Troublemakers by Shalaby

     Hi and welcome back to my blog! In this blog I’ll be taking apart “Troublemakers” by Carla Shalaby 

    After reading the troublemakers I could pick apart some major takeaways from this reading. Shalaby discusses some first and second graders’ behaviors’ in their classrooms. She stresses that the reader understand children are to not be punished in such a way, but to recognize each child’s individuality and internal struggles they could be going through. 

    While reading Carla Shalaby’s introduction I read a line that stated “As Philip Jackson, a researcher of schools, Long ago reminded us, there are only three institutions from which Americans are allowed no escape: prisons, mental hospitals, and schools.” (Shalaby 27) I understood this quote as framing our education system as an institution to escape from/ something that contains our body movements and thoughts. It related to the rest of the reading because Shalaby talked about a student named Anthony who knew a lot about certain topics, even more than she would know about and when it came to sitting still and being polite with his body language, he struggled. A statistic I read stated, “46 percent of kindergarten teachers report that more than half their class has trouble following directions; 34 percent report that children struggle who work independently; 20 percent report that their kindergarteners have poor social skills and are “immature”” (Shalaby 27). These statistics astonished me because I became curious as to what the cause for this could be, such as disinterest or other outside factors. I re-read the last part of that statistic and how kindergarteners are “immature” but we have to remember they are literally ages 4 and 5. We can’t simply call any kid who struggles to pay attention a troublemaker 

     To conclude, I believe this writing was influential and opened my eyes to these stereotypes and to not be quick to judge in my future classroom. I hope to never be THAT teacher who talks about her “problem students” in such a way and make any student feel disapproved of. Shalaby did an excellent job writing this book.