Schools as Punishing Factories: The Handcuffing of Public Education

[marmar]

Schools as Punishing Factories: The Handcuffing of Public Education

Thursday, 06 August 2015 00:00
By Henry A. Giroux, Truthout | News Analysis


The Nobel Prize-winning author Ngugi wa Thiong'o has insisted rightfully that "Children are the future of any society," adding, "If you want to maim the future of any society, you simply maim the children."

If one important measure of a democracy is how a society treats its children - especially children of color, poor and working-class youth, and those with disabilities - there can be little doubt that the United States is failing. Half of all public school children live in near poverty, 16 million children receive food stamps and 90 percent of Black children will be on food stamps at some point during childhood. (2) Moreover, too many children are either incarcerated or homeless.

The National Center on Family Homelessness reports that "One in 45 children experience homelessness in America each year. That's over 1.6 million children. (Moreover) while homeless, they experience high rates of acute and chronic health problems. The constant barrage of stressful and traumatic experience also has profound effects on their development and ability to learn." (3) Sadly, these statistics rarely scratch the surface of the dire and deep-seated problems facing many young people in the richest country in the world, a state of affairs that provokes too little public outrage.

Teachable Moment or Criminal Offense?

Every age has its approach to identifying and handling problems. As we move into the second Gilded Age, young people are viewed more as a threat than as a social investment. Instead of being viewed as at-risk in a society that has defaulted on its obligations to young people, youth today are viewed as the risk itself. Instead of recognizing the social problems and troubles they face - ranging from poverty to punishing schools - our society sees youth as spoiled or threatening. (4) One consequence is that their behaviors are increasingly criminalized in the streets, malls, schools and many other places once considered safe spaces for them. As compassion and social responsibility give way to punishment and fear as the most important modalities mediating the relationship of youth to the larger social order, schools resort more and more to zero-tolerance policies and other punitive practices. Such practices often result in the handing over of disciplinary problems to the police rather than to educational personnel. ................(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/32238-schools-as-punishing-factories-the-handcuffing-of-public-education

[awoke_in_2003]

1. Off to the greatest. nt