Troublemakers

A radical educator's paradigm-shifting inquiry into the accepted, normal demands of school, as illuminated by moving portraits of four young "problem children" 
In this dazzling debut, Carla Shalaby, a former elementary school teacher, explores the everyday lives of four young "troublemakers," challenging the ways we identify and understand so-called problem children. Time and again, we make seemingly endless efforts to moderate, punish, and even medicate our children, when we should instead be concerned with transforming the very nature of our institutions, systems, and structures, large and small. Through delicately crafted portraits of these memorable children—Zora, Lucas, Sean, and Marcus—Troublemakers allows us to see school through the eyes of those who know firsthand what it means to be labeled a problem.
From Zora's proud individuality to Marcus's open willfulness, from Sean's struggle with authority to Lucas's tenacious imagination, comes profound insight—for educators and parents alike—into how schools engender, exclude, and then try to erase trouble, right along with the young people accused of making it. And although the harsh disciplining of adolescent behavior has been called out as part of a school-to-prison pipeline, the children we meet in these pages demonstrate how a child's path to excessive punishment and exclusion in fact begins at a much younger age.
Shalaby's empathetic, discerning, and elegant prose gives us a deeply textured look at what noncompliance signals about the environments we require students to adapt to in our schools. Both urgent and timely, this paradigm-shifting book challenges our typical expectations for young children and with principled affection reveals how these demands—despite good intentions—work to undermine the pursuit of a free and just society.

“"Shalaby nails the obsessions that characterize too many American classrooms today...as part of the normal routine, schools engage in the toxic habit of labelling students by their presumed deficits, and officially endorse failure and punishment in the name of responsibility, objectivity, and consequences. Shalaby illuminates critical lessons for all of us about living and learning, growing and developing as whole, free human beings. Troublemakers is a necessary book in these troubled times." --William Ayers, author of Teaching with Conscience in an Imperfect World: An Invitation”

Praise for Troublemakers:

“I thought I knew a thing or two about freedom until I read Troublemakers. Carla Shalaby reveals how we mistake wild curiosity and wisdom for willfulness, punish children like inmates, and then wonder why there is a school-to-prison pipeline. Riveting, luminous, and terrifying, this little book gives us the tools, the vision, and the confidence to free our children to change the world.”
—Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams
"A provocative study questions the value and/or harm of conformity in a school setting."
—Kirkus Reviews

“I absolutely LOVE how Shalaby’s work humanizes troublemaking’ and skillfully challenges us to rethink oppressive and punitive responses to problematic student behavior. This is highly recommended reading for anyone interested in shifting the prevailing consciousness that has fueled the criminalization of our children.”<br />—Monique W. Morris, author of <i>Pushout</i><br /><br />“Shalaby illuminates critical lessons for all of us about living and learning and about growing and developing as whole, free human beings. <i>Troublemakers</i> is a necessary book in these troubled times.”<br />—Bill Ayers, author of <i>Demand the Impossible!</i> and <i>To Teach</i><br /><br />“The implications of this book for our schools, and for our society, are truly radical. Every teacher and teacher-in-training should read it. Come to think of it, so should every policy-maker and every education activist. This outstanding book raises tough questions. If we want humane schools and a just society, we have to ask them.”<br />—Brian Jones, teacher, writer, activist<br /><br />“An important work that every teacher and parent should read.”<br />—Gloria Ladson-Billings, author of <i>The Dreamkeepers</i><br /><br />“In engaging, detailed descriptions of four early elementary-aged children already labeledtroublemakers,’ readers see the real challenges they pose along with their keen insights, creativity, and resistance that could and should enrich all our lives. This moving work calls on us to re-imagine schools as places where we could learn from the children who, against all odds, `sing freedom.’”
—Deborah Menkart, executive director, Teaching for Change

Carla Shalaby is a former elementary school teacher who has studied at the Rutgers and Harvard graduate schools of education and directed elementary education programs at Brown University and Wellesley College. Her work focuses on the critical role that children and teachers play in the ongoing struggle for justice. She lives in Detroit and is the author of Troublemakers: Lessons in Freedom from Young Children at School (The New Press).

A radical educator's paradigm-shifting inquiry into the accepted, normal demands of school, as illuminated by moving portraits of four young "problem children" In this dazzling debut, Carla Shalaby, a former elementary school teacher, explores the everyday lives of four young "troublemakers," challenging the ways we identify and understand so-called problem children. Time and again, we make seemingly endless efforts to moderate, punish, and even medicate our children, when we should instead be concerned with transforming the very nature of our institutions, systems, and structures, large and small. Through delicately crafted portraits of these memorable children--Zora, Lucas, Sean, and Marcus-- Troublemakers allows us to see school through the eyes of those who know firsthand what it means to be labeled a problem.From Zora's proud individuality to Marcus's open willfulness, from Sean's struggle with authority to Lucas's tenacious imagination, comes profound insight--for educators and parents alike--into how schools engender, exclude, and then try to erase trouble, right along with the young people accused of making it. And although the harsh disciplining of adolescent behavior has been called out as part of a school-to-prison pipeline, the children we meet in these pages demonstrate how a child's path to excessive punishment and exclusion in fact begins at a much younger age.Shalaby's empathetic, discerning, and elegant prose gives us a deeply textured look at what noncompliance signals about the environments we require students to adapt to in our schools. Both urgent and timely, this paradigm-shifting book challenges our typical expectations for young children and with principled affection reveals how these demands--despite good intentions--work to undermine the pursuit of a free and just society.

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