JUNE 25, 2020 / JEREMIAH HENDERSON / EDIT
A note: This blog post is about my perspective of what I have learned about defunding the police and my classroom. My experience is not meant to be universal, nor do I claim to be an authoritative voice about policing or classroom management. I am documenting my experience as an educator and what I have done to ensure that my classroom operates based on the assumption that ALL students are inherently good, beautiful beings.
There are MANY brilliant people who have come before me that have done this work, and this blog post would not exist without them: Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi, and Alicia Garza, the three Black women who founded #BlackLivesMatter and helped shape my thinking about the police.
On my blog, I have posted over the years how my shift in classroom management practices evolved, and what my core beliefs are. I believe all humans are good and want to do good. How I run my classroom has to align with this belief. Many resources over the years have shaped where I am.
The biggest was in 2016 when I read Pernille Ripp’s beautiful work “Passionate Learners” which helped me understand that we absolutely need to let go of the punish/reward cycle. I credit this book to breaking everything I thought I knew. Pernille’s work was a tipping point further drawn out when I started teaching in Seattle. I attended the best classroom discipline course in 2017, Sound Discipline, which is a Seattle-based organization founded by the guiding principles of the program, Positive Discipline.
Positive Discipline, and my belief about classroom management, is that behavior is a communication of a need that a child has. All their behavior is at the root of something, and our jobs as teachers are to figure out why. “All humans want significance and belonging. The misbehavior we see is a solution to another problem we don’t see.”
Gardens are a beautiful place to be in. I often find myself in botanical gardens or arboretums during my free time. They are a place of tranquility and peace.
The other day I was helping my friend with her garden. We gathered some of the vegetables ready to be picked. We weeded and cleaned the rest of the garden so it could continue to grow and flourish.
In the last month, I have been hearing about the idea of defunding the police, and at first when I heard that argument, my own biases got in the way of understanding what that message meant. As I further explored the concept, I have come to understand why the defunding of police as a society can be attributed to the same shift I had with my classroom “management” pedagogy.
I want to imagine humans as gardens for a moment. Gardens can have a variety of plants in them, flowers, vegetables, fruits, grasses, shrubs, etc. The more variety the better. As humans, we have different traits about us that make us beautiful and diverse. Things we like, our quirks, our histories, and everything that make us who we are.
Gardens also have predatory plants that can hurt the garden or overtake them, we should all be familiar with them: weeds. Weeds can also come in a variety of types, and when left unattended, they can overtake and choke out a garden. In our human lives, weeds pop up in different forms. Some can be small, and others can be larger, like trauma or being denied your identity. (I wrote extensively about my own trauma from denying my identity in a previous post). Without proper care, these weeds can root deeper into our lives and cause more problem, and can choke out the good qualities in our life.
Like all plants, the roots are buried deep, and over time those roots become longer, stronger, and help the plant to grow and survive. We often forget about the roots because we never see them, we only see the plant.
Traditional classroom management attempts to control situations in classrooms through punishment and rewards. When we follow this model, we are merely “chopping off” the head of the weed, without reaching down to the root. We are actively avoiding the reason that behavior was there in the first place. To do this objectively, we need to understand that all behavior is a code, it is a way of communicating. Knowing this is the only way we will ever help our children flourish. We have to dig beneath the soil, and find the root.
Let me invite you into my classroom from this year and show you what I mean.
I had a student this year who had difficulty with math. There was one time when one of the assignments got so overwhelming that they tore up the paper into many pieces, knocked over the trash can, and ran out of the room.
Let’s pause here. If this child’s behavior is the flowering part of the plant, then what I see is anger, frustration, and destruction. This became the flower of the root of something else which I didn’t yet see.
Traditional classroom management would have me do a few things. I could “clip down” this child on a behavior, send them to the principal, or have them owe me recess… etc. All forms of punishment which deal with the after effect. Notice that none of this ever requires the teacher to address the root problem in the first place.
Many problems in the classroom are solved in this manner. We only look at the problem after it has occurred and we become hyper focused on the behavior and ensure that punishment for it has been given.
(Before I address what I did, please understand that I am not looking for pats on the back here, I am looking to get educators to understand that this work is transformative, and you too, can do this).
When the child ran out of the room, I called for another teacher to ensure this child’s safety (this was a teacher, not a cop or resource officer). This teacher helped calm the child down. This allowed me to also calm down. Not that I was angry, but I certainly needed to be in a clearer space before I could engage in the work of talking to this child.
When the child came back into my classroom, I smiled and told them we would talk tomorrow, since it was the end of the day.
The next morning, the pieces of their paper were on the ground, and they cleaned up the mess. I did not make this punitive, I asked them “What can we do to solve this?” They said, “clean up the mess.” So they did, and then we talked.
We had a heart to heart about what happened. I found out what went wrong as they tried the assignment, and we talked about what they could do differently in the future to ask for help, or how to take a break when something was going to be frustrating.
You might be thinking, “Jeremiah, that is a LOT of work.”
It absolutely is. And I wouldn’t trade it for the world. This child only had two other breakdowns this year. Each time, I sat down with this child, and helped look at the root cause of what was going on. I had a deep relationship with this child, which was necessary for this to work.
I have no time to be mad at children for displaying behaviors or emotions. And believe me, I have seen it all. I have no time to punish them for behaviors. That only chops off the head of the weed, but the root is still there, and it will grow back. (It is equally important to mention that having ample counselors in schools help with areas that I am not equipped to take on. Much love to some fabulous counselors I have worked with: Janice, Lucero, and Linda. You all are my heroes).
I want to be clear. This does not mean my classroom is a free-for-all. I have clear expectations for all my students, and I work very hard to set appropriate boundaries with my students. (Knowing child development by age is critical). I work to create strong relationships with my students because, without that critical piece, none of the other work will happen.
When we think about society beyond our schools, let’s go back to our gardens. What if someone is stealing food? If we only look at the plant on top, we see the action of stealing. What about the root? Maybe they don’t have access to a stable source of food and/or they do not have stable employment?
I am not here to condone stealing. I am here to say that when police are called on, they work to extinguish the crime. In this example, stealing food. But in many cases, they may actively make matters worse. (See MPD 150, Patrisse Cullors, and the eBook below).
They may chop off the weed, but the root is still there. If this person steals because they have no food, and gets caught, and goes to jail and gets released, but STILL has no stable source of food, then what do you think is going to happen again? Or worse, what if they are killed because they were stealing? Without addressing the root, we will, and have, continued to perpetuate this cycle as a society.
There are many examples that can be listed. When we call on the police to be defunded, it is a call to say that we need to redistribute funds to different and better services that will help address the root of these problems. Some examples could be housing for the homeless, more social workers helping people with mental illness. Providing food stability for those who need it. Free medical access. More money for our schools! This list goes on. THESE services address the roots, and in the cases of our schools, they might help to prevent some of the roots from forming in the first place.
Back in our classrooms, I urge all of us to throw away any system that perpetuates cycles of punishment, and commit to seeing children as inherently good, and look to solve the roots, so their gardens may flourish.
Some resources to help (please feel free to reach out, I will happily help):
Positive Discipline
Passionate Learners by Pernille Ripp
The MPD150 Project
Patrisse Cullors on defunding the police
Free e-Book: Who do you serve? Who do you protect?