Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for sharing
this powerful and discomforting book about education, Slow Violence: Confronting Dark Truths in the American Classroom. Ranita Ray, a
sociologist, spends several years following students in Las Vegas schools as
they interact with their teachers and gradually experience the kind of institutional
violence and power differentials that their teachers apply seemingly to harm
rather than help them. I typically enjoy reading books about education, even ones
that often challenge our assumptions and understanding of the purpose of
schools, such as Eve Ewing’s excellent Original Sins, Aaron Kupchik’s insightful Suspended Education, and Betina Love’s powerful Punished for Dreaming, to name a few
recent books. Ray’s book would fall into a similar category of a critical
examination of policies and practices that inhibit student success, while also
highlighting the kinds of power differentials teachers often wield and their seeming
indifference to make change and begin to advocate for their students. Ray
writes in her conclusion that “it is difficult for many of us to challenge the perception
of universal altruism among teachers,” and I felt this kind of dissonance while
reading the book. Not only did her observations and conclusions make me upset,
but they also caused me to reflect on my own teaching experiences and those I’ve
observed, thinking back to when either I witnessed or engaged in these types of
behaviors that contributed to the slow violence that students experience. Although
I cannot say that this kind of behavior has never happened, I will admit that after
some experience teaching and working with student populations much different
from my own background, I became more flexible and understanding in my teaching
and approach to accommodations in the classroom. Furthermore, I’ve also been
lucky to work with other like-minded colleagues who shared similar educational
philosophies and approaches that attempted to be student-centered and
supportive of student learning. Nevertheless, I’ve witnessed instances of the
kind of slow violence that Ray explains from both teachers and administrators,
and not just towards students, but towards teachers and staff who were deemed
as not team players or not on board to help students. Although I question some
of the generalizability of Ray’s conclusions based on her work in 2 schools in
Las Vegas, I can agree that often power, policies, and pedagogy work against students
whose backgrounds may be culturally incongruent with teachers and
administrators. Nevertheless, there are steps and strategies that schools and
teacher education programs can take to help strengthen the teaching corps and
better prepare them for the diverse student bodies they will work with in American
schools. I know from my teacher education, I was underprepared to work with the
kinds of diverse populations in many American schools, and often fell into the
apprenticeship of observation, relying on teaching the way I was taught, which
is not appropriate for students from different generations and cultures. It
wasn’t until I worked with other teachers, observed their classes, and reached
out for help about either student issues or teaching practices that I was able
to develop some more engaging practices that focused more on student learning
and helping to make students feel like they had a say in their learning in our
classes.
However, I’m digressing, and Ray’s book offers much to
critique and question in her ethnography of these students’ experiences. Ray
begins explaining her methods for her research, which took place between 2017
and 2020, right before the pandemic, and her definition of slow violence, which
reflects the kind of psychological and emotional violence over physical
violence. She also includes an important caveat that the conclusions she drew
were based on her observations, conversations, and scholarly knowledge. In the
prologue, Ray provides some background about her own experience as a multilingual
learner who was threatened and punished for speaking her mother tongue in
school. It’s this memory that enables Ray to feel more empathy and
understanding for the students she observes than her own teacher, having
experienced that kind of power differential and disregard for her identity,
interests, and culture that the students at Ribbon Elementary and Doreena
Middle School experienced with their teachers and administrators. Although the
teachers are presented as seemingly progressive and advocates for diversity and
student success, as the school year progresses, we learn, through Ray’s
observations, that their motives and actions are inconsistent with what we would
think about teachers. Ray offers some further insight into understanding these
teachers, noting that for some of them, teaching was a second or third career
option, and not something that always took precedence in their future plans. This
point about the teaching profession is also an important consideration since
there is always a need for qualified teachers, and Ray frequently stresses about
the lack of diversity in the teaching corps, which is primarily comprised of
white women and men who frequently teach students whose ethnicities, cultures,
languages, and backgrounds are different from their own. These differences may allow
for biases and assumptions to influence instructional decisions, grades, and
even future opportunities for learning. Ray’s observations of the teachers show
how they frequently let their assumptions about the students and their families
influence the type of work they received and how they interpreted the students’
achievement or motivation in class. Although Ray frequently notes how the school
is under-resourced, with as many as 40 students in a classroom and limited
access to paraprofessionals and other in class aides, it also seems like the
nature of teaching has changed along with the expectations about the roles that
teachers are expected to play in students’ lives. While I was shocked to read
about some of the assumptions that teachers made about the lives of their
students, it also seemed like some of the teachers were unprepared or had no
background to possibly support the kinds of challenges that some of their
students experienced. For example, one student who is featured as a star
student in the class, lost her 2 month old brother, and her disengagement and
withdrawal from class and socialization seemed swift and in need of some kind
of intervention. Although her teachers reached out, I was surprised that the
school didn’t do too much more for her after this devastating loss.
Furthermore, I’m not sure how many teachers are able to navigate and support
students through this kind of grief. As a teacher who has experienced loss, I
think that I can be empathetic to students who also experience loss. However, it
would seem like the school or even counselors within the district might offer
some support for teachers to then support students. I worked in a school where
we experienced the loss of students in close succession, and we basically
stopped everything to reach out to students (and other colleagues) and make
sure that everyone’s emotions were considered. It just made me think about how
teachers do more than just teach—they are often expected to emotionally support
students, interpret their feelings, and consider their changes, socially,
emotionally, academically, and identity-wise. Although some may view teachers
as “instructors”, the work of a teacher is much more complex and demanding, and
often requires some skills and attributes that are not always the focus of
teacher education and professional development. Beyond this kind of emotional
support, teachers are also expected to be something like a technician, where
they need to assess students, examine their results, and then devise strategies
and supports for their students, especially those who are at opposite ends of
the learning curve. I’m not sure how that is possible with 40 students who
require varying levels of support and enrichment, but this is part of the new
reality for teachers and their work. Regardless, Ray’s observations also made
me wonder what happened in the teacher meetings for the 4th and 5th
grade teams that she followed. Ray seems privy to some of the teacher
conversations in the lounge, where the teachers engaged in disparaging the
parents and families of their students, but I wondered whether there was any
kind of shared strategies and data analysis that was happening across the
teams.
Ray’s observations also made me question the administrators
at these schools. In Ribbon, Dr. Geertz seemed almost oblivious to the issues occurring
within the classrooms. One of the only male and Black teachers in the school
left his 5th grade class after being scrutinized for his harsh
treatment of female students. Although I was wincing at the ways in which he
responded to and disciplined some of the female students, I also saw this as maybe
an opportunity for some professional goals and either the principal or another
teacher coach to come in and support this teacher with some strategies and
measurable goals for improving his interactions with his students. Although I
know that teacher observations do not always happen in schools, I was surprised
by how independent and unsupported these teachers were. It seemed like the
schools were confirming that assumption that teaching is a isolating job, where
teachers shut their doors and just work with their students. Ray also explained
that she felt conflicted about not intervening when she witnessed the slow
violence in the classes she observed, and as a researcher, she’s correct not to
step in. Not only would it influence her research conclusions and potentially
damage her relationship with these teachers, but as an outside observer who was
in the school to observe the students, I’m not sure that the teachers would
have accepted her observations or suggestions. If anything, it seemed like the
entire culture of the school was deviating from the messages and slogans posted
around the campus. I wondered whether the school leadership was aware of this,
and whether they participated this kind of slow violence through their own
assumptions as well.
Ray’s observations are descriptive and detailed, and she
provides some useful connection to research when necessary, which helps to
situate and understand the behaviors and consequences we read about in the book.
I really appreciated this aspect of her scholarship and analysis, since it
allowed readers to see that much of what we are reading about in this school is
not necessarily an isolated incident, but is potentially happening in other
schools and to other students in the US. Still, I was shocked to see how some
of the teachers didn’t really understand basic elements of teaching or
connecting with their students. For example, in 5th grade, the
teacher planned a unit around Civil Rights in the 1960s, reading a recent book
that takes place in Alabama in the 1960s. The students made their own
connections with the Colin Kaepernick and other events in 2017, but the teacher
seemed to disparage these astute connections the students were making. Rather
than listening and questioning them to explain their connections further, she
dismissed their connections. It was really unclear what the focus of the lesson
was, and whether the students were working on reading skills, history, or what
the objectives for the lessons were. I can only imagine how confused the
students must have felt. I wondered whether this teacher knew about learning objectives
and how to structure a lesson. Furthermore, I was shocked to read about how
many teachers used candy to motivate students. This 5th grade
teacher apparently kept a candy stash and used candy as a reward, which I’ve always
viewed as something teachers should not do. Not only are extrinsic rewards like
this something that will eventually demotivate students (or make performance
contingent on these kinds of rewards), but also giving sugar to students seems unhealthy.
The schools I’ve worked in along with my kids’ schools never allowed candy for
students, but it seemed like a regular practice for these schools. Some 5th
grade students organized a distraction to snatch some of the candy from the
teacher, and when she found out she basically held it against these students
for the rest of the year, assuming that they were criminals. Another teacher in
the middle school seemingly gave candy to students no matter what they did, even
when they disobeyed him or gave incorrect or off-task responses. I just
wondered about what message he was offering for his students. It was incredibly
shocking to read about this kind of reward for academic work. Why not offer
some praise or positive feedback? Why not try to acknowledge their students’
efforts by noting what they did well?
Also of concern was the kind of deficit approach that many
of the teachers took about their students that seemed to be informed by their
biases and assumptions and was further fed by their interactions and gossiping
in the teachers’ lounge. I learned pretty early in my teaching career that the
lounge was not a fun place to be, and that it was often a site of complaints
and commiserating rather than any kind of productive work. I think this could
be true of much work, not just education. However, it’s more personal and
emotional since teaching is such an emotional and time investment. However, I
think I’ve always learned that it’s important to identify what students bring
to the classroom and not what they are lacking. Identify their strengths and
interests, utilize their experiences and skills, rather than harping on what
they are missing. It’s a simple lesson that any teacher education program
should emphasize for their pre-service teachers—do not take the deficit
approach. Nevertheless, it seemed like these teachers all assumed that the
students lived in poverty, had nothing, and the parents were often standing in
the way of progress (although they never offered any examples or evidence). Parents
who were interested in their students’ learning were chastised for being too
involved, while other parents who maybe worked multiple jobs or had other responsibilities
like child or elder care were deemed indifferent to their children. There were
assumptions running wild, and while it is natural to want to draw conclusions
and make attributions about reasons for involvement or lack thereof, again,
this seemed like a place where the administration should step in and offer suggestions
and methods for involving more parents in a proactive way, whether it is
through hosting parent/child activities, or finding ways for parents to be
involved in the class (which there were). Regardless, I was shocked to read
about how much the teachers assumed the students were in trauma, and that this
trauma was the main reason why students were not succeeding or achieving. Mr.
B, the 6th grade teacher, seemed to be a self-appointed trauma
expert (he wrote his thesis on student trauma), and based on Ray’s
observations, appeared to lower expectations for students due to their collective
trauma. Furthermore, the principal also acknowledged students’ trauma and how
it influenced their learning. This led to both a humorous and terrifying assembly
in 6th grade where I didn’t know whether to laugh or cringe at the
message and assumptions that kids are bad whose friends will eventually lead
them to destruction. Yet all of the teachers seemed amazed at the message.
As Ray notes, this is not an easy book to read mainly
because it challenges our own assumptions and cherished beliefs about teachers
and the work they do. While I’ve known some teachers who engage in this kind of
slow violence, thankfully, I’ve known and worked in schools that tend to be
more supportive of both their students and teachers. That’s not to say that
this kind of slow violence doesn’t happen. I agree with Ray’s conclusions about
the need to diversify the teaching corps and prevent the kind of slow violence
she witnessed. No student should experience that kind of bias and incongruity
in their learning. However, I couldn’t help but question some of the
conclusions about the teachers’ own motivations in this book, especially since
Ray drew these conclusions based on observations and overheard conversations and
not necessarily based on interviews with the teachers or asking about their methods
or instruction. Furthermore, it didn’t seem like she interviewed students to
ask about their own experiences with learning or school either. I wonder if she
may have reached some different conclusions about her observations if these
data were included in the analysis. In her “Afterword”, Ray notes that there is
a difference between schooling and education. This distinction reminded me of
Ewing’s book in particular in that schools in the 20th century were
often sites of assimilation and control, a means to shape, condition, and train
future workers for the kind of manual labor that was needed in the early 20th
century. As society and the economy began to change, other’s views and philosophies
about school also shifted, with some viewing education as the potential for a
social equalizer. Although we are still a long way off from making this
aspiration a reality, it’s still possible to support this idea and reinforce it
with pre- and in-service teachers. While reform has taken education down some
wrong paths, I agree with Ray’s idea that we need to “insist on a more honest
conversation about the stark power differential between teachers and students”,
and especially those “power relations that oppress Black, brown immigrant and
trans people coincide with this fact that teachers have absolute authority inside
the classroom and students…have close to none.” While it may not completely address
the entirety of this situation, providing more student-centered approaches to
learning that also engage students in positions of leadership and responsibility
within the classroom are a way to start. Ensuring that teacher education
programs, whether they are for undergraduates or alternate route candidates,
stress these kinds of democratic approaches to education and acknowledge these
power differentials is a good place to start. Furthermore, ensuring that
teachers are supported and have regular observations and quality professional
development that focuses on culturally congruent teaching strategies and
methods is another way to support teachers in supporting their students. While
this is challenging and at times disturbing book, it is a necessary and important
read, especially for educators, but also for the general public. As Ray explains
in both her introduction and afterword, there are attacks against teachers from
both the right and the left today. We frequently hear stories about teachers
who engage in inappropriate lessons about slavery or immigration, often bringing
harm to students. When I was in college studying to be a teacher, I remember
watching the “Blue Eye/Brown Eye” experiment as a method to teach about
discrimination, but also questioning what kind of harm this brought to
students, some of whom attacked and harassed their classmates. Although there
were good intentions to teach about discrimination from an experiential
perspective, it brought harm to the students. Teachers should also be more
aware of their methods and think more about what their students will learn from
these activities and assignments, to fully consider the implications and consequences
of their lessons. Being a reflective practitioner should be a prerequisite for
teaching, and schools need to do more to reinforce this essential aspect of
teaching. Nevertheless, Ray’s book challenged my assumptions and made me think
and reflect about my own experiences as both a learner and a teacher. I
recommend this book even though it is a challenging, difficult, and at times
upsetting read.
