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Treating Children Like Criminals

Take a guess where the following true scenario takes place daily:

The bullhorn blares across the yard. Young Latinos and African Americans quickly scan their surroundings, noticing the many faces that watch them. A chain-link fence, 20 feet high, surrounds them on three sides. Dutifully, they fall into place in line. Heads up, hands clasped behind their backs, shoulders straight. Most know better than to talk. A few test the rules and murmur among themselves. "You're wasting my time!" barks the attendant. Rumpled play dollars are doled out to the well behaved; order is maintained through this token economy. Thus begins their day.

You're thinking boot camp? A juvenile detention facility? Wrong. It's an elementary school.

This is elementary school. First grade. Our inmates are 6 years old. They are not criminals. Small and wiry, these are children whose usual offenses are pulling braids or not sharing Hot Cheetos. The children must walk in straight lines. Hands must remain behind their backs, as though in handcuffs. The high fences separate them from the outside, physically and symbolically. What does it mean when you are 6 and your school is run like a prison?

It is lunchtime. The students are herded through line, picking up their cardboard trays of chicken nuggets and milk. Eating must be done in silence. Misbehaving children face a "three-strikes-you're-out" policy." The same policy that puts many neighborhood men in jail is also used to deny chattering children recess. A teacher bends over to help a girl open her ketchup. An administrator reprimands her for being too soft with the child. "You are enabling her dependency," he chides.

This doesn't happen at all schools--it is primarily occurring in schools in the inner city, heavily populated with minorities. What message does this end? Is it any wonder that in 2000, there were 188,500 more African American men incarcerated than in higher education, according to a Justice Policy Institute report?

...the link between how we treat children of color in schools and current statistics must be noted. We provide these children with the bare minimum of resources, in dilapidated facilities, surrounded by communities that have been abandoned by the city. We then fill the children up with the language of criminality. Children will rise to the level educators ask of them. By using such language and adhering to such policies are schools simply creating a self-fulfilling prophecy?

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