"'If things like this are still happening in 2016 in a very diverse county with all the resources in the world, it’s an indictment on teachers, if a 16- or 17-year-old thinks this is how you should spend a Friday night,' Dr. Sran said." from the New York Times article: Teenagers Who Vandalized Historic Black Schoolhouse Are Ordered to Read Books
It appears that some hoodlums vandalized an old schoolhouse, one that is clearly a symbol of a past where people of color were segregated, oppressed, and discriminated against even more so than they are now. Part of the judge's sentence: Read a book from a list of texts that highlight the darkness of bigotry and discrimination, plus write an essay about the history of the swastika as a symbol of white supremacy. Dr. Sran, "the founder of the Loudoun School for the Gifted, a private school that owns the Ashburn Colored School and is renovating it to use as an education museum," seems to think that teachers--probably public school teachers--should be blamed for the behavior of these children. Interesting.
First of all, Dr. Sran, this is a social problem--not a teacher problem. Don't blame me for the fact that millions of people on this country turn a blind eye to bullying and racism, so much so that they allowed a racist bully to become their president and set the tone for the entire United States. As long as we live in a country where so many of the powerful try to pretend that inequality and bigotry do not exist, we will see this kind of behavior persist. Instead of teaching kids--implicitly or explicitly--that the poor, the weak, and "the other" are bad, lazy people who are undeserving of our assistance or compassion, perhaps we should, as a society, do something to change that. Stop telling your kids not to give money to that homeless guy because he's just going to spend it on booze. Stop telling your kids that people who receive SNAP benefits ("Food Stamps") are lazy addicts who should be drug tested before we allow them money to feed their families. Stop telling your kids that undocumented immigrants are stealing their jobs. Stop telling your kids that those women who were raped asked for it, that those black men who were unjustly killed by law enforcement "shouldn't have been breaking the law," that those Syrians who are trying to flee war and oppression are here to bomb the hell out of all of us in the name of Allah.
Furthermore, I've taught many of the books on that list. So have many of my colleagues. Many of us in the humanities are liberal snowflakes who try to teach compassion and convince kids that literature shows us what it means to be human. (By the way--not entirely sure why "The Sun Also Rises" made the list unless you want to show them the value of being a misogynist who can't get an erection, but okay.) But we can't do this alone. We need parents, community leaders, and the media to back us up on this. As a whole, we are not getting as much help as we need. We're happy to educate your children and try to teach them about the importance of humility and humanity and helpfulness--but the rest of the world needs to get on board, too.
Finally--and most importantly--a message to you, Dr. Sran, and the judge, about psychology and pedagogy. While I can appreciate that you want these children to be more educated, and I can even understand why you think this sentence could potentially change these children's attitudes--attitudes modeled for them by all kinds of people and leaders in this country--as a teacher, I have to question your decision to make reading and writing part of a criminal sentence. If the goal here is to emphasize the importance of education, why are you presenting it in a way where these children will now associate it with punishment? Why are you saying, "You made bad choices. Now as a consequence for your deplorable actions, you have to engage in the same activities that are required of you in your Language Arts class"? If I, as a school teacher, am part of the problem that you are trying to rectify, then why are you making my job a penalty?
I do hope that these kids read Night or I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings or--please, please--the ever so timely Tortilla Curtain. And I do hope that the powerful writing of Elie Weisel, Maya Angelou, or T.C. Boyle will cause these children to have epiphanies, to see the world from a new perspective, and to have a deep respect for those people who have dehumanized by our society. I hope I am wrong, and that this sentence doesn't just make these children see reading and writing as just one more thing that "the power" uses to try to "hold them down." I hope. Because it's going to take a heck of a lot more than making some teenagers read The Color Purple to get this country back on track.
