After reading chapter two of The Corner, I was horrified learning about the evolution of the drug trafficking, and how this system can corrupt and engulf a city. After reading the first couple pages, of the article, I considered the author to be extremely pessimistic view on the war on drugs, especially in Maryland, but it appears that “by raw demographics, the men and women of the corners can claim victory” and that economic power of this market is visible because there are “no slacking profit margins, no recessions, no bad quarterly reports, no layoffs, [and] no naturalized unemployment rate (Simon and Burns 58). What I thought was most interesting was the supreme power the drugs and the trade had as an economic tool. This lifestyle brings out the pleasure/pain simplistic aspect of life. Those who partook in using drugs in the early development stages of the corner developed a craving and a need for the dope. It is a excellent example of greed and once the lifestyle and ‘game’ of selling drugs came into play, it create a subculture in Baltimore that would be unrivaled.
When people have nothing and are nothing, they will do anything to get and become something. In many cities, the need and desire to become and see success was strong enough for many to join the drug trade. This does not mean that I am inferring that these people always have a fair choice and are not part of a vicious sociological cycle. Many believe people go into the drug trade because it can be profitable. I thought many do, especially after watching the AMC show “Breaking Bad”, but I also understand it to be the only visible option for many people who are not given opportunities. Simon and Burns make the case that the reason they decided to become drug dealers and users because they were looking for “a brief sense of self” (59). This correlates with the theme pushed from the HBO series, “The Wire.” If you are working a corner, it gives you purpose. It allows you to be part of a group and an organization. It gives you the mirage that you can be successful through this lifestyle. They are all living the “gangster dream” (59).
One could speculate why the drug trade has had such success in cities, but these authors attribute one of the reasons to the changing economy. The authors describe the changing economy: “the unresolved disaster of the American rust-belt, in the slow, seismic shift that is shutting down the assembly lines, devaluing physical labor, and undercutting the union pay scale” (59). This is not a bad thing. A growing economy eventually means a changing economy. The production side of economic cycle was becoming obsolete and the technology age arrived. The east coast of the United States could earn so much more money by focusing on financial, investment, and business growth. America is one of the heads for inventions and financial management. Companies that did not outsource their work to areas for cheaper labor, or invest in a self-sufficient production line, everyone would lose in the game of economics. When the economy changes, people need to learn to accept change and find a market where they can compete. If this means needing to get more education, then there needs to be a better system to bring in jobs to a changing area so that people can change careers effectively and not have to turn to a form of income that is illegal or morally incorrect by our standards. The authors bring this up again on page 68 stating, “As much as any working man, the drug-corner tout is a soul in desperate need of a union.” Inferring that a union equals a job is just wrong. It reinforces the over-payment of workers, and does not accept a free market economy.
One thing I found extremely interesting was the change in the drug trade over time. Heroin was the ‘hard drug’ and very few people actually used. In the early 1980s cocaine came and changed the trade as well as the usage. The sheer numbers of people using the drug was astronomical and it eventually led to Baltimore acquiring the ‘award of disgust’ in the mid 90s when it became, “the city with the highest rate of intravenous drug use in the country” (63). From these facts, it helps me see that Baltimore and other cities, much like DC, have drug issues to worry about. While we are teaching, it is important to consider the effects of drug trade in these communities that we teach.

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I started this chapter analyzing it like I would analyze any piece of new literature: marking up the text whenever a literary device came up or where there was a noteworthy quote and summarizing each page when I finished. It only took a few pages for me to forego the formal analysis and instead just see my kid’s faces with every new character introduced. It was eye opening in a terrifying, overwhelming kind of way.
That being said, there were a few quotes that resonated with me. Here are the quotes and the thoughts that accompanied them…
“ We want to think that it’s chemical, that it’s all about the addictive mind, when instead it has become about validation…” (p.58)
- Am I really a part of this “we”?
“ We’ve got to leave behind the useless baggage of a society and culture that still maintains the luxury of reasonable judgment. (p.60)
- I don’t know how to consider this to useless baggage/leave it behind in my classroom.
“No distraction, no precautions; the modern corner has no need for the applied knowledge of previous generations” (p.65)
- I can’t help but relate this to my kids and the modern education system, I wonder if I needed growing up is really what my students need. I grew up believing that school’s main goal is imbue students with the tools (i.e. social skills, study habits, professional etiquette) necessary to succeed in their future. Is me allowing them the promise of an alternate future by teaching them these skills enough? Are any of these skills applicable to their everyday lives?
“Even the lowest needle freak knows guilt at the instant he’s doing dirt, but knowing it changes nothing” (p.70)
- This was particularly interesting to me as I related it to my classroom, I can teach my students all of the literary devices/social skills/ professionalism in the world, but if they know it and don’t use it then it is useless. I don’t want to teach my students things that are useless. I can’t help but wonder if “Do nows” and completion homework are useless.
“ She’s young- thirteen last September- but she’s not young” (p.116)
Some of my girls are 13! This is crazy to me. It made it so real for me. I will go in on Monday and notice how every one of my girls move and wonder if/how I can help to not become the girl in the story. I can’t help but wonder if it’s even my place; am I somehow perpetuating this culture by thinking how I can help them to ‘not’ become this girl, instead of helping them become their own person?

I know this was a bit sporadic but it was difficult for me to put on paper what I was thinking. This article just reaffirmed the realization that I know nothing, and I am only just beginning to scratch the surface of the culture that my kids grow up in is slapping me in the face everyday. However, the prospect of learning it through the lives of my children is what gets me out of bed every morning.

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“It’s a powerful and enduring myth to the young men and women of West Baltimore, a self-imposed construct of the corner mind: They don’t want us out there. They don’t need us. Stray from the streets you know, you fall of the edge of the world.” The corner becomes a place of necessity, an addiction that makes young men and women quickly transform into old men and women that know no other place.

As I read this chapter I was inspired with W.M. McCollough’s story of making a life for himself. He started in a trying situation and he did not let the trials of being poor and losing his job stop him. It helped me to realize that the circumstances that one is placed in do not define their destiny. Conversely, I read about so many people that surrendered their futures to drugs. All of W.M.’s children had great role models in their parents yet some of them weren’t able to make it. They all had a nurturing environment that encouraged growth and education. Yet, Gary for example was set on a path of happiness and wealth but he slipped and instead let drugs take over his life.
This article was frustrating to me. I was upset because I saw that even in a nurturing environment; some people are not strong enough to withstand evil influences. I realize that everyone has the opportunity to make choices for themselves, but I wish the drug addicts would understand well before they started taking drugs that they actually lose their agency. It’s just heart breaking to me, especially because I don’t have a solution to the problem.

It’s my hope that most people when enveloped in a nurturing environment and afforded the opportunity to receive an education would continue on a path of making a difference in the world and fulfilling their dreams. I know this is very idealistic of me, but it’s something that I truly hope for with the boys that I work with in Anacostia. Some are in less than ideal living situations and often the rigidity of the school probably feels like they are at home living under their parents’ rules. I want be a pivotal person in the lives of the boys at my school that will encourage them to dig deep and strive for excellence.

In the end this article helped me to see the realities that children living in poor neighborhoods are faced with. However, I do not want to make generalizations or assumptions before I fully understand the neighborhood that I work in, so I intend to find out.

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According to dictionary.com, industrialization is “the overall change in circumstances accompanying a society’s movement population and resources from farm production to manufacturing production and associated services.” Industrialization (in my opinion) is generally regarded as somewhat positive, as something that indicates development and that push towards a successful society. But, what if we take a step back and think of industrialization in relation to the drug scene of Baltimore. Is the push of industrialization, the transition from 1950′s druglords to modern day corner fiends a positive change? Can anything related to drugs every be considered positive? Although the business model of the Baltimore drug corners mimics a sort of industrialization (small, personal, “farm” based business model to something mass produced and practically machinelike), I don’t believe that this transition has brought about any sort of positive impact. Though I don’t condone (on a personal level) the use or selling of any drugs, I have to admit that the business model of the 1950′s at least seemed somewhat civilized. But the current mass chaos version, which employs children and victimizes young single mothers is an example of bad industry.

Chapter two of “The Corner,” offers an enlightening view of reality in the North Ave area of Baltimore. Whether or not this reality is prevalent for all residents of this area, I’m not aware enough to say. But the truth is that the presence of drugs is a reality for not only the adults in many of the communities in which we teach, but due to the progression of the business model, kids are now involved as well. I wonder what this means for us as teachers?

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I thought that chapter 2 of The Corner was well written, poignant, moving, and for the most part, nonjudgmental. Mostly, I found it to be profoundly sad. I suppose it was relatively easy for me to find it so, seeing as I tended to agree with the authors’ main points concerning both political causes and implications. For example, I agree that simply increasing the number of police officers, jails, and number of people arrested will not solve the problem; that strategy fails to address the underlying issues, or the real “why” behind the problems facing our cities’ communities. Before reading this piece, however, I believed that providing more options for affordable inpatient drug treatment could make some sort of impact, but despite the authors’ assertion that “The corner is rooted in human desire” and “all the law enforcement in the world can’t mess with desire” (p. 57), this piece thoroughly convinced me that treatment centers are not even a partial solution. If it is indeed true that participation in the corner’s society is more about claiming an identity, a purpose, a sense of self, or a sense of worth than it is about addiction itself, than even someone who becomes “clean,” as Joe Laney did and Gary McCullough attempted, will return to the cycle immersing themselves in the same temptations, patterns, and relationships of their alleged “former” way of life.
Although the authors plead with the reader to set aside his or her biases or preconceptions about the subject, in many places their own biases surface without being acknowledged as such. For example, the authors argue, “we’ve got to leave behind the useless baggage of a society and culture that still maintains the luxury of reasonable judgments” (p.60). However, in context and particularly when framed as a religion and social compact, every judgment these individuals made seemed to be reasonable. Arguing otherwise undermines the authors overarching themes, and also makes the reader even more of an “other,” which I do not believe is beneficial when trying to solicit empathy and compassion. So, too, does the authors’ repeated reminiscing on the old days when “people weren’t afraid to talk to each other. Or to listen” (p. 81). I think it is a vast oversimplification to assume that these individuals have lost or lack the capacity to talk and listen to one another, even if while actually high or withdrawing communication and relationship building are not top priorities. Fat Curt clearly communicated with Blue and cared about their relationship, enough to attempt communication with the man disrespecting Blue’s house. The young boys obviously communicated and obviously felt a mutual bond. Although the face of the game might have changed so as to make certain former rules less relevant, such as the “no snitching” rule, I don’t think people should assume this was due to some decrease in involved parties’ humanity.
A more likely explanation arises when looking at the very factors that conspired to create the situation in the first place, because in many cases these are intensifying. For example, inequality as measured by the gap between the richest and poorest Americans in terms of wealth, education, and income are at historic highs. Additionally, there was a study published recently that found that Americans beliefs that they would one day become rich (by their own definitions) were at a historic high even while their chances of upward mobility are at historic lows and are much lower than their chances of downward mobility. The effect of this is to cause either political indifference or support of politicians who do not fight for one’s own interests as well as a lack of compassion for people less or even as fortunate as one’s self as people tend believe their economic situations are temporary. So, the gaps are larger and widening, empathy levels are falling nationwide, and upward mobility is unlikely, yet we expect those in the communities most lacking in resources to maintain or improve upon the status quo? To me, that makes little sense.
We need to address the root of the problems, seeds of which were planted decades ago and effects of which are salient today. The people of the 50’s and 60’s and of today are not the same. Cultures have evolved. Even when we remove those highest in command of the drug trade, little, if any, progress is made. It is not the individuals or communities or cultures that are the problem, and I think the futility of our efforts to date, as outlined in this chapter, prove that. These problems will persist until we address the mechanisms, both formal and informal, in our society that obscure equality of opportunity. Currently, that ideal exists only nominally.

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Corey Gaber

The American Dream isn’t for Everybody

About 5 months ago when my grandfather passed away I sat in the living room with my father flipping through old pictures of his family. The image that grabbed my attention and has since stuck in my memory was one of my grandfather and great grandfather standing in front of the grocery store they ran on Fayette Street. In the background was the Bromo Seltzer Tower, in clear view as Baltimore’s downtown area was not cluttered with tightly packed buildings as it is today. My great grandfather lived with his family above the grocery store they owned and I took pride knowing how deep my roots drove into the core of Baltimore City.

Fast forward to now, I’m reading the assigned chapter from The Corner and come across the lines on page 94, “The Jewish families were still working the corner stores, but none lived above the shops anymore. They drove down from Park Heights in the morning, worked the counter, then drove back with the day’s receipts.” I called my dad to see if this general phenomenon matched our own story. Indeed, my great grandfather moved the family up north and continued to commute to and from work each day. Dad was unsure what became of the grocery store over time.

My family’s story is a perfect match for the narrative of the American Dream. On both my mother’s and father’s side poor immigrants came over to America with nothing, worked tirelessly to make a living, and over time rose in wealth and prominence. Each successive generation occupied a higher rung on the social/economic ladder than the one before it. How could they not believe in the American Dream when their very lives exemplified it?! Coming from that experience it is easy to see why my mother’s father would talk about how black people in the city simply needed to pick themselves up by their bootstraps. We came from nothing and made it so why can’t they? The implied answer was cultural inferiority and a lack of work ethic and valuing of education.

Of course the entire comparison is a false one. While past generations of Jews did face various forms of discrimination the road to success was well paved for them. It was not for everybody. Consider the story of the McCullough family in The Corner. W.M. came with the ultimate work ethic and desire to do good, but he faced much greater limitations in terms of where he could live and what he could do in the city compared to the Gabers, “City politics, the police and fire departments, the patronage of civil service—all of it was lily white, just as strict housing patterns had limited the black belt to a handful of dense, crowded neighborhoods on the eastern and western edges of downtown” (Simon, p. 90). Whereas the Gabers got to enjoy the fruits of their labor, W.M. was cheated of his deserved compensation at American Standard, where he greatly improved the efficiency of the factory but “never got a dime for his ideas” (Simon, p. 92). Whereas the Jews had the freedom to move further north along Park heights, federally funded low-income housing was purposefully situated and utilized along racial lines, further crowding an already oppressive area (Simon, p. 93).
When families like my own fled, housing markets artificially inflated the prices of homes in neighborhoods with fleeing whites and so, “whites reap financial benefit from the fact that their neighborhoods are consistently worth more, but this resource payoff is deeply connected to a set of racial stereotypes” (Lewis, 2004, p. 631). Since our schools are funded by local tax dollars this white flight also robbed black areas in Baltimore of adequately resourced schools. So while my grandfather had the opportunity to attend Baltimore City College (“City”) W.M.’s later children could not depend on a quality public education. Nor could they depend on unskilled labor jobs the same way W.M. did when he first arrived, as “the industrial and manufacturing economy that had originally propelled the migration began to disappear.”

The tragedy of the McCullough family is that they did everything they were supposed to do in spite of the additional initial barriers they faced. They worked extremely hard, they started a family, they went to church, they imprinted successful values, and lived in a caring community. When certain external circumstances cooperated, like for their first few children, that was enough to achieve the American dream. But everything they had going for them was insufficient to overcome factors outside of their control. Their family is a perfect case study of controlling for certain variables, stabilizing what we claim one needs to make it, while shifting other variables that are supposed to be inconsequential in light of everything else. The results show that work ethic, desire, and even a solid family are not enough. Many black immigrants made it in Baltimore, but, “too many migrants and sons of migrants…had come too late to the city…had never caught hold of the union-scale wages that allowed one generation to climb out of poverty and carry the next on its back to the suburbs” (Simon, p. 97).

The question becomes, if all of those external factors are not aligned for Baltimore city’s urban children today, and in fact they face even steeper circumstances than W.M.’s late children, how do we as educators frame the purpose of school? Is it even responsible and honest to claim that their education is their vehicle towards the American Dream when their best efforts might be insufficient for reaching the carrot at the end of the road that will supposedly justify their efforts? To me, it seems important to confront the injustice head on, and use schools as a place to make sense of this fucked up reality, so that we can direct our efforts not towards taking part in a fundamentally unfair system, but towards transforming that system into something new and better.

Tangent: Dr. Lou suggests that we start by developing a question that will capture our students’ wonder, solicit their hypotheses, and then offer the wisdom of the ages to make sense of the specific reality under consideration. In that vein, I wonder if we might ask our students, “Why is it that all of the black people in Baltimore live together, and all of the white people live together? Why is the city segregated if people are allowed to live wherever they want?” This seems provocative and relevant to me, and the chapter provides us some historical context that can begin to help answer these questions.

Source mentioned besides The Corner:
1. Lewis, A. E. (2004). “What group?” Studying Whites and Whiteness in the era of “colorblindness.” Sociological Theory, 22(4), 623-646

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Reflection on The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets by Jane Addams

In past coursework, I’ve had the opportunity to study the historical emergence of the concepts of “childhood” and “adolescence,” and I think that the historical context Addams’ text adds to our class’s collective perception of adolescence is vital. It would in many ways feel unnatural to us if adolescents’ free time and recreation were now structured by public society the way Addams suggests, but we must remember that its present unstructured, un-provisioned form is not its natural state necessarily, but merely the result of society’s underdeveloped comprehension of adolescent minds and needs, filtered through and limited by the lens of capitalistic interest.

I vividly remember my frustration as an adolescent at the lack of options for “fun.” The many anecdotes Addams used to illustrate her points resonated as I recalled the escalation of my own frustration and boredom as a teenager. I recall being berated by police at thirteen years old for “loitering” in front of the theater where we had just paid to watch a movie as we waited for our parents to pick us up; being kicked out of the mall for “horseplay” when my friends and I tried to find something to do other than spend money, which just happened to be racing each other up the “down” escalator; and at fifteen watching a good friend be arrested for underage drinking in public as she crossed the street from one alley hideaway to another with a beer in her hand. We had been summarily evicted from public and private spaces everywhere, and felt we had nowhere else to go—and once you are spending time in alleys, there is little to stimulate your mind or attention besides alcohol and other trouble. I remember honestly wishing there were a space for us to “just hang out” without strict regulation and overzealous, suffocating supervision. I imagined a place where we could be trusted to enjoy ourselves without adults listening in to conversations, telling us what to do, and keeping watch for “deviant” behavior.

For all these reasons and more I agree with Addams that youthful energy and time could and should be provided for and structured. However, I still have a dim idea of what that might look like (the image of Ella Thompson’s sock-hop in The Corner passes through my mind). I agree that youth’s strong sense of justice and idealism can and should be directed and cultivated to empower them with a powerful presence in the world, and I think that can begin in schools (and hopefully my classroom) but I cannot really conceive of an institutionalized channel for their energy towards change. It does not profit the powers that be to encourage that kind of thinking, and without some kind of institutionalization I am not sure how we move forward besides the few and scattered grassroots community efforts that already exist.

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Reflection on The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets by Jane Addams
While reading this book, I did my best to keep the reading from The Corner in the back of my mind and try and see where the connections between these two very different texts might be made. I did not realize how difficult this task might prove until I started reading; from literary style to contextual references, these texts are extremely different. However, in chapter four of the Addams text, “The House of Dreams,” I really saw some striking similarities between this book and the second chapter of The Corner.
This chapter mostly deals with the role of the theater in the life of city children. Addams writes that the city children go to the theater to “search for solace and distraction in those moments of first awakening from the glamour of a youth’s interpretation of life to the sterner realities which are thrust upon his consciousness” (76). According to Addams, then, the theater was a way for city children to escape from the harsh realities of the world around them to a place that more closely matched up with what they thought the world ought to be like. This seems to be to be at least tangentially related to the allure of the drug world, which was sought by men, women, and children as a place of escape from their seemingly meaningless lives to a place where they mattered and were involved in something greater than themselves. For Addams, it was the theater, and for The Corner it was drug dealing, that brought meaning into the lives of the city dwellers.
Something that I also found to be rather interesting and definite food for thought (especially while still keeping The Corner in mind) was Addam’s discussion of how children’s love of the movie theater could be harnessed and redirected into participation in plays. I thought this was a really great idea and really speaks to something we have talked a lot about in our classes – how to relate education to our children’s interests. It got me thinking if there was some way to redirect the people involved in life on the corner’s need for validation and involvement to some other pursuit. I really don’t have a lot of great ideas (read: ANY great ideas) about what that might be, but at the very least I was intrigued by Addam’s discussion of how invested these kids got in putting on the performances, to the point where they became more invested in their own theater than the “house of dreams” they had previously been so wrapped up in.

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“Cocaine changed the world (p. 62)”.
When reading chapter two of The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood, I was reminded of one of the roots causes of the stigmas that have placed a dark covering over inner-city, urban areas across the country. This firsthand fieldwork perspective provided by the authors, David Simon and Edward Burns provided yet another opportunity for me to relive my own childhood and reflect on how cocaine changed my own family, first, for the worst, but then for the better. As cliché as it may sound, I would not be the man that I am today had it not been for those experiences. These experiences are filled with vivid memories of how crack cocaine destroyed my parents’ marriage, plagued my household with financial woes, domestic violence, and caused both my father and my oldest brother to become subjects (now statistics) in the drug/prison cycle, such as those described in the pages of this chapter. It is these memories, which were brought to the forefront of my brain via difficult thoughts as I read this chapter that I have learned to cope with over the years of my upbringing.
My life’s work has been informed by the epidemics that plagued families such as the McCullough family from this story, as I feel it one of my civic responsibilities to work to stop this cycle and the effects of the epidemics such as the crack cocaine phenomenon by simply being a success story myself. The numerous references that Simon and Burns make to welfare mothers succumbing to this addictive substance that plagues corners in neighborhoods such as that of Monroe and Fayette in West Baltimore, MD, are why I am ever thankful that I still had one parent, my mother, who was strong and, perhaps even lucky, enough to not fall victim to the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s because I do not know if the remainder of my siblings (brothers) and I would have faired as we did to become college-educated young men and not the frequent African American male who continues the lists of inner city violence, drugs and/or gang activity, prison cell mates, and death tolls.
I don’t know why Dr. Lou chose chapter 2 to introduce us to this writing, however, I have ordered the entire book to continue my erudition into what is to come from The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood.

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“In order to secure relief in a community dominated by industrial ideals, an appeal must be made to the old spiritual sanctions for human conduct, that we must reach motives more substantial and enduring than the mere fleeting experiences of one phase of modern industry which vainly imagines that its growth would be curtailed if the welfare of its employees were guarded by the state.”

The rallying purpose offered to most American Youth for justification of their schooling lacks due inspiration, to say the least. We tell most children that they need to go to school:

“To get a job.“

What kind of horrendously depressing purpose does that offer?

The image of getting a job elicits in most of our minds thoughts of the experiences of those around us. For most of us, those around us hate their jobs. They seek the solace of weekends, and vacations, and days off. Most people see no usefulness within their jobs aside from making enough money to buy things they don’t really need.

Who can blame kids for wanting a better deal than that?

And yet there is a higher purpose we can offer.

The simple reality, the sine qua non, is that the world needs each and every student. We need each student to be as skilled as possible, as capable as possible, as knowledgeable as possible. Because there is suffering in this world that such skill can help. Quite simply, we need each student to save the world.

How rarely we tell the truth to our students!

“We need you to learn mathematics so that we can figure out how to feed people on a large scale. We need you to learn science so that we can help improve hygienic practices so we can eradicate diseases. We need you to learn language so that you can communicate peace to every person you meet.”

Why don’t we say such things to children? Why don’t we teach from this vantage? Why don’t we pronounce to children each and every day their importance, their vital necessity in this story of humankind? How come we don’t say how absolutely essential their learning is, how necessary it is that they learn and act to make this world a better place? That peace begins with them, and that education is their tool for creating peace? What would happen if we told this to our students every day?

“In moments of moral crisis they turn to the sayings of the hero who found himself in a similar plight.”

These are the images of heroes we need to offer to our students: people who dedicated themselves to lives of peace, to lives of service. Martin Luther King, Peace Pilgrim, Helen Keller, Ghandi. They need to read those stories.

They need to hear that they are capable of such heroism themselves.

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In Jane Addam’s The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets (1909), she describes a situation in cities not unlike that described in The Corner. Many of the temptations, patterns, and human motivations and inclinations are the same in both works. Addams describes the problem as unique to the “modern city,” and the problems within mirror the problems in the inner cities of today. Addams notes that cities have large concentrations of young people, many temptations and opportunities to get involved with illicit but exciting acts, stern realities of industrial work and a monotonous and sometimes seemingly predetermined life, and an overall failure of society to institutionalize play, to develop the mind and imagination, or to provide opportunities for recreation and an outlet for the needs of the young. In such an environment, many turn to a “feverish search for pleasure” (p. 14) or a “blundering effort to find adventure and to the impulse for self-expression.”
Like the authors of The Corner, Addams sees causes in many phenomena, people, and institutions. She places the blame on the age and the individual: the young are overburdened with big dreams, desire for beauty, and the search for immediate excitement. She blames communities that provide no outlet for the above inclinations of youth. She sees families that are to strict or too lenient as contributing to the problem, and notes that parents should develop “companionship” with their children while educating them on the dangers inherent in cities, as parents of the “Old World” did with their children in terms of physical dangers of the terrain. She blames communities that fail to provide institutions to help channel children’s imagination and need for camaraderie and recreation into meaningful, fulfilling experiences. And just like in The Corner, the patterns seem the same.
Older addicts give free samples to tempt the young. Girls searching for morality or legitimate meaning from families and relationships fall prey to young men and the “vice” of desire. Young boys form “gangs” and cannot be rehabilitated until sent out of the city apart from old friends. Cocaine, in particular, takes a strong hold over the young. Once patterns of criminality are established, they are particularly hard to break, particularly when a criminal record follows them around. The most compelling commonality, I think, are all authors observations that these people are simply craving a “life higher than that which the actual world offers them” (p. 77), to use Addams’ words. She notes that young who are expected to provide for their families early on are particularly vulnerable, as they are confronted even earlier with the reality that life is not as glamorous as their youthful interpretations, and that an industrial life that is very monotonous, in which they are interchangeable, and to which they were often pushed into without much choice only compounds this disconnect. Succinctly, in both books the “very demand for excitement is a protest against the dullness of life, to which we ourselves instinctively respond” (p. 71).
All of these patterns and ailments are over a century old, but still evident through the present, as made obvious not only by The Corner, but also by my everyday experience as a member of society. Poignantly, Addams writes, “We cannot afford to be ungenerous to the city in which we live without suffering the penalty” (p. 14), and I think our cities’ current states are further proof of this statement. For Addams, the answers can be found in community action, and she specifically mentions educators’ responsibilities to act a number of times. For her, the answers can be found in community action, and she specifically mentions educators’ responsibilities to act a number of times. She mentions the need young people have for art and for recreation, and the serious lacking society provides for these things. She sees many manifestations of this lacking, ranging from young people’s lust to their love of cinematic stories to the camaraderie felt at baseball games to their attendance at dances and bars. If given the opportunity to develop an outlet for artistic expression and for organized play and recreation, children might develop the skill of imagining, or exercising their mind, of being part of a team, and of finding excitement that leads to something lasting in sport or in art that is only fleeting in more fleeting pleasures. One of the reasons I chose the Roots and Branches School is because their vision is very much in line with these ideals. Art, dance, drama, yoga, music, storytelling, and journaling are incorporated into the day. A responsive classroom model ensures that learning is child-directed, and the school sets out to create a community of learners rather than a top-down, deferent environment. While this goal has not quite been reached, it is important that the steps are in place. Hopefully, as education progresses, Addams ideas will finally be addressed. She writes that the “most precious moment in human development is the young creature’s assertion that he’s unlike any other human being and has an individual contribution to the world” (p. but that the modern city wastes that moment. I hope that at Roots and Branches and at Baltimore city, we can begin to do the opposite by embracing that moment and utilizing it to our children’s advantages.
At Urban Teacher Center we are taught that much of our job is to each children how to think and how to learn over simple facts. I think these books, together, provide a case for why it is essential to educate the whole person, and to nurture the mind rather than to just fill it with facts. As Addams writes, “children, from their earliest years, are hedged in with facts; they are not trained to use their minds on the unseen” (p. 29). Boxing kids in to an educational system in a world where they’re already boxed in by economic constraints and societal realities cannot serve to liberate them. We need to train them to see options, to use their imaginations productively, to be reflexive and reflective, and to thoughtfully navigate the treacherous world that confronts them.

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“We may either smother the divine fire in youth or we may feed it”, Jane Addams.
Reading Addams “The spirit of youth and the city streets”, I couldn’t help but think of “The Corner” we read just a few weeks ago. Jane Addams described the Victorian times of the city life; where the “The Corner” presents us with the picture of the todays urban life style. One can think that there is a century lying between the two but I see a very direct parallel between them. Adolescents were, are and will be always going through the same biological and social development no matter what decade we live in.
Adolescence is the most crucial time in our social development. I remember the difficult years of my adolescence. The most important thing on my list was “What can I do to be cool? To be noticed?”
I grew up in a different country (Russia) but experienced the same discontent of youth in Saint-Petersburg as teenagers experience in Baltimore. There were no opportunities for recreation. I was a very active kid and always wanted to be “involved” as well as “popular.”
Teenagers are the most influenced individuals, whether it is music, movies, magazines or a local cool guy, they want to imitate them.
When I was a teenager in the 90’s I thought it was cool to drink and smoke. Now as a grownup, which luckily didn’t get addicted to any of those teenage habits, I wonder: “Why did I ever think THAT was cool?” This reading really opened my eyes and made me think outside of the box. My question “why” was answered. I simply wanted to stand out, to act like a popular singer or a well-known actor, who was smoking a cigarette in the movie that just came out. Teenagers imitate what they see and think is cool.
Therefore, as educators, it is our responsibility to create a healthy environment promoting good behavior of our students-teenagers. We should show our students positive “cool” movies; introduce them to a “better” music and songs with meanings, promoting proper English.
Today’s society allows to air rappers singing about rape and drugs, magazines, picturing movie stars wasted or drugged up, so it becomes almost impossible to redirect teenagers attention. However, if we, the teachers, will create more after class clubs like Glee, theatre, etc., students will have a space where they can act out and get it all out of their system; as well as keeping them out of the street’s corner.

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Even though The Corner and The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets are written with 100 years between them there are similarities among them with their focus on urban youth. They both point out young people being taken advantage because of their innocence by “men and women who deliberately use the legitimate pleasure-seeking of young people as lures into vice”. They both talk about the trends of youth turning to guns, gangs, and cocaine.
And both these stories are relatable to today’s urban youth specifically in Baltimore. There is this idea that “the young people are overborne by their own undirected and misguided energies.” I heard statements like this many times during my summer of professional development for my host school. I am at Friendship Academy at Cherry Hill which until this year was known as Cherry Hill Elementry/Middle School, but because of its poor results in AYP they have been taken over as a turn around school by Friendship Charter Group to bring them up to par. And with this shift there is a new emphasis on the strong need for structure in these students’ lives.
I agree with this statement but I also believe there is such a thing as an extreme version of structure which can actually limit a person’s growth. At Cherry Hill, especially since it is the beginning of the school year and this is the first time we are implementing so many new rules to provide this structure, it appears almost too militant. The administration is requiring complete silence from all students in the halls. They should all be walking in lines with closed mouths, hands by their sides, eyes forward, bodies still. I am in a Kindergarten class and in my literacy class we have learned of the importance of de-contextualized talk especially for young students, but with all these rules we are not allowing the students the opportunity for these conversations. We are expecting Kindergarteners to be silent unless spoken to. Isn’t that just enforcing what they are learning at home and is counterproductive to allowing them to develop their skills of expressing themselves and their ideas?
As teachers it is our responsibility to meet the needs of all our students. We must meet them where they are and build them up focusing on the goals they want and we want them to achieve not focus on the things they are doing wrong. What does that make of us if we go around blaming children for their problems and their difficulties, when they are a result of their world around them? We should be helping them not criticizing them. “This class of offenses is traceable to a dense ignorance on the part of the average citizen as to the requirements of youth, and to a persistent blindness on the part of educators as to youth’s most obvious needs.”

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Young people and the elements of society that leech onto them, or should I sat the things that they take pleasure in, is the first theme that became fixed into my brain while reading this manuscript. Why? Because over a century after Jane Addams’s writing, this phenomenon has persisted in existence, and one prime example of it includes the gangs, violence and drugs epidemics taking place in inner cities all across the country. So while The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets and The Corner were published nearly a century apart, the wheel has not been reinvented with regards to the battles that urban youth and youth in general have to fight day and night in the present-day and the ones that plagued them 100 years ago.
The sad part in all of this, I feel, is that societal structures that should serve as alternatives or outlets in positively guiding youth to overcome these battles, are themselves fighting against these same systems. One example that I feel compelled to use in order to highlight this point is that of the public school system and what is seen as “the” appropriate way about which to educate these youth, the city youth. However, the flaws in form of the achievement gaps, drop-out rate increases, institutionalized racism, the disconnect in the teacher-student relationship, and the list goes on, are the evidence that something is wrong and that something has been wrong here—maybe since the Victorian era of Jane Addams’s life.

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In “Ethical Principals Underlying Education,” the author basically argues that schools are inherently social institutions whereby social constructions are reproduced, and as such, they must recognize their goal and role as an inherently moral and ethical one explicitly. The author then goes on to argue that ethical aims are both social and psychological, and to be ethical a school must train its students for both. By this he means that all subjects, from geometry to history, exist because and in service to social relationships. Certain subjects, such as math, exist so that we may have the tools to effectively participate in society, but in order for children to be able to utilize them properly and to be motivated to learn them well, their importance in society must be explicitly taught and skills should be used in contexts which have use in the real world, over and above learning them for sheerly educational purposes or ends. Overall, it seems to me that the authors of the charter of my school, The Roots and Branches School, must have read and internalized this or a very similar work. The charter, in some places, uses almost identical language to that of the author. Particularly strong connections came to mind when reading portions of the text that emphasized the importance of students constructing and doing, of using their knowledge and contributing to a practical ends and purpose with others, each of whom has a role and purpose in the product. The authenticity of learning, then, is stressed, as is the intrinsic and practical use of knowledge insofar as it informs judgements and drives to action. RBS stresses the importance of project-based learning in which children collaborate with one another to produce products that integrate all subjects about which they learn and which have real value, such as using scientific, mathematical, geographical, and aesthetic principles to create a garden. The school consistently frames itself as a community, both at the classroom, “grove” or cluster of classrooms, and school-wide level. The teacher and student are seen as partners in learning, teaching one another in a two-way interaction in which the child’s input is essential. Instruction is supposed to be child-centered and driven, to use the language of the charter. In accordance with the author’s assertion that “any conditions which compel the teacher to take note of failures rather than of healthy growth put the emphasis in the wrong place and result in distortion and perversion,” the RBS charter requires all behavioral suggestions be framed in the positive, and the only time that could be considered punishment, a “rest and return” time, is left to the child’s discretion of whether he needs it and how long he needs it for. The aim of all instruction and action is ultimately to empower the child to see that he is accountable for his actions and for his work. Although the charter continually cites the psychological reasons for framing the charter, which mirror the author’s psychological reasoning in this piece, much inexplicit attention is given to the social aspects of schooling. Therefore, in theory the school is ethical, assuming we accept this authors conception of an ethical school as valid. It is so new, however, that I am worried this philosophical foundation may not be completely transferred to practical application without losing some of its value. For example, in our staff meeting today, there was discussion around the “issue” that the “population” of students that attend our school do not “fit” with the “vision” of the school population the charter’s author had in mind. I suppose this is to say, at best, that they are more poor, or are culturally different in that these students are not white. Most white parents from more affluent areas of Baltimore have indeed pulled their children out, and many did as soon as they heard the news the school would be in West Baltimore as opposed to Hampden, as originally intended. Thus, the school seems to be rethinking how they can “stay true to the charter while changing discipline to fit the population.” This is unfair to the community at large, but more severely to our school community. It is deeply disrespectful to the students who we claim to value and to the parents whose input we nominally seek. Although this injustice and prejudice is somewhat off subject, my point is that I hope the administration can learn to see the universality of the ethical principles of education and apply them uniformly and blindly. It would be a shame to lose the strong philosophical and ethical issues of our charter due to lack of communication, a failure to appreciate, recognize, and incorporate cultural differences, and an apparent fear of loss of some sort of power or control of a student body that, like any community, deserves to have agency and voice, a say in their own education. Putting their charter into practice is a challenge facing RBS, and blaming failure to do so fully and faithfully on our school’s population would be to pass the buck unduly and unreasonably. To fail would be a failure within the school’s teachers and administration, and as a part of the school I can only work to remind the greater staff of that fact and of our ethical responsibility to our students to recognize it.

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In the “Ethical Principles” the author states, “The much and commonly lamented separation in the schools between intellectual and growth of character, is simply one expression of the failure to conceive and construct the school as a social institution, having social life and value within itself.” He talks about education as an institution that is separate from society which does not allow for its students to be prepared for their societal duties because their school duties are so specific to school rather than society. Students must be allowed a way to interact socially while in schools so they can learn how to act socially in real life outside of the classroom. Demanding students to be silent and work in isolation all the time is not reflective of society where they are required to interact with others in many situations. Also the student must be able to develop their thoughts and logic, to be able to express themselves as individuals because “it is an absolute impossibility to educate the child for any fixed station in life” because everyone’s roles will be varied in society and they need to develop this higher level of thinking in order to manage whatever roles they may take on in society. The way to allow this higher level of thinking and social interactions in school is to implement group work and allow flexibility and diversity in answers rather than the monotonous study period followed by the regurgitating period in which they are all judged by their ability to come up with the same expected answers. These students should be taught and encouraged to produce rather than “absorption and mere learning”. Also there should be a focus on the positive growth rather than the failures.

With all this being said when I measure these ideals to what Cherry Hill asks of their teachers I believe they are aligned with these ideals. They promote classrooms that elicit student discourse and are student driven rather than teacher lectures. Classrooms are designed with grouping of students rather than isolated rows of individual desks. Also there is a focus on positive narration and reinforcement rather than focusing on the negative or just discipline. There is a system in place in which the student must receive a warning for their behavior, if it persists then they are moved to yellow, if it still persists then they move to red and are required to reflect on their behaviors and apologize or right their actions. This system is a way to allowing the students chances to correct their negative behavior rather than just being reprimanded for them. Also teachers are expected to use positive narration but I do here a lot of focus on bad behaviors so there has been a diversion to the old ways that as the author had explained are not the most effective way to shape a positive person for society.

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Adolescents are disenfranchised citizens, sexualized by the media and demonized by a society that values them only for their spending power (which suggests that poor youth are doubly disenfranchised). They are blamed for violence, gangs, drug use, crime—etc, etc. They are marginalized by the aspects of our society that have retained any substance for being “too young,” and actively seduced by vacant-eyed materialism billing itself, quite convincingly, as the culture of cool.

John Dewey, David Simon, and Jane Addams are all concerned, essentially, with the same central dilemma: developing youth interest in a culture of substance. Schools are often the only current representatives of substance in students’ lives, but for the most part schools address only teacher-defined priorities and rarely approach substantive issues in the students’ experience.

How do we reconcile youth culture with “giving a shit”? How do we explain that they don’t have to read because I want them to, but so that they learn to want to? How do we explain that the work is not for the grade, that high school is not for college is not for a “better shot” at a shitty low-paying entrance-level job? That it is the means and not the end?

I have to teach students how to make inferences in texts, for a lot of reasons not last of which is so that they will receive acceptable scores on the DC-CAS. I’m going to do it by talking about racism and sexism, because “Miss Cunningham, so-and-so said blah blah blah…is that racist?” is their favorite question to delay the start of silent reading. I’m going to have them look at Disney cartoon clips, magazine ads, TV shows, and textbooks to practice picking up clues and piecing together inferences about the author/character/narrator/society’s values and biases.

I think it will catch their attention. I hope it will capture their interest and help us begin some more truly substantive conversations about why being an adolescent feels so terrible sometimes, and what they can do about it. But I am afraid that I don’t have the skills, practice, and support to turn the idea (any idea) into a series of focused lessons delivered so that they actually reach my students. I guess this is a normal fear for a first-year pseudo-teacher, but it can be debilitating to measure my current attempts against the things I thought I could do, or hoped I could do.

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The three readings, while different in style, intended audience, purpose, and seemingly in message left me with a clear take-away. The first, which was the excerpt from The Corner, left me feeling somewhat powerless to end the cycle of poverty in which so many city communities are ensnared. The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets and the Dewey piece on ethics and education both left me feeling as though even if I do not send every student on his way to becoming a millionaire, I can still provide a holistic education that allows them to not only navigate life but to access and enjoy literature, the arts, puzzles, and current events. I can provide them with tools and a context to appreciate, understand, and recognize the importance of science and history in everyday life and social relations, a mechanism for understanding the world around them in terms of current events, relationships, and politics. In short, I may not be able to single-handedly uplift entire communities, but I can empower the children that I teach by positioning them to lead fuller, richer lives no matter what community of which they are parts. I do not believe it is my place, anyway, to place values on specific communities. While I do want to expose my children to a lot, capitalize on their talents and interests, and provide them with creative and satisfying outlets for their thoughts, feelings, and ideas, I do not want to force upon them opinions, beliefs, or points of view of my own or of any other person or group of people. I only want to equip them with the tools they need for expression, articulation, understanding, and insight so that they can see themselves, others, the world, and the relationships among all three more clearly. In this way, I can empower my children.

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English classes in middle and high school seem to be lucky, in that they have the luxury of recognizing talk as a necessity for understanding their particular content area. Though I’m sure not all classrooms have equal time spent on discussion, the traditions of book groups, literature circles, etc, means that talk is at least represented in the curriculum. There is time set aside—or at least, there is meant to be time set aside. There’s still a lot of “stuff” that gets in the way, cluttering up our time with graphic organizers and literary terms and another set of acronyms for how to write a paragraph (RACE) or support an argument (EVEN) or show the teacher you’re paying attention (STAR). How ironic!
I’ve been lucky to join five different English teachers in their classrooms this week, with fifth through eighth grade classes. It has been wonderful to see the variety of approaches the teachers use—and the variety of responses from students. The same prompt given in two different eighth grade classrooms by the same teacher blossomed into a productive, engaging discussion in one class and fell on its face in another.
I had the pleasure of three fifth-grade classes all to myself with no lesson plan today, because the teacher I was meant to be joining for class no-showed. But I’m not being sarcastic; it was a pleasure, especially because of the students’ enthusiasm for talk. We talked our way through the review of a drab common-vs.-proper-noun worksheet they had done for homework, and every child was excited to share their examples of movie or song names and try to get a laugh out of the class. We went around the room and each child volunteered a “thing” for the class to vote on whether it was a common or proper noun—each one getting more and more imaginative. Instead of the dreaded “popcorn reading,” I read a chapter of their book aloud to them, stopping whenever they gave me a thumbs-up to signal there was a word or idea we should talk about. It wasn’t earth-shattering conversation, but we had some lively talk going about what a character might be feeling when their teeth are gritted, when they are sitting primly, or when they are picking at their skirt. Reading is a silent, independent activity most of the time, and they were really excited to share their thinking and pool their knowledge. Why should book discussions always happen after reading, when we are trying to teach students about how much thinking happens while we read?
Talking with these fifth graders reminded me that my sullen, defiantly off-task ninth graders have all that enthusiasm inside them somewhere. They only recently learned how to hide it, after years of teachers telling them “This is a silent activity.” I’m grateful to the little ones for reawakening my determination to get a real conversation going with the ninth graders—thanks to them I’m actually excited for school tomorrow.

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My ideal classroom would be one that is more so filled with open discussions with the usage of the Socratic Method. There would not be any tedious papers or tests unless they truly serve the purpose of evaluating student learning. Students are held accountable for their learning simply because they personally want to master what they are learning. We would be learning subjects that are connected to the current world and the students’ lives. Instead of being told to stay focused on the topic at hand, students are encouraged to explore their wandering thoughts and delve into their curiosities. This can help students see that everything in the world is connected. Critical thinking and effective communication skills are the tools that I would emphasize. Every day, students would engage in some sort of debate to challenge their views about society and its function. Indeed, learning of the core subjects would still take place but only after students see the value of that knowledge. Because there are no standardized testing timeline, we are free to spend as much time as possible on a subject matter. The ultimate goal is for students to take ownership of their learning and to work collaboratively together to enhance their critical thinking of the world.

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When I envision what I want for my first-grade students, I see them growing up to be confident, happy and thoughtful human beings with the skills they need to live the lives they want. They are already bursting with energy and putting fierce dedication into work that engages them. Compared with children from more privileged neighbors who are given many opportunities for learning outside of school, our students not only lack these opportunities for enrichment but they are also are disadvantaged because of the color of their skin and their parents’ lack of resources. In many ways the trajectory of their lives depends on the education we are offering them. When we know that one in six children who are not reading proficiently in third grade does not graduate from high school on time and that high school dropouts are more likely to be unemployed or imprisoned, it is difficult not to panic at the thought that while every bit of progress they make on reading increases their chances for a better life, any essential learning they miss out on puts their life at risk.
And so, as dedicated teachers, what are we to do with the three hours of instructional time we have set aside to teach our students essential skills? In my first grade classroom, we spend two hours of our literacy block on reading and writing. The students are learning lifelong skills and strategies to become better readers and writers, and many are making rapid progress. They also spend an hour on math work each day, gaining confidence and familiarity with numbers as they play games together. In many ways they are exceeding the school’s expectations, and the instructional coaches are eager to “move” them even further and faster along the curriculum.
But, as we rush our students to learn more, faster, the development of curiosity, creativity and empathy that make children good learners and doers falls to the wayside. As educator and creativity expert Ken Robinson points out, “We are neglecting all kinds of talents because we only value academic strengths. What happens to the children with incredible potential as dancers or painters whose skills are not valued and who are pushed into ‘academic’ tracks they are not good at?” He goes on to explain that “Creativity now is as important as literacy”.

Given the dismal life prospects for many of our inner-city children, who overall receive poorer quality schooling and are disadvantaged because of their racial, cultural and socioeconomic background, it seems that our major role should be to help them achieve academically at the highest levels possible, aiming for above grade-level performance, if only to give them a fighting chance in our increasingly uncertain and competitive world. If we want them to perform at high levels, we must focus on literacy and math more intensively. This is in contrast with more privileged children who come to school prepared to learn and equipped with higher vocabulary and whose schools may try to foster multiple intelligences and engage them in all kinds of creative endeavors. It seems that this is not option for our disadvantaged children, who start school less prepared, unless we lengthen their school day. And so we feel we must make difficult choices and prioritize only that which is most important for their future success, neglecting those “extra” enrichment activities. It would seem that we cannot afford to take the time to teach our inner city children to develop multiple intelligences, if we want them to get high reading scores that will translate into high SAT scores that will get them accepted to college.

Could this be a false choice, though? Do we really have to choose between intensive instruction and creativity? Must creativity fall to the wayside if we are to teach lifelong reading and writing skills effectively with the time we are given? If not, the question then becomes: what is creativity and how could we teach it? Can it be integrated into the curriculum or is it a way of teaching and learning? “All children are born artists,” said Picasso, and “we are educating people out of their creative capacities,” adds Ken Robinson. The key is then to design environments that foster creative thinking and learning, where mistakes are normal and tolerated, where play is seen as an opportunity to come up with original ideas or model novel ways of doing things, and where children have opportunities to ask meaningful questions and learn to brainstorm. A few steps in that direction may open up wide avenues for children to explore new ideas and follow new thoughts, especially those whose strengths lie elsewhere than in sitting down and writing. In a world where innovation and creativity are increasingly important ways to adapt to an ever-changing society, it may be that our inner-city kids need that outside-the-box thinking more than other kids! And as the world grows in complexity and challenge, we may find that we need to teach more creative thinking and less sitting and absorbing.

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At the crux of this article, Clarissa Hayward delineates two distinct definitions of “responsibility” used in schools. For one, responsibility means that you will be held accountable for the consequences of your actions by an outside authority. For the other, being responsible means to be in charge of something, to be self-sufficient in the process as well as the product, to claim something with pride. In other words, “Responsible character and conduct are defined not as willing obedience and the ability to fulfill the expectations of others, so much as self-motivation and self-direction in the absence of direct supervision,” (337).

Hayward illuminates the many ways in which this distinction plays out in interpersonal interactions, staff and student attitudes, and school culture. She discusses “the Environment” and the aspects of urban life that seem to afflict teachers and staff with a defeatist attitude. She began to draw the connection between pedagogical practices and the political implications of “the Environment,” but I’m not sure I felt the full thrust of her argument.

For me, this conversation has to happen in terms of standing before a roomful of children, deciding which definition of responsibility is relevant for them, and for my relationship with them. In my eyes, that boils it down to a question of trust and fear. Am I afraid of my students, or of what they could accomplish? Do I trust them with powers of self-direction? Do I prefer that my students go through life believing that “being good” and following directions will bring them success in life? What are my personal survival skills—and what, then, do I believe my students’ survival skills should be? Whether I believe in education for social justice or education for a decent job and stable future, self-direction, self-motivation, and critical thinking are crucial survival skills in this day and age for any human being.

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