Commentary
Several weeks into this academic year, we have already had a number of stories leap from classrooms into news headlines. It doesn't take an advanced degree to see why these stories arouse so much interest. They involve our children and our friends' children. They also show us how the classroom becomes a forum where society engages in ideological battles and displays its fears and repulsions.
School had barely begun when friends of mine in Las Cruces challenged dress code policies at their daughter's middle school. Their daughter went to school wearing jeans and an ordinary short-sleeved shirt. She also wore a 25-pound backpack, one third of her own body weight, because lockers are not provided at the school. Reportedly her shirt came untucked while she was picking up her backpack, momentarily revealing a patch of skin, and the girl was sent home - deprived of instructional time because she dressed sensibly for hot August weather. That's the price you pay for having a girl's body.
Dress code policies in schools around the nation instruct children in the sexual politics that govern their world - and thus perpetuate the injustice. Dress codes target female bodies disproportionately, teaching our children that women's bodies are inherently sexual and a potential "distraction from the educational process" that must be policed, presumably because males cannot be depended on to place their attention on their studies.
Turning from attire to content, an African-American mom in Pearland, Texas went to the media with pages from her ninth-grader's geography text book, including a startling summation (or, more to the point, erasure) of American slavery, to wit: "The Atlantic Slave Trade between the 1500s and 1800s brought millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States to work on agricultural plantations." That description appeared in a section entitled "Patterns of Immigration." Her son, who knew perfectly well his ancestors were not merely immigrant workers, quipped: "We was real hard workers, wasn't we?"
As for extra-curricular studies, we have the story of Ahmed Mohamed, the 14-year old kid in Irving, Texas who reassembled a digital clock out of some parts and installed it in a pencil box. After showing it to a teacher he was handcuffed, illegally prevented from contact with his parents for hours, and interrogated with a line of questioning focused on his last name and religion. Lesson: try not to be a muslim in proximity to wires and electronic circuitry. That's even more distracting than a girl wearing a short-sleeved shirt. Please. People are trying to learn here.
Eighth grader Alan Holmes of Gresham, Oregon was suspended from school last week, not for assembling a digital clock but for wearing a t-shirt that celebrated military service. The design included boots, a helmet, and a gun with the slogan "Standing for those who stood for us." The intent of the shirt is clear enough to an eighth grader, and a creative educator could have used the shirt for an enriching exploration of patriotism, military service, guns, and national identity. Unfortunately, Alan is growing up in a society that cannot have an adult conversation about these things, so he was sent home.
Stories like these all present opportunities for creative educators to engage in dialogic learning based on social issues that shape their students' lives. That would be educational, however; and real education takes time away from industrial test preparation. Instead of learning opportunities, these moments are policed as "distractions."
Our kids deserve better, don't you think?
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Algernon D'Ammassa is Desert Sage. Write to him atDesertSageMail@gmail.com.