Troublemakers By Shalaby

 "Preface" and "Introduction" on Troublemakers by Shalaby

These readings focus on students who are considered "troublemakers" and how teachers should respond and act when they have students who are considered "troublemakers" in their class. Teachers need to think about what causes their students to act out. Teachers shouldn't single them out in front of the entire class and punish them when they may just need some extra help. I found multiple parts of this reading very interesting and valuable for future teachers to learn about and use in their future classes. 

The first reading started with lyrics from the song "Something Inside So Strong" by Labi Siffre. Labi Siffre states, "The more you refuse to hear my voice, the louder I will sing."  I found these lyrics interesting because they focus on how the more someone is silenced, the more they will try to speak up. This relates to how minority groups continue to be silenced for the injustices that they face and how they have to continue to challenge the system that continues to silence them and oppress them.

The first reading later talks about how miners used to bring a caged canary down into a mine to alert the miners to carbon monoxide poisoning. The canary was able to sense the carbon monoxide before the miners, which allowed the miners to escape their deaths, but the canary died because the miners valued their lives over the canary's. This is a valuable example not just for teachers but for all people to learn from. People need to understand that no one is more valuable or important than someone else. Shalaby writes, "...we are in the habit of incarcerating the people from whom we could learn the most about freedom, we cage the birds singing most loudly." People that we could learn from regarding their life experiences are the ones who tend to be punished and silenced causing our society to be the same and never change.

The second reading further focused on students who are considered to be difficult for the teacher to teach or keep focused. It also focuses on what teachers think of their students regarding how easy they are to work with. Shalaby states, "We generally think of 'deviance', and of deviant people, as a problem. I have learned to think of deviance as informative, and often as an exercise of power and free will." The author believes that students who are "problems" tend to use their rights to share their opinions and beliefs. The author wrote about a student who always challenged a teacher's instructions and never did an assignment that they didn't want to do or find interesting. In this case, the teacher may have either put in the extra effort to keep the student engaged with different lessons or provided extra help to make the student enjoy the lesson or activity.

Teachers need to be aware that every student is capable of greatness, and some just need the right tools to be successful. Teachers have to be insightful and alert, they have to notice things about their students that others may not notice to allow their students to get the help that they need to be successful.