Week #9

 Troublemakers

Carla Shalaby

Reflection

    When I started reading Troublemakers, I thought I knew what “trouble-maker” meant in school: the kid who disrupts class, won’t sit still, interrupts, maybe gets sent out of the room. But Shalaby flipped that idea on its head. She shows these four young kids (Zora, Lucas, Sean, Marcus) who’ve been labeled “problem children,” and she invites us to see them differently.

    I was struck by the line that disruption isn’t just “bad behavior”; it can be a message about what the classroom or school is doing to a child. Shalaby writes that these children “sing freedom” in their own way, challenging systems. I felt a bit guilty, too, thinking “What role did I play in that?” Maybe I was a good student who simply followed rules; maybe I sometimes judged peers who didn’t. Shalaby forces you to reflect on that. This reading also challenged me to think about “compliance” vs. “freedom” in schools: Are children being asked to obey first and learn second? Or are they being invited to learn with freedom? It’s a different mindset. Also, the fact that these are very young children (first/second grade) already facing labels, meds, and exclusion. 

    Something I took away from this piece is that I want to carry the idea that when someone disrupts, perhaps they’re not being a “troublemaker” in the negative sense but are responding to something. Maybe they’re not heard, maybe they’re bored, maybe the structure isn’t working for them. I’ll try to lean into “What strengths does this child have that I’m missing?” instead of immediately focusing on the “problem behavior.” Shalaby shows how kids like Zora, Lucas, etc, have creativity, imagination, and curiosity traits that get shut down.

       There were moments when I winced, thinking of kids I knew who got labeled early, pushed out. There were moments when I nodded, remembering how I sometimes got restless in class and maybe felt like I couldn’t just be. It made me hope for a kind of classroom where kids like Zora or Lucas don’t feel like they have to quiet their weirdness or shut down their spark to belong. It made me want to be someone who asks: ‘What’s going on for you?’ rather than ‘Why aren’t you doing what I asked?’”