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.
Included in
Art Education Commons, Other Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons, Prison Education and Reentry Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons