(All) American Boys: I watched a student get pulled out of my classroom today by a group of police officers

 

I watched a student get pulled out of my classroom today by a group of police officers

Book tastings: easily my favorite days of the year, I love watching students find joy with books. I had over 20 different titles (at least 4 books each) spread around our classroom in neat piles. Students sit in beanbags, desk groups, or other assorted furniture. This was my fourth time doing this as I teach four sections of 10th grade Language Arts. 

The flow:

- I introduce each of the 20 books with a quick slide each, and a short elevator pitch for each novel

- Students have book tasting sheets that they complete as they rotate around to different groups tasting the different books that interested them from the pitches. They complete part of the sheet for each tasting, five in total.

- After recording their first, second, and third choice, they submit the form and I complete the process of sorting them into groups. 

Everything was going great as I scanned our classroom. I had good engagement and was halfway through the pitches, which was good because at this point in the day I was running a bit low on coffee. I was describing All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely. 

"It's a story about police brutality," I told the class. "This came out a few years after Trayvon's murder. In this book, a police officer brutally assaults a young black man, but there is a witness. The twist is that there is a witness - a white kid. He records the assault. The twist is that the officer he witnesses, he finds out, is his stepdad." 

I heard a gasp, but I now cannot be sure if it was to the talk I was giving or the five or so officers that were standing in the doorway of our classroom. 

"Is XXXXXX" here? Where is XXXXXXX?" The lead officer who had stepped across the threshold asked. 

I was dazed, not fully comprehending what was happening. So many thoughts went through my head.

The timing couldn't have been worse. Are the other students okay? Why does it take so many officers? Is he going to be okay? Will I ever see him again? What about all that hard work he'd been putting in lately?

Then he was gone, and I was sitting at the front of our classroom. The door was still open, and behind me on the projector screen was an image of this book, and the short blurb I had copy/pasted. 

There are so many times this year where everything seemed impossibly insane, moments where it would seem impossible for anyone to think that we should continue going forward as if nothing had happened. But that's what we do. We go on as if nothing had happened. We keep teaching as students are pulled from our classrooms by COVID, while insurrections happen, while families are affected by global conflicts, or much more locally by police officers in our buildings. We don't have a choice, right? 

I've been thinking about this feeling all day, this moment, this student. I am having a hard time resetting today as I sit here at my keyboard typing. I have to ask myself, how do we just keep going as if nothing had happened? When did it become normalized for police to come into classrooms and remove students? Because while this affected me, it had a much stronger effect on my students.

My classroom is full of people of color who have experienced brutality from the police. One student's older brother was murdered by police. One student has been arrested. One student reflected on how every time he walks into stores if there are police, he is followed. Much of this has come out in conversation in this year we've spent together. I should have made the connection sooner, but in my effort to keep the class going I didn't immediately connect the "why" behind three boys who were having a visibly off day.

At the back of the class, they refused to take part in our book tasting. They wouldn't move. I sat with them, trying to relate and motivate and demonstrate care - not punishment, shame, or frustration: care. But all the caring in the world didn't help me figure it out faster. 

My co-teacher would later say that at least I try to make connections. As teachers, we don't always seek to understand. It takes energy, and sometimes it can be hard to find that. It does get easier with practice, though.

I sat with them, trying to help, and one of the boys spoke up: "I have PTSD from cops or something..." his voice was almost a whisper. I nodded...and then it hit me. Ripples - when police are in our spaces of learning, there are ripples.

Do I create enough ripples to override the ones created by the police? Asked another way, do I do enough good in our classroom to make up for the fact that I am actively participating in a system that victimizes and harms students of color? 

Yes, I realize that many would say this harm is not intentional. The officers were just doing their job. The student shouldn't have done anything wrong. I get it. But those boys, and all the other students in the room who were moments before enjoying a moment of safety in that soft lamplight and on those beanbags, what about them? Do I do enough good here to make up for my student who was arrested?

These questions are heavy on me tonight, and I think about the American Boys: the ones we so easily dismiss as criminals, wrongdoers, lazy, uninterested, disengaged at best. The boys at the back of my class who were so deeply affected today - what if I didn't make the connections I did?

"You know I'm only poking at you because I care, right?" I asked the student who had shared about his trauma.

I saw a smile and a nod - it was genuine and slow, but the smile was the first one I had won all class. We had about five minutes until lunch, but it was important for both of us. I wanted to show him that it was important that I knew that he knew that I cared. Today, especially, it was important for me to know that he knew too.

Jayson Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

In 2018, All American Boys was attacked by police in South Carolina which was being taught in a high school English class. The police felt that the novel challenged the trust that youth should have for police officers. This challenge was fought against by the school's librarian.