Tina Bell
English 5870
4 May 2009
Power
The struggle for power is everywhere. I can point to drastic examples such as slavery, child abuse, and animal cruelty, but I can also see examples of this struggle in the prison guard who makes up rules on visitor’s day to exert his power, or the youth who slowly walks down the middle of the street daring the driver to do something. I believe it must be innate for all people to want some type of power, and if they are denied access, they will create their own opportunities.
The children in Ann Ferguson’s chapter from Bad Boys: Public Schools and the Making of Black Masculinity also sought to exert some type of power in a system that allowed them none. While Ferguson was reading discipline records one frequently trouble-making student bragged about his file. “I got a lot in there, don’t I? Who else got one that big?” (9) This young man was unable to gain any power in school so he created his own. Many of the other African American boys from this school created their own power in the same way. The effect was that they were then punished more often than other students.
Ferguson’s article raises some interesting questions about our school system. Do we create many of the behavior problems we fight so hard to eliminate? Do we treat students differently, denying some power while allowing access to others? Is the system geared for one type of student to the exclusion of others who do not fit the mold? Ferguson discovered hat the students she studied “knew what was ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in the context of school” (13). They chose to do what was considered wrong. These students who were “classified as lazy, belligerent, incorrigible at school could be respectful, diligent, and responsible in other contexts” (15).
Ferguson’s discoveries lead me to believe that we need to investigate the questions above much more thoroughly. Although I realize that some of these problems are created by those who consciously deny access to power for certain groups, I believe that much of this withholding is unconscious. This unconscious behavior makes the problems more difficult to recognize and change, more difficult to achieve. The idea of the unconscious nature of this discriminating behavior was made apparent in Ferguson’s example of desegregation. She stated that we admitted that when schools were segregated, children were treated unequally. After schools became desegregated, our conscious mind believed that this inequality disappeared. That was, after all, one of the purposes for desegregation. But, I wonder if this means of promoting inequality simply moved from a conscious act to an unconscious one.
I agree Tina with your point that desegregation made inequality go underground. If we separate were truly unequal then the only solution should have been to desegregate but we are seeing now that it didn’t work.
As a teacher, one of my concerns is creating a safe environment for all students and when a student does something that makes the environment unsafe in any way, I must handle the situation swiftly and in accordance with school policy. You’re right to say that people will find ways to exert power when they do not have it in society, and unfortunately, they tend to exert their power in troubling ways. After reading the article, I’m reminded of the important job we have as teachers of writing. First, we must recognize the disempowerment that students experience and then funnel that frustration into their writing so they find their voice in a constructive way (a la “Freedom Writers”). The frustration they feel is an untapped resource that can be refocused through writing. Not only are they able to hold a position of power through retaining their voice, but it can eliminate the chances that other student’s safety will be jeopardized.
I think Adam has a good point here, and I agree that behavior that endangers others must be thoroughly squashed, and I agree that channeling that sort of frustration into writing is the best way to do it. But, we as educators also need to be aware of the overarching social bias that leads these students to seek power in destructive, and self destructive ways. Then we will be able (hopefully) to re-channel those students energy into productive channels. Identifying problem students is not the hard part, the hard part is figuring out what to do with them, so that they don’t end up as part of that prison statistic, while not killing yourself, losing your own relationships (see Freedom Writers, or my life), and yet get the opportunities they need through the haze of social conditioning. Every human being is a unique and special project, but every educator cannot make a special project out of every student…there are just too many of them…so what do we do? I don’t know, but do your best, because they follow after.
Thanks Adam and James for bringing up the point that writing is a good way to exert power. Let’s face it, knowledge is power. I agree that as teachers we need to channel energies in productive ways; like writing.