting the teacher, topic, and school in general. Instead of asking for help, I started to slack off, which thankfully one of my teachers noticed and put me back of track. I want to be that teacher who truly understands her students and be a teacher who will advocate and support a students education just like mine did. Instead of pushing them away when they act out, lets push them closer and ask the "why" question.