illuminating reflections on racism & discipline

This past semester of student teaching (as you know if you've been reading)--well, it was not my proudest hour, let's just say that. Yes, the teacher made my life difficult, and I think I did okay all things considered, but "all things considered" covers a lot of ground.

One of the issues was that my classroom management style (or the style to which I aspire) is very different from hers. (More another time). The climate and rules etc. that she created were very different from what would have benefitted me and made it easy for me to teach. So I often found myself just grasping at straws, in terms of discipline, trying to get through the day/week until I would be done with student teaching. Not good practice for my own classroom, but I admit that, right or wrong, I gave up on "good practice" back in November, and just tried to (a) adapt and (b) survive.

So I found myself writing referrals (student gets sent to detention room, call home, they lose points that they try to accumulate for rewards, goes on their permanent record, etc) as a way out of routine-level problems that I should have been able to handle. I wrote quite a few referrals toward the end, and I admit with shame that it was due to exhaustion as much as anything else.

Thus, I find myself on the other side of the divide from when I wrote with such rage and conviction, my first semester, about teachers who "can't be bothered to help a kid so they just want him out of their room." Yup, that's me now.

I reflected on this as my time there was coming to an end. It was illuminating for me, so I'll describe my reflections here, even though it's not pretty.


For whom did I write referrals? Basically, three out of five Black kids.

Which students did I threaten with referrals, but never write any? Two out of five Black kids in the other class.

Did I ever write a referral for a white kid? I think only once, for actual fighting. Did I threaten to? I think never.

Was it because the white kids were better? No, on the contrary--the two kids I considered most likely to grow up to be mean, nasty, and abusive were both white.

Was it because the white kids were less disruptive in their misbehavior? Not really. I interrupted myself to chide white kids all the time. I would not say there was a big difference in terms of the number of times I asked white vs Black kids to be quiet, get on the right page, quit tapping (singing, whistling, whatever), stop disrespecting their classmates, etc. (This little list makes clear to any seasoned teacher how ineffective I was!)

There are probably other reasons and issues at hand, and I may be distorting the record in favor of my point (white guilt is not useful). But here's the interesting part.

When I thought about it, when I asked myself, "Why doesn't your hand go to that little pad of referral slips when a white kid is misbehaving?" the answer that came to me was intriguing.

It was as if there was a force field around the white kids--an intuition within me that said, "don't touch them, could be trouble."

It seemed very clear to me that somehow, *that* would be a Big Deal. People would notice. They would judge whether I had been fair or whether it was okay to give this kid a referral. The kid's parents might come in and yell at me. The principal might come and talk with me to see if I could justify myself. That's the last thing I want to have to deal with.

Is this all in my head?

Maybe this is what would really happen, maybe it's all in my head. But even if it's all in my head, the question is, how did it get there?

Where did I get the idea that it's okay to punish Black kids, that it almost doesn't even matter, but white kids--you have to be really careful about punishing them.

If it's not all in my head, why does it seem that the white kids would be better protected? Is it racism in the administration? Is it that their parents feel more empowered, less intimidated in the face of white authority figures? Is it that when their parents holler, people listen?

Jury's out on all these questions, but what I am sure about, is this unspoken, unnoticed assumption on my part that writing referrals for Black kids was no big deal, and for white kids, it would be a big deal.

The most charitable possible interpretation (charitable towards myself) is that since the students who got referrals generally got them repeatedly, it probably did not seem like such a big deal to write them another one. What does that mean... that after a while I may have felt that "they obviously don't care if they get one or not."....?? Wait a minute, that's not a charitable interpretation at all! Wow, that's almost the worst one!

Aren't I always telling people that kids want to succeed, that if they see the path they'll walk it? That if they act out it's because they feel themselves to be out of options? Holy cow, I'm a hypocrite! Man, the inside of one's head is an interesting place!

The reason I do this is not to make myself feel guilty--and I don't really, I mostly just feel very sad.

The only time I feel guilty is when I didn't act on something I knew how to do better--then it's a failure of will, of empathy, etc. So I do feel bad about getting so tired this semester and basically just hanging in there at all costs, when the costs were the kids'.

But generally when it comes to racism I do believe that we all grow up infused with it because it infuses the air in this society. The only way to see how it works, and then weed it out, is self-education and introspection. Guilt just gets in the way of that. Reflection is research, and what you learn is fascinating.

So mostly I just feel sad when I see what I've done. Sad for all of us, that this is so hard to see and to fix. But the more I learn the more I also find myself able to catch and repair my mistakes, and that part is hopeful. The process itself is hopeful. It can be done.