Here's something I'm noticing.
I want my students to ask things like, "How can we make the classroom, this school, this community, this world more just for all those who live in it?" This week, I've been asked these questions:
1. "Can I stand up?" (Um, yes.)
2. "Can I turn my phone on silent?" (Um, please do. Duh?)
3. "Can I go over there?" (Uh..?)
4. "Can you tell them to stop filming their shoes?" (Yeah. I'll talk to them about that tomorrow.)
Schools can be lovely, hopeful places. They can also set up weird power structures where teachers find themselves, whether they actually care to or not, policing things like standing up or not standing up. I'm also supposed to take away any hats or non-religious head-coverings I see. I don't care about hats or non-religious head-coverings. That's so nineties; is it not?
7 comments:
but if you don't take away their hats, how can we stop them from joining gangs and shooting innocent children on the streets?
oh i know, go ahead, call me crazy.
i don't like hats except on me
our school actually allows kids to wear our school's hat but no other hats because of gangs. I also found out the other day they are not allowed to wear football jerseys other than our school's football jersey.
MONROE PRIDE!
See, I loved teachers like you. The ones who focused on the shit that actually matters and not on stupid mundane things like the fact that I was wearing shorts two inches shorter than my fingertips. Are you actually putting me in in-school suspension because I have on conservative shorts that just don't reach my fingertips (which, when pressed against my leg, reach my knees)? And taking me away from learning shit?
Anyway, they have to be aware that they can ask those questions. And stretched enough to even think about what that means. This is why I am still pondering teaching school at some point. (But only if I can teach social studies.)
well thanks! (and actually, it's more like ideally i'm that kind of teacher. but it's REALLY REALLY hard to unteach the kinds of expectations that many of my students have about what the student-teacher relationship is supposed to be like.)
Post a Comment