Ideologies–the taken-for-granted beliefs about how things supposedly are (e.g., Woolard & Schieffelin, 1984)–often form the basis of judgments about others. Consider what counts as ability and how we measure it, or who is seen to speak “good” English and what we imagine them to look and sound like. From ways of talking to behavior in the classroom, value-laden assumptions come to bear on how we see and label others. In fact, these cultural assumptions and beliefs can seem more real than what people actually do or say. In my research I’ve looked at how ideologies about language and learning shape notions of what counts in specific educational contexts and to consider how it got to be that way. One way to understand how we label types of learners or speakers and what those labels mean in a given sociocultural context is to focus on particulars, or stories, in our research. To help ground this point, I’ll first share a bit about my own research and then discuss the role of stories-as-evidence in educational research concerned with equity.

My work in Applied Linguistics (e.g., Anderson, 2007) concentrates on language ideologies and how our perceptions about accents or dialects can influence what we actually hear (see also John Baugh’s work on linguistic profiling, e.g. Baugh, 2000). Language ideologies critically shape equity and opportunities to succeed in school, from which languages are sanctioned to how language proficiency is measured. While linguists contend that no form of language is inherently good or bad, individuals, groups, and sometimes societies think otherwise. In fact, most of us grow up feeling that there are good ways of speaking and not-so-good ways, and that’s just the way it is. Educational institutions often serve as standard bearers, shaping what counts as “good” English, for better or for worse. It is hard to deny that commanding some ways of speaking carry more privilege, can lead to better scores on tests, or can keep gatekeepers at bay. However, it doesn’t have to be that way; it just happens to have become the way it is through many processes over time.

Another prevalent ideology affecting equity in schools surrounds the notion of ability. I tried to show how in one 5^th grade classroom (Anderson, 2009) perceptions of ability or competence were tied to who is looking and how. A test measures ability in a different way than a teacher observing a student in the moment–tests capture discrete and isolated bits of knowing, while teachers see students in lived contexts across time interacting with others. Additionally, certain measures carry more weight and tend to follow us around, while others are more fleeting (e.g., being labeled as having a learning disability vs. getting the wrong answer to an in-class question). As Ray McDermott (1993) and many others in educational anthropology have pointed out, ability labels are social constructions, not inherent qualities of individuals. In the same way, ideas of “good” English become more believable and real as they crop up across multiple venues (e.g., media outlets, policies). Despite the fact that most of us have first-hand experience of how a context can make us feel (or seem to others) more or less able, we still tend to attribute a good deal of importance to grades, scores, and the like, because the ideology of individual ability and measurement are ingrained in many of the most reproductive aspects of our educational system (e.g., policy, assessment), as well as the moral fabric of our society.

So, how do these ideologies of “good” English and ability work to shape how we as individuals and collectives see learners and evidence of learning? What counts, to whom, how do we create types of people through the ways we talk and interact over time and in the moment, and what are the consequences of this cultural work for different groups of students? And what can we do about it, if anything? In order to interrogate labels and the ideologies underpinning many of them, and what they mean both for those who are labeled and those doing the labeling, researchers have some options. Large-scale studies examining aggregated data and their associations along different variables related to demographics, institutional conditions, performance on assessments, trends, and so forth, is an obvious choice. Funding is readily available for such work, and much highly touted research is done in this manner. Another approach to research entails looking at the particularities instead of the aggregate–the potentials and their actualizations, what labels mean to actual people, how they get applied, when they stick, when they don’t, what opportunities are availed. This kind of work is messy, takes a long time, and funding for it is trickier to obtain. In part this “particularities” brand of research doesn’t have as loud a voice because it doesn’t generalize or lend itself to traditional conceptions of replication, two dominant ideologies of evidence currently shaping the research climate. For this particularized type of research to count as evidence in more arenas, an ideology of “story-as-evidence” needs to start making the rounds.

Many past contributors to this blog have shared moving stories about how individuals’ beliefs about students’ ability or potential can be instrumental in shaping lives. Educational research that tells us stories, just like these blogs, is important. Some traditions in research hold stories in high regard–for example, critical race theory’s counter narratives, ethnography’s “thick, rich description”, narrative inquiry’s, well, narratives. Stories-as-evidence can take many forms. They can be anecdotal, or they can be multi-year ethnographies.  They can be fragmented in order to shed light on contradictions inherent to human life. They can also be told in painstaking, line-by-line detail and mapped onto broader social structures. For example, Griffiths and MacLeod (2008) discuss stories they group together as “auto/biography” (e.g., life history narrative analysis) as evidence of different ways of knowing. They lay out how stories can be used to inform policy, not only to explore possible solutions but also why those solutions work in particular contexts as well as challenging taken-for-granted assumptions about the status quo based on evidence from individuals’ stories understood in social contexts. Another example of stories-as-evidence, Gallas (1994) interweaves her own teacher/researcher stories with those of her first and second graders’ learning and language use over time to construct a narrative of children’s ways of knowing to show how these can challenge staid notions of teaching practice. No matter their form, stories are an important part of the evidence that we should be drawing on to inform practice and policy. What counts as evidence can productively broaden to complement the push to rely on the kinds of labels that increasingly shapes practice in our “era of accountability”, which dangerously flirt with supporting ideologies about what and who counts in increasingly narrowed ways instead of questioning them.

References

Anderson, K. (2007). Constructing “otherness”: Ideologies and differentiating speech style.  International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 17, 178-197.

Anderson, K. (2009). Applying positioning theory to analysis of classroom interactions: Mediating micro-identities, macro-kinds, and ideologies of knowing. Linguistics and Education, 20, 291-310.

Baugh, J. (2000). Racial identification by speech. American Speech, 75, 362-364.

Gallas, K. (1994). The Languages of learning: How children talk, write, dance, draw, and sing their understanding of the world. New York: Teachers College Press.

Griffiths, M., & MacLeod, G. (2008). Personal narratives and policy: Never the twain? Journal of Philosophy of Education, 42, 121-143.

McDermott, R. (1993). The acquisition of a child by a learning disability. In S. Chaiklin & J. Lave (Eds.), Understanding practice (pp. 269-305). London: Cambridge University Press.

Woolard, K., & Schieffelin, B. (1994). Language Ideology. Annual Review of Anthropology, 23, 55–82.

When I was a teacher in Oakland, California, I worked at a school that was primarily African American, but also had over ten languages spoken within the student population.  At a school that diverse, it is hard to imagine that, as a South Asian American woman, I was one of the only teachers on campus who was not white or black.  The teaching staff was incredibly segregated, and at lunch, faculty would watch if I sat at a “white” or “black” table.  I even had a co-worker ask me one day if I thought of myself as “white or black?” and was quite shocked when I said neither.  A culminating moment for me was at a staff breakfast the day before we went on winter break one year.  The principal passed around black and white Styrofoam Santa ornaments as a holiday gift, and as the box made its way towards me, the teachers next to me whispered, “which one is she going to take?”  I ended up taking a black Santa, but as an Indian and a Hindu, it was clear to me that my identity, culture and religion were invisible to the broader staff.

When I began working in teacher education, I saw the same phenomenon in our program. Over 25% of the teacher candidates were Asian Americans, but there was not one mention about how they fit into the paradigm of urban schooling in either the readings or class discussions.  However, even for black and Latina/o teachers, there was little literature or dialogue that spoke to their experiences or reflected their identity. Many teacher candidates of color[1] complained that the program was not designed for them, and felt overlooked in their development as educators.

As I began to do research on the topic of teachers of color, I found that with 88% of teacher education faculty as white (Ladson-Billings, 2005), the majority of research and writing on urban teaching speaks to the experiences of white teachers, approaches race and culture from a dominant perspective, and stays within a black-white paradigm of race.  In this context, teachers of color often feel invisible, silenced or tokenized, and their strengths and needs neglected (Amos, 2010; Villegas & Davis, 2008). With many recruitment efforts underway to diversify our teaching force, the demographics in programs and districts are beginning to change (http://www.nea.org/home/15200.htm).  However, it seems we are not responding with a similar effort to diversify our perspectives within teacher education or professional development, and thus, we are underserving both teachers of color, and the students they teach.

Along with the chair of Mexican American Studies, Marcos Pizarro, I co-facilitate the Institute for Teachers of Color Committed to Racial Justice (www.facebook.com/teachersofcolor).   A collaboration between the College of Education and Ethnic Studies, the goal of this institute is to support the development, success and retention of teachers of color struggling to achieve racial justice in schools. It is intended as a community building, professional development space for teachers of color to explore the racial climate of their schools, receive training to navigate these realities, and strategize how to create racially transformative classrooms and schools. With over 150 applicants this year, the institute will bring together around 75 black, Asian American, Latina/o, Pacific Islander, indigenous and mixed race teachers from around the nation to participate in three days of speakers and workshops related to racial inequality and justice in K-12 school contexts. From data we have collected, we have learned that for many participants this is a space of rejuvenation from the isolation they feel being minorities in their workplace; for others, it is a place to gain the skills and tools they need to navigate complex racial climates of their classrooms and school sites.  Overall, participants have explained the institute as a “refuge,” “a place of healing,” and “empowering.” Each year, we have gained more interest, and it has become a powerful and transformative space for both teachers and us.

While we feel this conference is a step in the right direction of retaining a community of social justice oriented racial minority teachers, we also realize the need for an ongoing effort to support their professional growth.  Teachers of color have much to offer students of color in their experiences, insights and cultural perspectives (Kohli, 2008; 2009) and it is important that school leaders, teacher educators and teachers see and respect their identities and the gifts they bring students and schools.

Amos, Y. T. (2010). “They don’t want to get it!” Interaction between minority and white pre-service teachers in a multicultural education class. Multicultural Education 17(4), 31-37.

Kohli, R. (2008). Breaking the cycle of racism in the classroom: Critical race reflections from future teachers of color. Teacher Education Quarterly, 35(4), 177-188.

Kohli, R. (2009). Critical race reflections: Valuing the experiences of teachers of color in teacher education.  Race, Ethnicity and Education 12(2), 235-251.

Ladson-Billings, G. (2005).  Beyond the Big House: African American Educators on Teacher Education. New York City, NY: Teachers College Press.

Villegas, A. M., & Davis, D. (2008). Preparing teachers of color to confront racial/ethnic disparities in educational outcomes.  In M. Cochran-Smith, S. Feiman-Nemser, D. J. McIntyre, & K. E. Demers (Eds.), Handbook of research on teacher education: Enduring questions in changing contexts (Third Edition), (pp. 583-605). NY: Routledge.

Through personal and research experience, I know that immigrant parents want to be a part of their children’s education. For them, access to a good education is one of the main reasons immigrants stay in the U.S. Consider, then, the irony that it is sometimes the lack of access to knowledge of how the USian[1] school system works that stands between parents and being able to effectively advocate for their children in schools.

My mother emigrated from Perú to the U.S. when she was 35 to go to graduate school. Though she had class privilege, race privilege (she is considered white), a graduate degree and an American husband, when she started to have trouble with me in school, she was at a loss. We had just moved from Bolivia when I entered the USian school system. She was concerned with my English language skills (was I proficient enough?), but also knew that my first grade education in Bolivia had been more advanced than what the first grade in rural-suburban Florida could offer me. However, due to historic misunderstandings of how race, ethnicity, and history combine in places other than the U.S., school officials placed me back in the first grade and denied me language testing. This marked the beginning of my mother’s “education” in the USian school system.

Like other immigrant parents, my mother assumed that this decision was nonnegotiable and not subject to further intervention; but by the time my sister entered the same school six years later, my mom had learned the name of the game: be present in the school, volunteer, sit on committees, go to parent-teacher conferences, work with my sister and I outside of school to compliment (or complicate) the teacher’s work inside the classroom; she now knew that her presence—and her new found knowledge—had the power to protect and promote her children’s education.

This story illustrates the foundation of my current research with undocumented migrant mothers: that how the USian school system works is not always self-evident—and perhaps particularly not so for immigrants for whom education may be culturally and historically defined differently. For some parents roles of teaching and parenting may be so clearly divided and culturally engrained that migration to the U.S. may mean re-learning the operating logics behind familiar institutions (like schools).

In the case of Arizona, migration also means learning what Robinson (1983) calls the “calculus of oppression” that shapes their children’s experiences in and out of school. It is not just their immigration status, but their race, class, ethnic background and age that become impediments in a system and time that are ordered by high-stakes testing (which has been shown to disadvantage poor and marginalized youth), and dehumanizing anti-immigrant discourses that further marginalize and impoverish youth.

All of the parents I have spoken with thus far have experience with the education system in their own country (many of whom are from Mexico). Because of this, the idea of “re-learning” might suggest that they are replacing one set of knowledges with another. Instead, I argue that this “re”-learning is actually a process of adding to one’s institutional knowledge; it is an additive, comparative process—not a process of supplanting one knowledge with another. What this means is that many of the immigrant parents I have interviewed are engaged in building and shaping transnational repertoires of knowledge that constantly (and necessarily) question hegemonic notions of parenting, education, and the rights to space, place and belonging in both their home and host countries.

So far I have gotten to talk to almost a dozen mothers. Every one of them has contested the dehumanizing rhetoric on immigrants in general, and in Arizona in particular. Although some of them have done so publicly by going to marches, most mothers see themselves engaging in this contestation not in any politically conscious way—that is, not for politics’ or change’s sake—but by being “good” parents: parents who have the knowledge, skills, and capabilities to protect and guide their children through a school system that is not self-evident and a dehumanizing political environment. Yes, these mothers have dreams for their children; and it is these dreams that guide their desire to know and learn how the USian school system works by seeking out parenting classes, talking to teachers, sending their children to afterschool tutoring and Saturday school. It is not the desire to be more “American” or to assimilate, but the desire to retain their culture and their children and see both grow into the future. Thus, to parent is political, but not in the traditional sense of the term. Recognizing that the very personal process of being a parent is inherently political allows us as researchers to expand our notion of agency to include the everyday negotiations of power in parents and children’s everyday lives.

The implication of this kind of research is, then, the necessity of paying close attention to what people are up to and how they negotiate the institutions that structure their lives.[2] For research practitioners, this means taking care that our representations are based on actually listening to what people (especially marginalized groups) have to say so that we do not constitute and represent them through the same hegemonic discourses that have marginalized them to begin with (Devadas & Nicholls 2002). If we do not take our positionality (and theirs) seriously, we stand to not only silence marginalized or subaltern people, but to reveal ourselves as part of the system of domination. This attention to methodology has allowed me to listen through my own hopes for change and social transformation (and the types of agency that might go with this) to listen to what these mothers find desirable and feasible. Rather than incorporate their words into my vision for the future or politics, this methodology is helping me construct a narrative to which others can listen and learn from these mothers the way I have. And together we can work for a world in which many worlds can fit and all dreams for a more just future can be realized.

[2] My methodology is heavily indebted to the Subaltern Studies group, as well as Peasant Studies, especially James Scott’s Weapons of the Weak . Both groups ask how we as scholars might do justice to what is being said and what we observe in the field rather than continually representing or re-presenting ourselves in our attempt to represent the Other. The subaltern studies group was a group of (initially) Indian scholars (including Guha and Spivak) who began writing in the 1980s from the position of colonized people. Essentially, they argued, history as presented in the history books does not consider the vast influence of colonized, marginalized and oppressed (i.e. subaltern) peoples in the making of history. They proposed that traditional historians had done a much better job of representing themselves—their beliefs, ideologies, and worldviews—than of representing history as a process of constant dialogue, crisis, tension, and resistance between elites and the subaltern (Guha, Ranajit and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. 1988. Selected Subaltern Studies. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press). James Scott’s Weapons of the Weak (1983) shows how people without traditional sources of power (i.e. political position, money, or political connection) make demands of power in the everyday using the tools they do have. In James’s work on peasants working for large landowners in Southeast Asia, tactics included work stoppage, foot dragging, dissimulation, lying, calling upon the Lord of the land to acquiesce to demands for food, etc. through the moral economy that tied them.

Meg Grigal, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Community Inclusion, University of Massachusetts, Boston where she Co-Directs Think College and serves as the Co-Principal Investigator for two national grants: the Administration on Developmental Disabilities funded Consortium for Postsecondary Education for Individuals with Developmental Disabilities and the Office of Postsecondary Education National Coordinating Center for the Transition Programs for Students with Intellectual Disabilities (TPSID) Model Demonstration Programs. Dr. Grigal currently conducts research and provides evaluation and technical assistance on exemplary practices for supporting students with disabilities in the community, employment, and postsecondary settings.  She has co-authored two books on college options for students with intellectual disabilities and has conducted and published research in the areas of postsecondary education options, transition planning, families, self-determination, inclusion, and the use of person-centered planning techniques.

Debra Hart is the Director of Education and Transition at the Institute for Community Inclusion at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She has over 30 years of experience working with youth with disabilities, their families, faculty, and professionals that support youth in becoming valued members of their community via participation in inclusive secondary and postsecondary education and integrated competitive employment. Currently, she is the Principal Investigator for two national postsecondary education grants. The National Coordinating Center is conducting an evaluation of 27 model postsecondary education initiatives to better understand their policies and practices in different postsecondary education options and their impact on student outcomes. The National Consortium on Postsecondary Education provides training and technical assistance to enhance existing postsecondary education initiatives and to grow the choice of a higher education for youth with intellectual disability nationwide.

Recently, my mother mentioned that my grandmother and my great-grandmother never drove a car. “Really? Why not?” I asked. She replied, “Well it just wasn’t done.” In those days, no one expected a woman to drive a car.

This got me thinking about the reactions we received from people when we first started working on creating college options for people with intellectual disabilities (ID). The most common response was confusion and disbelief: “People with intellectual disabilities do not go to college. It just isn’t done.”

Why is this?

Too often, it is because of pervasive low expectations, which have translated into the poorest of outcomes for youth and young adults with ID[1]. Special education has become a feeder system into segregated adult options like adult day habilitation centers and sheltered workshops. Systematized low expectations restrict the options for people with ID exiting high school. In fact, these restrictive and undesirable choices have become the only path for many youth with ID.

Proof of Benefit

Over the 15 years I’ve spent working on inclusive higher education, I have found that those who question the value of college for youth with ID have a prevalent theme: a need for justification, or a desire for “proof” that college has anything to offer to these individuals. Many view investing in the betterment of the minds and lives of people labeled “intellectually disabled” as a risky prospect, with limited return on investment. They assume that learning is not possible for people with such disability labels. Similar (and equally misguided) assumptions have been made about people with other labels for years.

Like women and other minority groups who were deemed incapable of benefitting from higher education, people with ID must prove they are worth investing in. This “prove it” mindset only seems to rear its head when we are suggesting that people with intellectual disabilities are “worthy” of being included in socially valued integrated outcomes, such as paid employment, integrated community living, or in this case integrated adult learning experiences in higher education.

Those who voice objections to marginalized groups accessing perceived “privileges” such as voting or higher education often belittle those seeking change. Henry Adams objected to women accessing higher education by noting “…the pathetic impossibility of improving those poor little, hard, thin, wiry, one-stringed instruments which they call their minds.”[2] Critics of inclusive higher education often share similar sentiments, perhaps in more politically correct terms. Often what people really want to ask is, Why waste your time educating such students? Why waste valuable resources that could be better spent on worthier students?

What’s the Point?

We began our book, Think College, with a preface entitled What’s the Point? as this was, and often still is, the first question we get from people being confronted with this proposition for the first time. From our perspective, college can offer as much or as little to a person with ID as it can to anyone else.

The learning goals of individuals with ID range just as widely as those of other college students. These goals may encompass a traditional college experience that results in earning a degree or credential. More often students with ID may seek the less traditional but equally valid and legitimate goal of fulfilling a personal or career-related learning need. The less traditional pathway has led to success for many people with and without disabilities. The economic benefits of attending any amount of college have been documented, and recent studies are beginning to uncover similar benefits for people with intellectual disabilities[3].

If we truly believe that access to college is the key to economic security and adult fulfillment for most adults, why would we systematically deny access to and support of college goals for a group of individuals who are in dire need of both of these positive outcomes?

The Power of Expectations

Consider this scenario. What would happen if, from kindergarten through 12^th grade, we expected that students with ID would be provided the option of going to college? Not a guarantee, as no student has that, but the option of accessing future desired learning as an adult.

• How would that change what was said at each IEP conference?
• How would that change teachers’ conversations with parents and colleagues about the student’s future prospects?
• How would that change how we engage and partner with colleges and other adult learning providers in our communities?

Many critics point out that college would prove challenging for youth and adults with ID. And in some cases, there have been students for whom these challenges could not be overcome. But isn’t college challenging for many—if not most—youth without disabilities? Aren’t there great numbers of people who have attempted to go to college, only to choose another path?

The truth is, we have little understanding of how a college education can help people with ID, because we have never truly attempted to make college access a reality on a broad scale. Only when we have applied the highest expectations and provided our best professional resources toward achieving that goal will we be able to determine the feasibility, sustainability, and outcomes of college for this group of students.

Progress and Desire

Today, over two hundred colleges and universities across the country enroll students with ID. The latest reauthorization of the Higher Education Opportunity Act included provisions to increase and expand programs for students with ID, and allows unprecedented access to certain forms of federal student aid. Access to Title IV aid is critical to ensure access to higher education isn’t available to only to those students with ID who come from wealthy backgrounds. While all of this progress demonstrates that access to higher education for people with ID is an idea whose time has come, many people remain doubtful.

Sometimes seeing is believing. Those who are curious (or dubious) about this idea might want to learn a bit more about what is happening in colleges throughout the country. There are a variety of resources, including videos that illustrate the experiences of college students with ID, their peers and their professors. Read their stories and listen to their accounts and then decide if the questions you still have will start with “how” instead of “why.”

Some may view going to college as a privilege to be earned, but the currency that should be most valued to earn access to higher education is the desire for learning. People with ID who are highly motivated to access college should be afforded the same opportunities to try, to succeed, and sometimes to fail and try again that the rest of us have had.

[2] O’Toole, P. (1990). The Five of Hearts: An Intimate Portrait of Henry Adams and His Friends, 1880-1918 (pg 138). New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

[3] Smith, F. A., Grigal, M., & Sulewski, J. (2012). The impact of postsecondary education on employment outcomes for transition-age youth with and without disabilities: A secondary analysis of American Community Survey data. Think College Insight Brief, Issue No. 15. Boston, MA: University of Massachusetts Boston, Institute for Community Inclusion.

**The opinions of our guest bloggers don’t necessarily reflect the views of the Equity Alliance at ASU, but they do raise important questions about educational equity. We invite participation and the exchange of ideas with these blogs.

]]> http://www.niusileadscape.org/bl/?feed=rss2&p=1289 15 http://www.niusileadscape.org/bl/?p=1277 http://www.niusileadscape.org/bl/?p=1277#comments Wed, 13 Mar 2013 20:36:54 +0000 Cynthia http://niusileadscape.org/bl/?p=1277 Anthony¹ who self-identifies as a DREAMer² grew up and attended school in the Phoenix metro area. He has been married for seven years. Although he was born in Mexico, beyond family stories, he has little memory of his parents’ homeland since he moved to the U.S. as a child. Anthony is eagerly awaiting the opportunity to enroll in college, but in the meanwhile he proudly cares for his 18 month old daughter and a niece and nephew full time.

I have no recollection of being brought to the United States; after all I was a 4-year-old child. Growing up I had the good fortune of being raised in an environment that never forced me to think about citizenship in terms of documentation and social security numbers.  I attended elementary schools where children of different races learned and played together, and in my mind we were all citizens.  I never recall knowing or wondering about anyone’s documentation status or who was an American.  In my mind we were all American and we all had dreams.

From early on, one of my dreams was to enter the professional world. Even in elementary school I had a passion for the professional world and the tools that accompanied that world.  I was obsessed with office supplies like pens and notebooks. I would arrange my supplies neatly in my binder and imagine my future as a lawyer or in an office job. There was something about briefcases and suits that always caught my attention. School was an opportunity to demonstrate my readiness for the professional world, which might be why academic success came easily for me.   The “American Dream” felt so real back then, and I had what I believed to be very American dreams for a boy growing up—getting a job, buying a car, helping my family, and making them proud.

As my 16^th birthday approached I was giddy with what the next weeks held in store for me.  Across the street from my house a new grocery store had opened up—the perfect job opportunity for me to save up for my first car.  On the morning of my birthday I ran over to apply for my first job.  As I filled out the application I remember feeling such a sense of excitement because in the back of my mind I thought about finally buying that car I had been wanting.  I worked my way through the application, but there was one question I didn’t know how to answer—“What is your social security number?”  At the time this did not seem like a big issue, I would just run home and ask my parents.

Application in hand, I ran home to get my social security number.  My parents responded to my request with silence as their eyes locked over furrowed brows.  For the first time my parents told me I was undocumented and that I was unable to legally work in this country.

The realization of that moment crept over my body.  In a single string of words I was no longer the U.S. citizen I had lived my life as.  Anger gripped my body. I ripped up my application and ran to my room and started crying. I felt hopeless and while as a teenager I thought, “How am I ever going to buy that car I wanted?” I have since lived with the greater questions of “How can I provide for a family?” and “How can I fulfill my dreams?”

That day changed my life drastically.  Physically I was the same person, but socially and emotionally so much changed.  In many ways I have learned to live in the shadows.  I still managed to get the job at the grocery store, but that job took on a new meaning.  It was no longer about a boy trying to save up for a car.  It became a boy realizing that if something jeopardized that job he may not be able to get another one.  Subsequently, I was at the will of my employees.  If they needed me to work until 1:00 am, I did it without question.  As a high school student, this soon led me to a fork in the road.   I was working six days per week until 1:00 am and had to be up by 6:00 am to catch the bus to school.  I was quickly realizing that I couldn’t do well in school and work.  School no longer offered the promise it once had.  After all, the only thing I could hope to do after graduation was find a job that was willing to look the other way.  Those kinds of jobs do not care about high school diplomas.  Knowing that it was risky getting any other job and realizing that college was out of the question, I decided to drop out of school and focus on my job that was making me money.  I was even able to finally buy my first car, a 1977 Chevrolet Monte Carlo.

I have had blessings in my life.  For one, I have been married for 7 and a half years and I have been blessed with a beautiful 15-month-old daughter.  Despite the fact that I am undocumented and chose to leave school, I have had opportunities to work as a customer service representative in the offices like the ones I had imagined as a child. I worked so hard that I was promoted to a customer service manager and even a general manager, but I have had to experience those moments wondering how long it would be until my documentation status caught up to me.  So my hard work has not gone unnoticed or unrewarded, but it remains bittersweet. I’m 30 years old, and I have been here most of my life yet, in reality, I am nothing more than a person hiding in the shadows.

When the twin towers were attacked, I cried alongside U.S. citizens.  When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, I donated to the Red Cross.  When the national anthem plays, I stand with pride.  Despite these deeply engrained feelings of emotion and pride for this country that I consider my own, there are times when reality hits and I realize that I am not an American and hopelessness sinks in.

At the age of 22 I married my beautiful wife, a U.S. citizen. For the past 8 years, we have talked to many different lawyers about my documentation status, and we left every single one of them with less hope. They all said that I would have to leave the country until they review my documents, which can take years and still runs the possibility of being denied. Then I was told that the Mexican city I would have to go while waiting is the number one murder capital in the world, being more dangerous than Iran and Iraq. I would leave every lawyer’s office so hopeless.

Last June, while I was getting ready for work, President Barack Obama came on the news announcing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).  Tears welled up in my eyes and I thought of the day, as a teenage boy, when my parents had told me I was undocumented.  I now had President Obama telling me I had the opportunity to come out of the shadows. I cried tears of joy and wondered if I would be eligible.

When the requirement list for DACA came out, I went down the list thankful that I was meeting the eligibility requirements—except one. I did not finish high school, which was one of the requirements.  I was, however, eligible to take the general education development (GED) exam.  I was now 30 years old and the thought of becoming a student again was terrifying, but I knew this was my only opportunity to achieve my dreams.

I looked and looked for a school to help me and no one could because in Arizona you need two forms of identification to register for public schooling.   As we all know, undocumented immigrants cannot get U.S. government identification in Arizona. Finally, I found a school that charged me to attend. For four months I attended evening classes to prepare me to take the content subcomponents of the GED.  I paid attention in class even when I was exhausted or frustrated.  I also made sure to do my homework and did additional research on the internet to help me understand the school work that I was having trouble with. I took all four subject-area tests plus an essay test and passed them all on the first try.

I am now proud to say that I now have my GED certificate. I now meet all of the DACA eligibility requirements and I currently am waiting to move onto my next goal of attending college where I plan to major in business or computers.

I know I’m not finished. I still need my green card, and after I get that I hope I have the opportunity to work for my citizenship.  As a boy in elementary school I dreamed of becoming a lawyer or a businessman, yet a piece of paper allowed me to lose sight of that dream for a while.  Today I am hopeful and again a DREAMer.  While I no longer think about the “American Dream” in terms of moving myself ahead, I consider myself an American DREAMer, and my dreams are invested in the hundreds of thousands of others like me—DREAMers who grew up here, who have laughed and cried alongside their classmates and neighbors, who maybe experienced a moment like me when they were suddenly no longer considered “American” and began living in the shadows.  My dream is that our collective work will help all of the other DREAMers fully participate in school, in college, in the workforce, and in U.S. society.

Despite my situation, I have always felt like a citizen of this country. While for some being an American is determined by a piece of paper or a social security number.  To me, this is my country, the only country I know.  I am an American.

**The opinions of our guest bloggers don’t necessarily reflect the views of the Equity Alliance, but they do raise important questions about educational equity. We invite participation and the exchange of ideas with these blogs.

1. For the privacy and protection of this bog contributor a pseudonym has been used
2. The immigrants that are commonly referred to as “DREAMers” are undocumented youth that were brought to the U.S. before the age of 16 who meet the general requirements of the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act.

For decades Latinas/os have been called ‘the sleeping giant’ because of their dormant collective political and economic promise. We saw a glimpse of this promise during the 2012 November elections as 71% of Latina/o voters helped re-elect President Obama, signaling to many that the giant had awakened (Pew Hispanic Research Center). The Republican Party was stunned and began to take notice of Latina/o political power. These events come on the heels of a nearly three-year firestorm of (post SB 1070) anti-immigrant legislation, racially hostile public discourse, record-breaking deportations and family separations, an unprecedented Executive Order granting Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and the historic civic action, protests, and mobilization of immigrant rights groups. In turn, these events have prompted a renewed national focus on immigration with the possibility of bi-partisan legislation on ‘comprehensive’ immigration reform. The national debate and possible ensuing policies are intrinsically linked to how educators think of Latina/o immigrant[1] children and their education.

In order to re-imagine the education of Latina/o immigrant children we must rupture the construction of immigration as a problem, and one that lies within the immigrant herself. Lakoff and Ferguson (2006) provide alternative conceptions of immigration that transcend deficit frames of “the illegal,” “threats to national security,” and beyond “economic” and “demographic” imperatives. Instead, they turn the problem of immigration on its head by drawing attention to U.S. foreign policy in Latin America, neoliberalism, immigration as a humanitarian crisis, and immigrants as economic refugees. In other words, Lakoff and Ferguson shift the locus of the problem from the individual (the immigrant) to its underlying causes and economic beneficiaries (i.e., national/international policies, economic trade agreements, corrupt U.S. sponsored dictatorships in Latin America, economic and political despair, etc.). Additionally, immigrant rights groups have also reframed the discourse into a civil rights and human rights issue, all the while challenging the constructs of American citizenship. How might immigration reform be truly more comprehensive, humane, and just if the debate began with these alternative premises? Moreover, how might these perspectives inform our understandings of immigrant students and their education?

Deficit narratives about immigrants are deeply ingrained in the American psyche and play out in both immigration policies and schooling policies. Recent examples from Arizona illustrate the ways a student’s language and culture are ignored or disparaged in schools. The education of English learners in Arizona is arguably the most rigid in America, isolating them from mainstream students in 4-hour blocks of hyper-scripted Structured English Immersion (SEI) programs. Students’ home languages are seen as liabilities rather than assets. In addition, the passage of Arizona’s HB 2281 effectively targeted ethnic studies in K-12 education, dismantled Tucson’s Mexican American Studies (MAS) program, and resulted in banning literature, poetry, and history books. These kinds of policies are couched in arguments about students’ “right” to learn English and narrow constructs of American culture. The ideologies underpinning these policies are that Latina/o students’ cultural and linguistic backgrounds have no place in education…no place in society. Like previous diasporas, Latino immigrants rupture dominant society’s layered yet established forms of social status and cultural/national identities; they disrupt monolithic notions of what it means to be an American. In response dominant society invokes policies that control and suppress alternative views.

The renewed national debate on immigration offers us as educators an opportunity to re-think our understandings of immigration, immigrant students, and their education. As the youngest, largest, and fastest growing ‘minority’ population in America, how we address these issues will determine Latina/o immigrant students’ cultural formation as well as their educational and life opportunities. In addition, it will have deep implications for the nation as a whole. Thus, it is increasingly vital for us to shape an equity-minded, socially just, anti-racist educational vision. This vision may include teaching immigrant (and non-immigrant) youth academic and critical literacies, the ability to analyze social and racial inequality as well as resistance and collective political power, and pedagogies that build upon and nurture students’ linguistic repertoires, cultural practices, immigrant histories, and knowledges. We have a unique opportunity to re-imagine Latina/o immigrants into an increasingly multicultural, multilingual, interconnected world. In this way, we can transform society (and schools) from deficit sites to those of possibilities.

References

Lakoff, G., & Ferguson, S. (2006). The framing of immigration. Berkeley, CA: Rockridge Institute.

Pew Hispanic Research Center. http://www.pewhispanic.org/2012/11/07/latino-voters-in-the-2012-election/

Suárez-Orozco, C., Suárez-Orozco, M. M. & Todorova, I. (2008). Learning a new land: Immigrant students in American society. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Valencia, R. (Ed.). (1997). The evolution of deficit thinking: Educational thought and practice London: Falmer Press.

**The opinions of our guest bloggers don’t necessarily reflect the views of the Equity Alliance, but they do raise important questions about educational equity. We invite participation and the exchange of ideas with these blogs.

With continued awe at the potential of a second term, I watched the President’s inauguration on January 21, 2013. Fittingly, the day coincided on the same day of our nation’s observance and celebration of an inspired leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Eagerly awaiting the President’s speech on that Monday morning, I was struck by the delicate weaving of words from the Declaration of Independence and our “inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” While I recognize the rights referenced in the Declaration of Independence were not originally intended to be bestowed upon us all, including me – a Black daughter of Ethiopian immigrants – I must confess I have always found the making of the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence intriguing. Unquestioningly imperfect, the President reminded us of our responsibility not just to invoke words from the Constitution but also to embody them. For if “We are true to our creed,” he said, “when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else because she is an American, she is free, and she is equal not just in the eyes of God but also in our own.” It is not enough for us to resign to the belief that we are equal but it becomes incumbent that our actions reflect this value. He continued, “Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm.” While our children – urban, rural, and suburban – have these inalienable rights we know they are far from being actualized.

And if we are to take the President’s words seriously then we must point to the inconsistencies, flaws, and even failures. The income gap between the rich and the poor has widened to record levels in over 40 years (Eichler, 2012). The unemployment rate for communities of color has risen in the last four years, reaching nearly 14 percent for African Americans and approximately 10 percent for Latinas/os (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2013). The current deportation rate is 1.5 times that of the previous administration (Khimm, 2012), and the reality remains that over fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, segregation in schools and educational inequality based on race, income, language, and dis/ability persists.

These facts were echoed during my time in an urban high school in southern California four years ago, shortly after Obama’s first election. While the first biracial President had just been elected, seemingly changing the trajectory of this country, the lives of the special education students I was to spend the next nine months with had not. It was then that I realized victory is more than who is in political office, and instead true victory must include a promise to our students that they can not only dream and take joy in the possibilities of those dreams, but, most importantly, are prepared to achieve them. During my year in the classroom, the students shared stories of the challenges they faced, including insufficient opportunities to learn a quality high school curriculum, inadequate access to the accommodations legally afforded to them, and persistent substitute teachers for years at a time. Ultimately these stories only affirmed the enduring legacy of inequality and reaffirmed my allegiance to share their stories and partake in research that aims to ameliorate educational injustice. Most importantly, the students were still hopeful, continuing to entrust their lives in us as parents, teachers, leaders, researchers, and community members.

Two years ago charged with naive optimism and unbinding determination, I went to the U.S. Capitol to work in education policy to see if I too could be part of the change that seemed to be sweeping across the country. After engaging with various community organizations, speaking with constituents, and reflecting on my time in schools, I left the Capitol with a newfound faith in what I know to be true. Power does not lie solely in D.C., elected officials, or policymakers. It is undoubtedly the people who have the power, you and I. As the President said, “You and I, as citizens, have the power to set this country’s course. You and I, as citizens, have the obligation to shape the debates of our time, not only with the votes we cast, but the voices we lift in defense of our most ancient values and enduring ideas.” I know this to be true. Not with bubbly optimism in one man’s ability to bring about change, but a renewed faith that we, as educators, students, parents, researchers – ultimately the people of this country – can because we have and in fact we are doing so.

Our critiques, debates, and arguments will resume. They must. In the meantime, however, I’d like to remember that this nation’s course as an imperfect union will never be complete. So we continue to march for the advancement of the rights of the undocumented, lesbian and gay rights, women’s rights, the rights of the poor, and those students who historically and currently continue to be marginalized. But in this brief moment I pause to appreciate the journey, the accomplishments, and I bow to those who have fought tirelessly that I might note the significance of this day if even just for a minute. So I ask you to take a moment with me to revel in the ways the vision and sacrifice of those before us has led to the perfection of today. Then we can wake up again tomorrow, take a deep breath, and carry on.

References

Bureau of Labor Statistics. U.S. Department of Labor. (2013). The employment situation-January 2013. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf.

Eichler, A. (2012, April 11). Income inequality worse under Obama than George W. Bush. Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/11/income-inequality-obama-bush_n_1419008.html.

Khimm, S. (2012, August 27). Obama is deporting immigrants faster than Bush. Republicans don’t think that’s enough. Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/08/27/obama-is-deporting-more-immigrants-than-bush-republicans-dont-think-thats-enough/.

In 2002, when President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) into law, it became official policy of the United States government that all students attending public schools (with the exception of students with the most significant disAbilities) meet grade level standards by the year 2014.  For the first time, the basic expectation most parents of middle class, White, typically abled children have of their neighborhood school now applied to all classrooms, schools and districts without adjusting for race, income, first language, or IEP.  I believe that this is the most important step towards real equity for all students at the federal level since the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case desegregated schools in 1954.

While this clearly did not create full equity in access to an excellent education, and didn’t responsibility take into account how far many students, schools and districts were (and are) from this goal, or the incredible changes it would take to enable all students to meet this standard, it was a critical watershed moment.  Since its inception, our country has never taken seriously all that students in poverty, students of color and students with disAbilities have to offer.  This standard – universal proficiency – requires that educators and systems see beyond the biases that we all hold, and to expect the best of every student.

There is much that is said about the 2001 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB).  There are those who decry the outsized focused on school challenges instead of remedies, and those who celebrate the significant civil rights implications of disaggregated student performance data.  Beyond the well-known pros and cons, I believe the value of universal proficiency has been grossly overlooked, dismissed or misunderstood.

From the moment the law was signed, there were those who balked at the perceived absurdity of the 100% goal.  Surely that couldn’t include most students with disAbilities!  Or those learning English as a second language!  Or those living in poverty!

Those of us who are passionately committed to the limitless potential of all students, and who know too well the differentiation of expectations that condemns students in poverty and students of color to lower expectations and less rigorous instruction must defend this provision of the law as we look to the next reauthorization of NCLB.

There is good reason to be skeptical of the blunt, imperfect, and low-level assessments that most states currently use to measure what students know and are able to do.  We certainly need more sophisticated and meaningful measures that are truly able to discern what students have, and have not yet, learned.  We also need to make sure that the standards themselves represent what we want from a comprehensive, well-rounded education that prepares individuals to be successful and participate meaningfully in a globalized world.  These changes will take additional and reallocated resources, as well as a much better understanding than we have now of how to successfully improve and sustain schools that have not been serving students well for a very long time.

Even with improvements in assessment and curriculum that would benefit most students, we still need to find better ways to ensure that those students who are excluded from mainstream assessment are still meeting their own potentials.  In spite of the many challenges created by NCLB, and the many outstanding questions of equity, we cannot let the assertion that all students are capable of rigorous academic work fade away.  I realize that words alone do not drive improved instruction, change school cultures, or provide much needed resources, especially words tucked in a Federal law whose implementation often bears little resemblance to the purported ideals of its drafters.  We need to start somewhere, and given the despicable history of words written into Federal laws, universal proficiency is a much needed beginning.

*The opinions of our guest bloggers don’t necessarily reflect the views of the Equity Alliance, but they do raise important questions about educational equity. We invite participation and the exchange of ideas with these blogs.

Kim Anderson is the author of Culturally Considerate School Counseling:  Helping Without Bias (2010), co-author of Creating Culturally Considerate Schools:  Educating Without Bias (2012), both published by Corwin Press and a contributor to How to Teach Students Who Don’t Look Like You:  Culturally Relevant Teaching Strategies, 2^nd Edition (2012) and The Biracial and Multiracial Student Experience:  A Journey to Racial Literacy (2008) by Dr. Bonnie M. Davis.

Ms. Anderson presents her eclectic work at numerous local, regional and national events and venues, engaging her audience through compelling narrative, careful research, evocative experiences, and instructive storytelling.  She is currently working on a book based upon one of her clinical workshops entitled, Hour by Hour: Wholistic Practice in Clinical Social Work.

On December 14, 2012, Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut came under siege.  Not unlike the Columbine, Colorado shooters some thirteen years earlier, the only definitive truths we seem to know about Adam Lanza are that he was young, computer knowledgeable, and dressed in dissident fashion as he used automatic weapons to kill innocent and seemingly random children and adults.  Like the school assassins who preceded him, Lanza was immediately labeled an outsider, mentally ill, and antisocial.  His mother, also dead from bullets allegedly propelled by her own son, likewise was vilified.  These are horrible, graphic images and hideous notions with which we are left.

My diverse vocations and avocations (mental health professional, educational consultant, artist, writer, and life-long learner) prompt me to view this event holistically.  Our minds, bodies, psyches and spirits have all been assaulted by this historic trauma.  I recognize that we are trying to solve this particular problem when, collectively, we cannot think very clearly.  Our bodies shudder in empathy for the victims.  Our psyches attempt to integrate how we feel and what we know by our fervent attempt to understand.    In short, we attempt to make sense of the senseless.

The victims of Sandy Hook break our hearts because they symbolize the best of our hopes and the most actualized of our dreams.  There is no time in a child’s life more perfect or ripe with hope than first grade.  It is an age of innocence, curiosity, discovery and clarity about the existence of good and bad.  There is no more honorable a profession than education.  The teachers, administrators and auxiliary professionals to whom we entrust our children hold an honored place within our communities.

In the grim face of this tragedy, we seek answers because grief overwhelms us.   We want there to be solutions and assurances that this will never happen again, that we can protect our children, that we are not at risk ourselves.  Grief strips us of control and agency and when in its throes, our judgment is compromised, our problem-solving capabilities are clouded, and our decisions are poor.  We look for reasons because the killing of twenty first graders and six caring adults is unreasonable to us.   It should be.

James Halpern, c0-author of Disaster Mental Health:  Theory and Practice (Halpern & Tramontin, 2007) notes that people grieve in different ways, on different timetables.  There are cultural and gender differences, some that may manifest only after time.  He says, “It used to be that people believed that grief follows a certain path . . . I would hope that all of us would be thinking a little more flexibly.  We need to think about what we can do to change, not what the other guy can do to change” (Horrigan, 2012).  Halpern went to Newtown as part of an elite tem of Red Cross disaster response volunteers.  He noted that what happened at Newtown is an example of a “national trauma,” similar to 9/11.  In discussing this type of trauma, he defined it as “a kind of shaking or shattering of our basic assumptions” and stated, “You can see it existentially, spiritually, how we conduct ourselves in this world, our feelings about ourselves and the world.”  Like 9/11, Halpern says “this was not supposed to happen” (Horrigan, 2012).

In preparation for writing this piece, I scoured media sources and academic articles in search of innovative, scholarly, or even sensible responses to this unnatural disaster.  Initially I found few resources that help to synthesize this event or its aftermath in a clear and rational manner.  The focus of the school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut has primarily been on grief, guns, gossip and conjecture.

In the same cyber search, I came across a new book to “help teachers across the curriculum guide their students to become not only skilled readers and writers but also more empathetic human beings” and, paradoxically, an article on a student in California who was suspended and facing expulsion for writing a poem about the Newtown shootings in her personal journal.  Courtni Webb wrote that she “understood” how Adam Lanza might have felt.  As an expressive arts therapist, I encourage such expression in poem, art, and music.  Sometimes this is an alternative to bottling up emotions that erode a child’s internal self-image; sometimes it is a signal that we must intervene before tragedy occurs.  It is imperative we are discerning and thoughtful in our assessments.

Raised in a cultural where gun ownership was normative and gun safety was engrained, I don’t experience guns as the specific cause of violence unless assault weapons are accessible to the general public or educators are armed for duty in the classroom.  Thirty years as a mental health professional tells me that indeed our mental health system is in need of repair, yet the vast majority of those with a psychiatric diagnosis are not violent and not everyone who commits mass murder is mentally ill.

Kathleen Nadar writes that, “No single factor or trait explains violence, and the traits identified in (school) shooters can be found in those who do not commit aggression.  Along with factors such as cognitive capacity, emotional development, learning styles and traumatic adversities, empathy and moral development are critical factors in self-regulation.  Empathy encompasses cognitive as well as emotional dimensions.  Those who perpetrate social cruelty tend to lack empathy, compassion, and accurate perception of social cuing.  Nadar asserts that addressing these issues is necessary to abate the risk of these events of rampage.  She cites family, school, community, and national environments as influences of outcomes (Nadar, 2012).

A variety of crisis response models and training manuals have been developed to help guide school-based crisis response teams.  These models provide a conceptual framework and while helpful in providing a structure for developing teams and plans, most provide very general information and little empirical evidence of their usefulness exists (Creapeau-Hobson, Sievering, Armstrong, & Stonis, 2012).  They state that the “one size fits all” model is not efficacious.  Although some things may apply across most situations, responders must be flexible and adjust to the unique needs of any school tragedy or crisis.

When discussing averted school shootings, Nadar (2012) states that “Threat assessment methods have received greater endorsement” than “zero tolerance” policies.  Potential aggressors may communicate their plans for targeted acts of violence with high level threats being specific and detailed with some steps of the plan already carried out.  Creating a safe environment in which a young person feels free to tell what they have been told or overheard is likewise important.  Responding immediately to any reports of potential rampages is essential (Nadar, pg. 18).

From Columbine to Newtown, I have never understood the dispassionate Othering of the young people who kill.  In the case of Aurora, Colorado or that of Tucson, Arizona, the young men who amassed weapons to commit mass destruction, a clear psychiatric diagnosis could be found.  In Newtown, no evidence has yet been shown that Adam Lanza was anything but “quiet” or “weird.”  Even suggestions that he had Asperger-like symptoms or was Autistic do not mean that he was mentally ill or prone to violence.  Both are regarded as Pervasive Developmental Disorders of childhood rather than mental illnesses – that is to say they signify developmental delays and impairments instead of psychiatric disorders.

None of the media reports, official statements issued, or expert opinions expressed concerning the rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School have stated the obvious:  this was a violent act.    Even those of us who work in the field of equity and social justice shy away from naming violence.  We call it racism, classism, sexism, gay-bashing, or bullying but we are reluctant to confront simple violence.  Somehow that is a different thing.

As a clinical educator as well as an equity and social justice advocate, I stress the importance of eliminating “them and us” thinking.  We seem resistant to the idea that perhaps there is little we can actually do to prevent horrible acts of violence from occurring – or worse, that we may actually be part of the society that incubates such violence through our denial, our othering, our belief that arming ourselves will somehow teach that weapons will not be tolerated.

Kids should be building forts out of imagination, not learning within the walls of a fortress out of fear.  I support appropriate security, especially in areas where crime is high or surrounding properties are abandoned and dangerous materials are accessible.  To lock doors, bullet-proof windows, and arm teachers will not keep students safer.  These measures only increase the risk of accidental harm or becoming trapped in the wake of a natural or unnatural disaster.

Conversely, when overt atrocities take place, children cannot be shielded and needn’t be consoled with pizza parties or “treated to field trips, toy giveaways and some organized play time” as reported by the Huffington Post, December 27, 2012 (Eaton-Robb, 2012). This may seem harsh or cold-hearted, but these sorts of activities not only lead to denial and confusion for children, but give an unintended message that when bad things happen, we are rewarded.  This message is not that far from the misguided message that mass murder gives notoriety – the exact grandiose fantasies of many psychopaths or passive wishes of invisible Others.

When interviewed about the poem she wrote, Courtni Webb stated, “The meaning of the poem is just talking about society and how I understand why things like that incident happened. So it’s not like I’m agreeing with it . . .”

My personal wish is that Adam Lanza might have been able to write or draw his venomous visions rather than spewing them across a first grade classroom.  Now we are all left to deal with our own visions of his violence.

Works Cited

Candiotti, S., & Ford, D. (2012, December 15). CNN US. Retrieved from CNN.com: http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/15/us/connecticut-school-shooting/index.html

Creapeau-Hobson, F., Sievering, K. S., Armstrong, C., & Stonis, J. (2012). A Coorinated Mental Health Crisis Response: Lessons Learned from Three Colorado School Shootings. Journal of School Violence, 11(3), 207-225.

Eaton-Robb, P. (2012, December 27). Huffington Post Education. Retrieved from HuffingtonPost.com.

Gregory, A., Cornell, D., Fan, X., Sheras, P., Shih, T.-H., & Huang, F. (2010, May). Authoritative school discipline: High schoool practices associated with lower bullying and victimization. Journal of Educational Psychology, 102(2), 483-496.

Halpern, J., & Tramontin, M. (2007). Disaster Mental Health: Theory and Practice. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Horrigan, J. (2012, December 31). RecordOnline.com. Retrieved from RcordOnline.com: http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20121231/NEWS/212310332

Nadar, K. (2012). School Rampage Shootings and Other Youth Disturbances: Early prevantative interventions. (K. Nadar, Ed.) New York: Routledge.

Sankin, A. (2012, December 28). Huffington Post Front Page. Retrieved from HuffingtonPost.com: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/28/courtni-webb_n_2376833.html

Shriver, L. (2012, December 23). The Guardian. Retrieved from guardian.co.uk: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/23/no-tears-nancy-lanza-newtown-mother

Ujifusa, A. (2012, December 21). blogs.edweek. Retrieved from EdWeek: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2012/12/nra_calls_for_national_school_.html