Standing at
the top of the stairs, Assistant Principal Donnelly stares at the blue front
doors of the school. A custodian walks
down an empty gray hallway carrying a broom.
The sound of clanging metal serving trays carries from the other side of
the cafeteria where lunch-aids organize food at the lunch counter. Mr. Pryzbylewski stands in the front of his
classroom looking out onto rows of mismatched desks and chairs. Assistant Principal Donnelly then checks her
watch, makes the sign of the cross, and sighs as a bell rings out a long
sustained tone. A man in police uniform
opens the doors and a crowd of children rush through. Instantaneous noise floods the school's entry
way as students make their way up the steps and into the halls. "I love the first day" says one
student to his friends, "everybody all friendly and shit."
Season 4 of
HBO's "The Wire" takes place in Baltimore, Maryland. It is a riveting portrayal of life in one
urban city and explores the various communities that create the everyday life
and culture there - government, bureaucracy, schools, streets, prisons, and
media. Once desensitized to the overly
used and arguably unrealistic gratuitous language, the show's dialogue presents
a thoughtful and complex storyline that is severely fascinating and thought
provoking. It provides a multi-layered
portrayal of the lives of those in an urban community, which is often
unrecognized by mainstream culture.
Superb acting elicits instant believability and situational drama
stimulates quick character development.
The interconnected plot lines support a creative and intellectual
challenge to viewing the season in isolation.
These compelling narratives work together to reshape or question our
definition of friendship, courage, survival, and childhood.
Creator,
David Simon, explained that the compelling incident that caused the creation of
the Peabody Award-winning drama series, was viewing Baltimore through the lens
of an ex-police reporter and seeing a very drug-saturated city try to arrest their
way out of a drug problem.
"When
you devote yourselves to street-level drug enforcement," he told President
Obama in a 2015 White House interview, "when you try to win the drug war,
you only have a limited number of resources. And I watched the police department in
Baltimore, and then I noticed it in other cities — other cities with the same
sort of problems of drug use — they stopped doing police work. They were
arresting people for drugs, and that was presumptive police work, but actually
it wasn’t." What started as a "cop
show" quickly became something much greater as the show began to analyze and
give voice to the much deeper and systemic causes to the problems of our inner
cities in the larger context of our society.
"Perhaps one of the most moving sections of “The Wire” was that
whole depiction of the schools in Baltimore" noted President Obama. "If kids are left so far behind that
they don’t have recourse, they’re going to see what else is available to
survive."
Survive is an interesting and telling
word choice. In cycle one I stated that
"I agree that there is a case to be made that we do need to pause and step
back from the direction that we are moving in [a more controlled and monitored
childhood]. The overwhelming research
presented about the value of free play or even "risky play" helps to
justify giving kids more autonomy."
Yet, when presented with the narrative of an alternative culture, one
that does not align with my white, middle-classed privilege, it puts a very
different perspective on this issue.
Children of color who live in lower economic urban areas, like those
depicted in "The Wire," are subjected to constant risky play every
day - interacting with gang members, being confronted by cops, playing behind
buildings in abandoned lots, riding in the streets, unsupervised walks across
town to and from school. And even if we
step back and recognize some of the benefits of this play, (for example the
economic and business knowledge gained from running a corner), the play is
still surrounded in actual life threatening danger and can cause severe trauma
to their development and ability to function in the public setting (like in
school). Furthermore, this type of play,
as viewed by law enforcement and much of the greater society, is considered
vandalism, destructive, or loitering.
They are kicked off stoops and out of alleys, but given no alternatives
of where to play. Their white suburban
counterparts are viewed through a completely different lens - where good intentions are assumed. A white kid with
a hammer is about to go and build something.
A black kid with a hammer is about to go and destroy something.
As an
educator, who believes that all students deserve a quality education, this
brings to light the importance that we have in providing students with a safe space
for play - where risks can still be taken allowing the freedom for failure, but
where these risks are supported and ultimately scaffold for success. In "The Wire," the show depicts the
professional growth of a new teacher, Roland Pryzbylewski's (Mr. Prezbo), who
attempts to do just that. In one
example, Mr. Prezbo incorporates the dice game craps into his math lesson.
On the street, the game carries the potential risk of heated conflict
over money, falling into debt, or being caught and criminalized for
gambling. Yet, by bringing it into the
classroom and not viewing it as immoral or corrupt, but instead positioning it
in terms of academics or as a high-level task requiring advanced mathematics
and probability, Mr. Prezbo has not only created a safe space to partake in
this play, but has valued the culture of the students who can relate to this
game that is played in their streets. In
the dominate culture, street gambling is viewed as criminal, yet it is accepted
and lawful in large privately owned and established casinos. Look in any mainstream probability
curriculum, and gambling is never mentioned as an application for understanding
probability. To be clear, I am not
arguing for teaching students how to gamble, but I do believe that this forces
us to question why we are teaching what we are teaching. We must recognize that standard curriculum
dictates what is valued and those values often match the culture of the
dominate group while disenfranchising and negating the culture of others.
Mr. Prezbo's
journey highlights many of the unique aspects and challenges of urban education. While
at times stereotyping the experience, the overall tone seems to try to authentically
point out many of the inequities and injustices that urban education faces as
well as the emotional highs and lows of being an educator. Still, it is important to recognize that this
is a scripted version of reality, one that has been romanticized where a fresh new
teacher who stumbles at first, finds his footing and success in this
challenging urban setting. This should
be viewed with severe caution.
When first
hired, Mr. Prezbo enters the main office where Principal Withers and Assistant
Principal Donnelly are discussing the shortage of teachers they will be facing
at the start of the school year. "We are short two in math and four in
science" Donnelly says. Mr. Prezbo enters
and explains he won't have his certificate until next year but that the
resident teacher program fast tracked him because of staff shortages. "Jesus," Donnelly sighs,
"lambs to the slaughter here."
Principal Withers asks him what he did before he decided to teach and Prezbo
responds that he was a police in the city.
The principal's exchange looks and Donnelly stands up, shakes Prezbo's hand,
and hires him on the spot. The reality
of urban education is that there are limited incentives for quality educators
to seek out employment in such challenging conditions. To fill the void, the schools rely on
programs like Teach for America, who "enlist, develop, and mobilize asmany as possible of our nation's most promising future leaders to grow andstrengthen the movement for educational equity and excellence"
(teachforamerica.org, 2016). Notice anything
wrong with that mission statement? The
focus is completely centered on the teacher and what they will gain from this
experience. Absent is any focus or even
mention of students or their needs.
Programs like this reduce the profession of education to a simple two
week course and are
predetermined for failure for the simple fact that they believe teachers can be
trained. Education is not merely something that is
done, but rather, something that is created.
In an environment that needs the best of the best, the most highly
creative and thoughtful educational professionals, they instead must settle for
unprepared teachers who have not spent the time required honestly learning and
reflecting about their own identity, their students' unique needs, or the
complex issues of education pedagogy and practice. All the while, the students are left with a
mediocre learning experience and fall further behind academically, emotionally,
and socially. Yet, if I feel so strongly
about urban schools deserving quality educators, what am I doing in the
suburban, well-funded district of Okemos?
Am I not simply a talking pundit null of credibility for my lack of
action?
My MSU undergraduate experience
was filtered through the Urban Educators Cohort Program, where issues of race,
privilege, power, and educational pedagogy and policy were discussed and
debated in great detail. My pre-teaching
experiences were placed in urban settings and I was mentored by other urban
educators. When it came time to find my
first job three years ago, I had only just started to look when Okemos reached
out to me. Two interviews later they
offered me a job. I was thrilled to have
found employment in Michigan at a time when so many colleges were having to
move out of state to find work, but unease and uncertainty quickly set in as
this was not an urban district. Would I be denying a community I had spent so
much time thinking about and pledging to join and work with? I shared this dilemma with Dr. SonyaGunnings-Moton, Assistant Dean for the College of Education at Michigan State
University and UECP advisor.
"Okemos is a great district Adam," she said. "Did you know that my son went
there? And Adam, they didn’t know what
to do with him - a big black boy in the back of the room. It wasn't until middle school when he started
to play sports that he was actually accepted.
The things you learned in UECP won't be limited to just an urban
setting. Our nation's schools are becoming
more and more diverse every year - and the teachers out there, especially the
ones in the suburban settings, are unprepared for how to teach ALL
students. You could provide that
leadership." And there has been
truth to her words. Okemos, while it
does not face the harsh challenges of urban districts represented in "The
Wire," does present with a wide range of racial and socio-economic
diversity. This has given me the daily
challenge of honestly and authentically supporting ALL students as well as
having numerous opportunities to provide that mindful and pedagogical leadership
to others in my school and district.
In one example, a fellow
colleague warned me at the beginning of the year that the mother of one of my
future students liked to play the "race card" and would never admit
her child's faults. I can only speculate
as to how this teacher would define "playing the race card," but this
mother and I had numerous productive conversations about race and how that has
impacted her son's education thus far.
The child, a large black boy, whose actions had been stereotyped into
fitting a preconceived idea, was misrepresented and misunderstood. For example, a previously documented
aggressive behavior had resulted from being teased about his family. For this student, family was valued above all
else. It was the foundation of his
culture. He regularly visited his
grandma, had weekly "family days" where he and his family would go
out together or volunteer somewhere, and his extended family was massive and
met regularly throughout the year.
Certainly having your family insulted would upset anyone. It comes as little surprise then that
punitive recourse was ineffective and instead, when I was able to talk with
him, getting to know his values, and reinforce the development of coping
strategies, his conflict resolution skills increased and he developed behaviors
that matched the school's dominate culture resulting in less conflict. Taking the time to understand a student's
culture is imperative to understanding their needs as an educator and in
building a positive relationship. One
morning, after NBC's live performance of "The Wiz" had broadcasted, I
played "A Brand New Day" for our morning music and his ears perked up
- "Is this from the Wiz?" he asked.
"You know about that? I
watched it with my whole family last night!" Understanding the importance of
representation in my classroom and validating his culture / self-image in the
room, provided an open door for relationship building, trust, and greater
understanding. As teachers, we must understand
that each of us has a “cultural lens” or values, norms and traditions which
affect how we, as individuals or as a particular group, perceive, think,
interact, behave, and make judgments about our world. We must acknowledge and embrace that our
cultural views are not absolute! Through an enhanced level of self-awareness,
we can understand how our unconscious biases affect our interactions with
students, parents and peers.
This message is supported in
"The Wire" though Mr. Prezbo's journey of getting to know his students, understanding
their home life, and having a willingness to care. This is best exemplified by his relationship
with "Dukie," a young boy whose family would sell his things causing
him to have to wear the same clothing for days at a time. Mr. Prezbo discretely
investigates to find out about Dukie's home life. Upon hearing about his situation he offers a
dignified and respectful solution by opening the locker room early so that he
can take a shower and also provides Dukie with a laundry bag in the locker, so
that he can take home Dukie's dirty clothes, wash them, and return them the
next day. Certainly, this goes beyond
the typical role of a teacher, but it speaks to the reality that a teacher's
role goes beyond the classroom. In my
classroom, every month I ask students to fill out a student activity
calendar. It is a space for them to
write what sports they are involved in, what extra-curricular they participate
in, or what they do outside of school.
Not only does this expand my view of their identity, but it also gives
me the opportunity to go and support them at their outside of school
functions. Being able to see a student
who is struggling to write a sentence be an all-star on the basketball court,
offers a unique opportunity to reshape my perception of them. It provides an alternative narrative -
something "The Wire" stumbles over.
The
continuation of the cultural exaggeration and over-represented narrative of the
white savior coming to help save the poor black child was a general observation
about the program I found quite troubling.
In the media, represented in films like "The Freedom Writers,"
"The Blind Side," "The Ron Clark Story," "Up the DownStaircase," "Conrack," "Blackboard Jungle," "The Principal," "Dangerous Minds,"
this repeated plot of a white inexperienced teacher coming to change the hearts
and minds of marginalized students of color - to help them realize their true
potential - is damaging and promotes the continuation of a biased perception of
reality. It further degrades the culture
as inferior, inept, and inadequate and in need of saving.
As a white
educator, how do I avoid perpetuating this narrative? Part of the answer is simply in recognizing
that this issue even exists - that privilege is a real and institutionalized
mechanism and that it can play a large role in society and in the classroom. It becomes important then to be aware to not
discredit a student's culture or home life, but to still provide them with
access to the public world. In relating
this back to the thoughts of Richard Rodriguez, this becomes a bit more
complicated because while his example of language shows how it can be changed
and learned to join the public life, race is not as fluid.
"My
complexion assumes its significance from the context of my life" (Rodriguez,
1982, p.150). Because he had entered the
world of power, his race was not viewed as threatening. In "The Wire" one could see
examples of this in the difference simply between a black man in a government
office and a black drug slinger. It is
assumed that the government official has escaped a life of crime and poverty,
while the drug slinger has succumbed and failed to it. This idea is further complicated by the fact
that even if a black man has made it out
or has lived up to the expectations of the culture of power, he is still an
"other." Colored skin persists
to be viewed as "non-normative" in our culture. When describing an American, it is assumed that they are white unless their race is
marked or identified. This is
problematic as it promotes this idea of "other" - not truly part of
the culture of power, but let in because they have assimilated to the best of
their ability.
In an
educational context, we as teachers must understand these systems of power that
work in and out of education and how different dominant or repressed groups are
defined within these systems. We have to
examine the question of why some succeed and others don’t. As a teacher, not only do I have the
responsibility to teach my students about "the more fundamental issues
that arise as different groups negotiate community" (Nieto, 1994, p. 6),
but I have an opportunity, together with my students, to "highlight
injustice of all kinds - racial, gender, class, linguistic, ethnic, national,
environmental - to make explanations and propose solutions" (Bigelow,
1999, p. 4) and put forward actions that will create real positive change.
References
Bigelow, B. (1999). Why Standardized Tests Threaten Multiculturalism. Educational Leadership,
56(7), 37-40.
Nieto, S. (1994). Affirmation, Solidarity, and Critique: Moving Beyond Tolerance in Multicultural
Education. Retrieved July 14, 2016, from http://www.sonianieto.com/OLD/PDF/Moving
%20beyond%20tolerance%20Mult%20Ed%201994.pdf
%20beyond%20tolerance%20Mult%20Ed%201994.pdf
Rodriguez, R. (1982). Hunger of memory: The education of Richard Rodriguez: An autobiography.
Boston, MA: D.R. Godine.
Teach For America. (2016). Retrieved August 15, 2016, from https://www.teachforamerica.org/
US White House, (2015). President Obama Interviews the Creator of “The Wire”David Simon.
(2015). Retrieved August 15, 2016, from https://medium.com/the-white-house/president-
obama-interviews-the-creator-of-the-wire-david-simon-40fb7bd29b18#.k1vwurcci
obama-interviews-the-creator-of-the-wire-david-simon-40fb7bd29b18#.k1vwurcci
