About this item
A radical educators paradigm-shifting inquiry into the accepted, normal demands of school, as illuminated by moving portraits of four young "problem children" In this dazzling debut, Carla Shalaby, a former elementary school teacher, explores the everyday lives of four young "troublemakers," challenging the ways we identify and understand so-called problem children. Time and again, we make seemingly endless efforts to moderate, punish, and even medicate our children, when we should instead be concerned with transforming the very nature of our institutions, systems, and structures, large and small. Through delicately crafted portraits of these memorable children -- Zora, Lucas, Sean, and Marcus -- Troublemakers allows us to see school through the eyes of those who know firsthand what it means to be labeled a problem.From Zoras proud individuality to Marcuss open willfulness, from Seans struggle with authority to Lucass tenacious imagination, comes profound insight -- for educators and parents alike -- into how schools engender, exclude, and then try to erase trouble, right along with the young people accused of making it. And although the harsh disciplining of adolescent behavior has been called out as part of a school-to-prison pipeline, the children we meet in these pages demonstrate how a childs path to excessive punishment and exclusion in fact begins at a much younger age.Shalabys empathetic, discerning, and elegant prose gives us a deeply textured look at what noncompliance signals about the environments we require students to adapt to in our schools. Both urgent and timely, this paradigm-shifting book challenges our typical expectations for young children and with principled affection reveals how these demands -- despite good intentions -- work to undermine the pursuit of a free and just society.
About the Author
Carla Shalaby is a former public elementary school teacher who has studied at the Rutgers and Harvard Graduate Schools of Education, and directed elementary teacher education programs at both Brown University and Wellesley College. Her work focuses on the particular and critical role that young children and their teachers play in the ongoing struggle for justice. In addition to her books, she co-edits an annual lesson plan book for social justice teachers entitled, Planning to Change the World, in partnership with the Education for Liberation Network and Rethinking Schools.
You can find Carla on Twitter @CarlaShalaby.
