Will I love Troublemakers: Lessons in Freedom from Young Children at School?

A teacher in Idaho recently made national headlines when she resisted her district’s order to take down a sign in her classroom that read, “Everyone belongs here.” In designating the sign a political statement that did not belong in the classroom, the district turned media and political debates into real-life implications for children and teachers in classrooms across the country.

Carla Shalaby’s book, Troublemakers, never shies away from the tensions of race, gender, class, and identity as she invites us to see schooling through the eyes of young children who have already been designated “troublemakers” for their behavior.

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This book completely flipped the way that I think about “bad kids” in a classroom. I am a highly obedient person, to my own detriment, and I remember very clearly being a rule-follower in school and never wanting to get in trouble and be labeled a “bad kid.”

Shalaby helped me work through all the engrained biases I have about kids labeled as troublemakers and see that it’s actually the educational expectations (sit down, be quiet) that we need to interrogate.