“We also need to be sensitive to students who may be stigmatized for their condition by peers and others, and may internalize the stigma and sense of shame. Continue reading Deconstructing Societal “Ideals” →

“An implication for teaching is that understanding individual students’ life histories and goals through tools such as lunchtime focus groups, unit evaluations, and teacher action research are important aspects of cultivating classroom agency” (Basu, 2007, p. 275)

I really liked this piece in talking about student agency and how it develops in and through the classroom. What I found interesting is the interplay between the agency that develops in the students themselves tied with the role of the teacher. Basu (2007) defines agency as “a young person’s desire for or action toward changes that can range from the personal to the global and contain an element of identifying and transforming historically oppressive and marginalizing power structures” (p. 254). Continue reading Students Taking Control to Make A Change →

“In both cases, they were criminalized and assaulted for sitting where they were – on the steps in front of their house or in a lunchroom in their school – and more fundamentally, for being who they were… In some cases it’s important to know that an angry student pushing back against a teacher’s authority is also fighting with painful memories of encounters with the authorities in the justice system.” – Chapter 2

Chapter 1 was a struggle to get through and chapter 2 was increasingly difficult by the paragraph. My experience with this book so far has been mostly re-evaluating aspects of my childhood and adolescence with the new perspective I have as an adult. Looking back at why certain school years were so difficult for me on a socio-emotional level and not understanding why. Not getting why it was so hard for me to do well in school, not getting why I never wanted to go home after school, and then reading section by section similar situations that were going on in my life and seeing it “click”. I get it now. This passage in particular helped me revisit those memories and understand why. It wasn’t that my teachers were bad, it wasn’t that I didn’t want to be a good students, I just didn’t respond well to authorities that mimicked too closely that of police officers and the unjust actions I had repeatedly seen terrorizing my neighborhood.

One cold winter Saturday morning a white police officer stopped my dad with my brother and I in the back seat because one of the license plates on the vehicle didn’t match the registration of the car. Someone had tried to steal my dad car but only managed to switch out one of the license plates before they were interrupted. As much as my dad tried to explain this to the officer in his “calm proper English” the officer just couldn’t fathom that this black man could have such a nice car so we all had to get into the backseat of his police-car, drive back to the precinct, and sit in a holding cell until someone could come with “more” proof that the car belonged to my dad. More proof than the registration in his name, more proof than the insurance of the car in his name. My brother and I cried in that cell while my dad held us for the several hours it took until someone could come with more documentation. 

I was 7 years old.

I didn’t understand.

Seeing police officers stand by their “emergency mobile stations” outside the schools in my neighborhood. Seeing 11 police-cars holding 4 officers each flood the corner of the bus stop I was waiting at because two high school boys were fighting across the street. Looking at my high school yearbook and seeing the faces of our 4 guidance counselors, then turning the page to the see the faces of the 16 security guards that were constantly patrolling the grounds of my school. Hearing my brother curse and get heated when talking about getting “Stopped and Frisked” for looking at an officer wrong. Not understanding why my friend didn’t come home and later learning that he got deported for hopping the turnstile on his way home from work because it was past 8pm and his student metrocard was invalid. Hearing my mother’s words “Cuidado m’ija que la policia no está buscando quien se las debe sino quien se las paga” (Be careful my daughter because the police aren’t out to get who owes them one but the one who can pay for it). Feeling the blood drain from my head when an officer stood only a few feet away from me looking straight at me successfully intimidating me with his hand on his gun strapped to his waist. Feeling the pain in my right wrist as my best friend pushed back against a cop trying to arrest me for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and then running until I couldn’t feel my lungs.

There are still many things that I don’t understand but now, as an educator, I’m more aware and perceptive of my students. We just don’t know what our students are going through and they may either not have the language to know how to talk about it or the safe-space to be able to speak out. But we can read their body language, we can be there for them. We can make the effort to see when they’re having a particularly bad day. They may be smaller or younger than us but they are whole humans experiencing real life and they may not understand it all. 

Slightly unrelated but, when I read this, it made me think of a movie I recently watched, Monsters and Men. One of the dilemmas within the plot was that there were repeated incidents of police brutality against black boys by the hands of white officers. An investigation pursued, but when a fellow black police officer was questioned about the integrity and practices of his peers, he covered for them. I must note that the black police officer’s character experienced intense internal conflict due to his decision to cover his peers’ brutality, but other friends had convinced him that if he cooperated in the investigation, it would only stir the pot, more people would get in trouble, and the community would trust them all even less than they already did. Continue reading Monsters and Professionals →

They just stop us out of nowhere. We could be walking as a group, and they stop us out of nowhere. And we be like, you know, “What happened? What we did?” “Oh, we heard some suspicious thing in the neighborhood.”… We all get frisked. No matter what (Goodman, 2018, pg.39).

It is true that the school resource officers, which also called police officers, preserve the safety of the school environment. Definitely, because of their contributions, the schools are safe, as well as students feel comfortable, which encourage their learning without any anxious feelings. However, regards to some communities, the police officers embodied their unlimited powers and strict attitudes toward students who “looks like” suspicious. According to my field experience in New World High School, located at North Bronx, I could describe the school system as a prison. First of all, I recognized the community itself identified as the coverage of low-income families, residents of most Black and Hispanics groups, involve gang activities, etc. Since I am an Asian, which one of the minority group in this community, every person treats me as a human being without any judgments about how am I looking, the way I behave, even the way I spoke to them. But such comfortable feelings ended after I arrived in my field site; there was a plenty of police cars surrounded school every single day. Besides that, to prevent unexpected dangers to the school community, every student must have investigated by the school resource officers (i.e. search pockets, backpack, materials that they bring from outside of the school) from their head to feet. Additionally, except faculties, students have to pass the backscatter scanners, like an airport, in order to access their classrooms. If students bring “sharpened” things, the school resource officers block the entrance and students sent to an inquiry room to investigate further. (sometimes the police officers treated students in an inappropriate manner). Now, let’s positioned as we are the educators of these students, should we keep act like a bystander? On the other hand, what school environment would be if we destroy the system? Does that become more safety or worse? I believe we (teachers, students, faculties, and police officers) do need a conversation about this issue, which to enhance our school environment to look less than a “prison”.