Preparing for Returning to the Classroom

I haven't been writing in this space for the last couple of weeks.  Robyn and I have been pretty busy having fun here at the end of Summer.  We went up to Chicago for her birthday, and saw Goodbye Cruel World by one of our favorite theater troupes that we also saw three years ago.   Two weeks ago, we went to New Hampshire for Robyn's cousin's wedding, and we got to spend some quality time with her family, and then last weekend we got a visit from my sister and her family, and then went back up to Chi-town for sole and very serious purpose of introducing my brother-in-law to Chicago-style pizza.  Phew!  Now, we are in that brief, two week period between the end of summer semester and the beginning of fall, and have some time to catch up on things like blogging and jogging and, um, clogging?  (Also, I am a level 15 orc!)

So, there has been those, practical reasons for why I have been absent longer than intended.  The other reason has been that, sometimes, the absurdity of certain things is just too sad to write about it.  For example, in education and specifically special education, we speak often of the school-to-prison pipeline, the mechanism in the United States by which disadvantaged students are moved from the public education system into the penal system.  Think cradle to grave, in a very real sense. 

However, when we speak of this system, we have not meant it in the most literal of meanings ... until know.  According to CNN.com, Lauderdale County, Mississippi, has been incarcerating students in a local prison for school disciplinary actions.  The Justice Department is planning a suit against Mississippi, and is citing that, "Students most affected by this system are African-American children and children with disabilities." 

The alleged mistreatment included youngsters being "crammed into small, filthy cells and tormented with the arbitrary use of Mace as a punishment for even the most minor infractions -- such as 'talking too much' or failing to sit in the 'back of their cells,'" the [Southern Poverty Law Center] said in a statement.

One of the issues that I consider to be the most pressing for special education teachers is the ways in which race, poverty, and disability intersect in the lives of their students.  In June, I attended a conference on Critical Race Studies in Education, and came away with a lot of exciting ideas, which I plan to put into action over time here and in other spaces.   However, one of the things that always unsettles me is how, as a teacher, I see the theories and ideas and philosophies that are bandied about in university lectures and conferences having real, sometimes terrifying, effects on the lives and the bodies of students.  This is very real, very serious work, and when teachers fail, they are not the ones who feel the worst of the consequences.