May 14, 2004
Bad Boys part 2
I'm going to start keeping track of my reflections for Bad Boys here. I started with Chapter 4, Naughty by Nature.
Throughout this whole book I keep thinking about one kid in my class, I'll call him Shawn. Try as I might, I can't get him out of my head. He is such a perfect example of every kid mentioned in this book. He's a black student with an enormous sense of humor and a quick mouth. He is also incredibly sweet and means well. He sometimes has problems reigning in his own behavior but when he realizes he is being "out of line" he is genuinely repentant.
Chapter 4 details the villification of black students, specifically black boys. Whats unique about this chapter is the appearent double-standard applied to black and white children, and how there is an appearant paradox between the two expectations of children.
On one hand, children are young and innocent, and frankly egotistical. So it only makes sense that they would be mischevous or naughty. (Hence "naughty by nature")
But what happens especially with black children is that adults assume that they are explicitly mean or evil in their "naughtiness"
This is exactly what I saw going on for certain teachers and students at the school I was at. There was a normally good natured white math teacher that I saw on a regular basis. He was young and energetic, but you also got the feeling that he wasn't going to take any shit from anyone. And sure enough, I would see him making his kids do pushups in the hall for being late, and demonstrating his authority in a strong but even-keeled manner. Most of the time he seemed like a pretty reasonable guy, and a great math teacher.
On one particular day, my student Shawn was staying after school to make up a test that he had missed. This teacher was going to be running the math tutoring after school, and I was expecting to be able to use the room for Shawn to take his test. I would also be in the room in case Roiri had questions. Upon entering the room right after school, Shawn immediatley began joking around with another student. He could be very funny and when other students were not annoyed with his antics, they seemed to really enjoy his jovial manner. I knew this was normal, and figured I would give him a minute or two to talk with his friend while I hunted down a copy of the test.
Within moments this teacher told Shawn to get out. I immediately stood up and said "He's with me, he's taking a test. I'm just making a copy for him now." Without hesitation the teacher responded that Shawn would not be taking it in the room while he was monitoring it. Roiri became annoyed and began fronting the teacher. The teacher wouldn't even consider the situation and told Shawn he was being disruptive and to leave. I took Shawn out into the hall, and found him another room to take the test.
What was happening here was that Shawn's usual joking around was being interpreted as an intentional disruption, that he was somehow trying to cause problems in the class. This really frustrated me, that Shawn would be written off so completely, but this book puts a new perspective on it.. or at least explains what the heck is going on.
Put simply, there is this image of rowdy black kids as being somehow evil (for lack of a better word) in their intentions - that instead of being the adolescent kids that they are, that they somehow are more adult and already "know better" and thus any transgression must be malicious. Its an incredibly unhealthy attitude and it doesn't allow room for kids to learn to be mature. Instead, their maturity is expected and thus the response to their behavior is especially bad.
I'm not really sure what more to do about it. This kid really wanted to do well but he was being thwarted because he was behaving like an adolescent. A particularly talkative adolescent, but an adolescent nonetheless.
This chapter also touches on the idea of teaching obedience as a survival skill. This is especially interesting because I think that much of it flies in the face of what it means to be a black male in a black society. There is a lot of lively free expression and self promoting as a means to prop ones self up and maintain your self esteem and the respect of those around you. The question many of the teachers in the book seem to know is "Why can't these kids learn to be obedient?" but it seems like the wrong way to go about it.
From my perspective I think it is putting the cart before the horse. You don't teach the behavioral obedience without connecting the behavior with an expected outcome. And you can't force an outcome down the throat of a student that you don't understand. Unfortunately, its not clear to me what the best outcome would be for many of the black kids that the book describes, that I've seen profiled in videos in class, or that I've worked with directly as a student teacher.
For me, it seems like there has got to be another path to understanding where these kids want to go, what they think they can achieve, and why it matters to them. Only then can they look ahead at their future and aim for something.
On a side note, even "aiming" for something seems like a bit of a white, middle class take on the future. But that's something for another reflection.