The question is: when it comes to school, how did black boys end up getting a bad rap?  Ann Arnett Ferguson explores this question in her book bad boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity, which she wrote after three years of participant research at Rosa Parks Middle School in “Acadia.”  She describes Arcadia as a city on the west coast; however, it sounds suspiciously like the city of Berkeley to me. Her observations made her realize that tracking was evident and students’ futures included becoming professionals, blue collar workers, and clerical workers, as well as “…for some children, predominantly African and male, that led to prison” (2)

            In terms of demographics, she notes that although only one-quarter of the students at Rosa Parks were black males, half of the people in the Punishing Room were black males.  In terms of suspensions, from 1991-92, three-quarters of those suspended were boys, and four-fifths African American.  The statistics clearly indicate the majority of the students being punished were African American males. Ferguson notes that his had even broader implications than simply being sent to the Punishing Room.  She states:

In the course of my study it became quite clear that school labeling practices and the exercise of rules operated as part of a hidden curriculum to marginalize and isolate black male youth in disciplinary spaces and brand them as criminally inclined (2)

            That is quite a statement, and when I read that, I contemplated my eight years of teaching in middle schools, and asked myself if I had seen a situation such as that.  No, I had not.  I have taught in three schools one in a bay area suburb and two schools in the Central Valley.  Did it seem as though African American boys were being disciplined more than other students?  I would say yes, but I don’t believe there was a hidden curriculum with the ultimate goals of landing them in prison.  However, I have never worked in an inner city school with a sizeable African American populated, or a school in which there was busing, or a school in which there were students who were vary poor right along with students who were very wealthy, or in a district in which there was drug dealing and high crime rates.

            Ferguson notes that situations such as a Rosa Park are happening in other states and other school districts.  For instance in Oakland, California a disproportion number of  African American students are being suspended and, in Michigan, where, unbelievably, corporal punishment is still allowed, blacks were four times more likely to be hit than other students.  In Cincinnati black students were twice as likely to end up in in-house suspension that white students (3).  Personally, I would like to see more data than this. I do believe it, but I don’t think a sample of several school districts is valid.

            Ferguson describes a PALS (Partners and Learning Skills) program in which students who were seen as “at-risk” were chosen by various school personnel so that they could receive help.  Initially, they only were going to choose students with potential, rather than those seen as ‘unsalvageable,” but the compromised and both groups were included.  Ferguson was shocked that 90% of the children were males, and all except one Child was African American.  It does seem hard to believe that none of the children could be considered at-risk.

            While doing her fieldwork, she gradually became accepted and trusted by some of the students.  She frequented the Punishment Room and after sometime, all people involved in the Punishment Room, adults and students, began to forget that she was there.  She states the following:

I became a taken-for-granted member of the setting.  When this happened, verbal harangues, sympathy, even physical intimidation would be expressed without the fear that I was monitoring their activities on behalf of the school district (9).

In other words, at the point, she earned their trust. 

            Interestingly, she found that the African American boys fell into two different categories, Troublemakers and Schoolboys.  As the names imply, the Troublemakers frequently were in the punishment room and had been suspended, although the Schoolboys and been given referrals but had not been suspended.  They had many differences in the composition of the two groups, but she came upon a tragic realization:

I gradually realized that to see Schoolboys and Troublemakers as fundamentally different was to make a grave mistake.  As African American males, Schoolboys were always on the brink of being redefined into the Troublemaker category by the school (9).

Ferguson was fortunate that she earned the trust of the students and she actually had assistance with students helping her come up with questions.  I found her research intriguing and I would like to read the rest of her book.