Molly Bienstock's Post Tuck in that Shirt

When did the field of teaching become a cesspool for quickly breeding gender, race, and class discipline? How has this pervasive issue lasted so long? And how do we as citizens, students, and educators not realize how we are harming our species everyday and not try to stop it?

The article, "Tuck in that Shirt!"  had a very powerful quote that read "Although many school officials view this discipline as a way of teaching valuable social skills, it appeared instead to reinforce race, class, and stereotypes and had the potential to alienate many students from schooling" (Morris, 25).  I don't know about anyone else, but school definitely taught me how to act.  Girls wore certain clothes and behaved in a certain way.  They spoke the way girls were supposed to speak and played different games during recess.  However, when I was in elementary school I thought I was a boy.  I always begged Tommy Morrison to let me play football with the guys, but I was never chosen to play.  I always thought it was because I was a girl, but it was because I sucked at football.  Sara Pace played with them every recess.

But sleepaway camp shaped me, too.  Camp is a very accepting place where most children are introduced to other methods of living.  All ages, races, genders,  and socioeconomic groups are welcome at camp and  it is the most beautiful experience being able to interact with all kinds of people.  This is one of the main reasons why this article upsets me so much.  School is supposed to reinforce the positive progression of a child's life not hinder upon it.  Instead of learning all there is at an early age when it is critical, our school system antagonizes the youth and dims their fragile futures.  The article argued in favor of Foucault when it said "modern control is enacted through techniques of surveillance and physical regulation, or 'discipline,' aimed at the body.  Schools use this discipline to rework the behavior and appearance of students so their bodies display acceptable, normative comportment"(Morris, 27).

So what is this normative behavior for children in urban schools and how did it come to be this way?  Jackson Katz makes a great point in "Tough Guise" when he explains the relationship between masculinity and violence through a racialized lens.  He begins by examining the role that minorities play in the media.  Most movies portray black and hispanic males as severely tough and unforgiving.  They have to 'pack heat' to fit in.  They have to carry armed weapons on their person because of the neighborhood they live in and the gender they feel they are forced to perform.

This sad truth resonates as a lifestyle in schools all over the country, but the information is getting out there that our methods need some serious modification.  This final quote illustrates our desperate need for change in not only urban but all schooling systems that function under this backwards disciplinary regime.  "Schools employing disciplinary regimes steeped in race, class, and gender assumptions (however well intentioned) risk pushing many students away and, ironically, reproducing the very inequalities they are attempting to change" (Morris, 46).