Abstract
I reflect on the decade I spent as an art teacher in a Chicago high school where so-called "behavioral issues" are rampant, as well on my experience working with incarcerated adults, in order to explain the concept of the school-to-prison pipeline with the aid of recent research on discipline and policing. I go on to talk about a September 2019 thread in an art teacher group on Facebook. On this thread, predominantly white teachers overwhelmingly called for a teacher who was hit while breaking up a fight to press charges against the student who struck him, purportedly for the student’s own good. I examine all of these experiences in light of America’s history of racial repression and control, and throughout the essay I reflect on the important role played by teachers’ feelings in determining the material fates of students and their families.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.25892/QQ3X-BA20
Included in
Art Education Commons, Other Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons, Prison Education and Reentry Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons