The Louder They'll Sing: Lessons From Young Troublemakers on Freedom

• In Event: 58.060 - The Lingering Persistence of Discipline

Abstract

The racialized, harsh discipline practices in secondary schools is well-documented in scholarship on the school-to-prison nexus, but this study of first- and second-graders shows how a child’s path to excessive punishment and exclusion in fact begins at a much younger age. This paper delves into the everyday lives of four children to challenge the endless pursuit to moderate, punish, and (often) medicate them—instead of transforming our institutions, systems, and structures. Through an explicit lens of education for liberation, the paper is concerned with what these young children can teach us about how to practice freedom in the everyday of classrooms and how to reframe our most basic assumptions about “classroom management” in light of the ongoing struggle for freedom.

Author

• Carla Shalaby, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor