Current Issues – njcssjournal

Health Care Off the Books: Poverty, Illness, and Strategies for Survival in Urban America

Health Care Off the Books: Poverty, Illness, and Strategies for Survival in Urban America, by Danielle T. Raudenbush, (Oakland: University of California Press).

Review by Thomas Hansen

Teachers of social studies—and all teachers interested in social justice—can make good use of this text as either a good reference for their personal library or a good research source for students in secondary school courses to read and consult. There is a great deal of good information here about healthcare and healthcare policies in the US. The book is written in accessible language and does not appear to have any offensive passages.

Danielle T. Raudenbush explains the ways in which poor urban dwellers in a project navigate the challenging world of health care, some with insurance, some without. Raudenbush shows us there are three different levels of approaches to getting the needed pills, bandages, and even medical equipment whether patients follow the formal approach to getting their healthcare—or not.

The author makes it clear there is a consistent and reliable informal network of helpers for poor persons to get pretty much whatever they need on the streets. Raudenbush acknowledges this particular qualitative study, done over time, focuses very much on healthcare issues and does not address food, money, rides, or other items very much.

The author shows us there are those three different approaches, first formal: going to doctor appointments, buying medication and/or using insurance to do so, and then taking all of the medication/following all the doctor’s orders, and convalescing as directed. There is also informal—and this is the one that seems to be of most interest to the author.

A second approach is “informal” and it involves using local resources and persons in the process of purchasing or trading for the pills, bartering for the pills, lending other needed medical supplies and goods, or purchasing these items from a helper in the project. It is very interesting how the author is able to get so much information, and she has established very good rapport, it seems, with the residents of the project. Like her subjects in the study, the author is African-American, and this connection helps her to get the trust of the people she interviews. She also conducts focus groups with the residents.

A third approach—she calls it the “hybrid” one, shows local and formal together. The author reveals how much the residents of the project bend rules, make important connections, share resources, and make use of the people who serve as “helpers” in that community. Doctors and other medical personnel are also involved in the hybrid approach in various ways—and in the informal approach too.

Helpers provide the backbone for the poor to get access to so many services, and to food, and to medication, and even to walkers and wheelchairs. Often heard among the homeless, also, are these kinds of questions:

Who is giving away winter coats?
Who has free dinner tonight?
Is there any place with decent sack lunches by my spot where I stay now?
Where can I get some gloves and underwear on a Sunday?
How do I find that lady who has the phone chargers for sale?

In addition to these questions, helpers often have to deal with others—such as ones dealing with social security application rules, where to get free aspirin, how to get disability checks, how to find a good dentist who takes XY or Z insurance, and other needed information. As in this book, one will find out the streets have helpers who are constantly assisting those in need—and who are well-known among the street networks.

Informal networks and devoted helpers are an integral part for many residents of that project. The author does a great job of show how complex the relationships can be.

Defending Student Rights

Defending Student Rights

Pablo Muriel

For my entire career, I have taught at public high schools in the South Bronx, the poorest Congressional District in the United States. Many of my students come from low-income families, face stressful circumstances outside of school, and have a history of below level academic performance. Most of my students are identified as struggling readers and several are classified with special learning needs.

In my teaching, I employ a version of Critical Social Theory to directly challenge the social reproduction aspect of education that would channel students into lives on the margins of poverty and to empower them to seize control over their lives. Everything about history and society is analyzed, nothing is accepted on face value; everything is dissected by students to uncover the individuals and groups that benefit from the way society is organized. I agree with Lisa Delpit, who defined the structures of power in society as a system of hierarchy that necessitates the participation of some and the exclusion of others. Delpit also argued, “if you are not already a participant in the culture of power, being told explicitly the rules of that culture makes acquiring power easier.” This means that for students to receive a complete education, they need to be aware of, analyze, and critique all of the forces that shape their education, their communities, and their lives.

Critical theorists argue that education should guide students towards political activism and that teachers should be models for their students of active citizens exercising their democratic duty. As a critical educator, my primary goal in the classroom is to promote critical thinking through political discourse and by encouraging students to translate their ideas into action through some form of activism. My teaching involves the recurrent use of projects, alternative assessments, semi-structured learning, promotion of classroom dialogues, student voice, and the development of classroom community. My approach to teaching even includes the way I structure the physical classroom. Desks are organized into a large square that takes up the entire room. This arrangement removes hierarchy by taking the teacher out of the front and allows students to speak to each other and the teacher on an equal social footing.

While I follow the New York State history curriculum scope and sequence, I begin units with student analysis of current events. That helps them connect themes and issues with the specific historical period they are studying. In their analysis of current events, students already have some familiarity with military conflicts, climate concerns, prejudice and inequality, and government responsibility, so these topics spark student interest and lead to engaged classroom dialogue. Students delve into a topic and connect what they are learning about to their own lives. Content is delivered and then evaluated through student and teacher presentations and an examination of primary and secondary sources. I try to present material as much as possible using different platforms including photographs, artwork, movie clips, music, poetry, charts, graphs, and text. Working individually and in groups, students conduct additional research on topics and formulate theories to explain the historical record. Some topics end with renewed discussion of contemporary issues and ideas for participating in current campaigns to redress inequality and injustice.

According to a survey by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), during the 2015-2016 school year, over 10% of American high schools subjected students to random metal detector searches at school entrances and another 6% conducted airport-style metal detector searches on a daily basis. Most of these schools were in urban areas and a majority of their student population was Black and Latino. Calls for installing metal detectors at schools usually spikes after a mass shooting, although these incidents have not been at urban and minority schools.

New York City pioneered the use of metal detectors in schools in the late 1980s and the 1990s. A majority of the metal detectors currently in use were installed after a series of incidents involving students with weapons. Until recently the policy was rarely revisited and no procedure was in place for ending scanning at a school building once metal detectors were installed. During the 2010s, over 100,000 New York City students, mostly in high schools with overwhelmingly Black and Latino student bodies, lined up to be pass through metal detectors before entering school every day. The New York Civil Liberties Union argued that the metal detectors “criminalize” students in largely minority school. Its advocacy director, Udi Ofer, proposed that the “Metal detectors should be used as a last resort, and for a limited time.”

In 2015, some New York City officials began to question the policy. Councilmembers Vanessa Gibson and Corey Johnson introduced legislation to require the Department of Education to report on the number of schools where scanning took place and the number of students who were being scanned. In support of the bill, Councilmember Brad Lander, argued: “There is an absence, a really embarrassing absence, of a New York City Department of Education policy around metal detectors. Telling our young people that we look to them as potential criminals in the schools that have metal detectors does more harm than good.” Yet five years later in 2020, metal detector placement and policy in New York City was unchanged.

Dennis Belen-Morales, a student at Alfred E. Smith High School, agreed with Councilmember Lander and the NYCLU and decided to launch a campaign to have metal detectors removed from his school. Dennis spent a Christmas vacation researching the Department of Education metal detector guidelines, a research adventure that included a trip to its central headquarters. He also spoke with the principal of one of the city’s new, small, high schools that had a similar student population to Smith but was located in its own building. That school had no metal detectors. The principal told Dennis, “What do we look like? The airport? Our students are already minorities, we don’t want them to feel like criminals too.”

Dennis was startled to discover that there actually was no formal metal detector policy and was furious about the irrationality of the entire system. Following his investigation, Dennis started a Change.org petition that he directed to the city’s Mayor. In the petition, he wrote, “I am always hassled when entering the school facility, I am always told to remove all metal objects from my pockets and place them in my book bag, to remove my belt, and to place my boots through the machine. While entering the school building, I feel like I am entering a penitentiary. I feel as if my high school is preparing me for prison, when it is supposed to be ushering me into adulthood.”

As a follow-up to the petition, Dennis and a classmate organized a forum on metal detectors in schools that was attended by students from other schools and a representative from their local Congressional Representative’s office. At the forum, students talked about the importance of school culture. They felt if a school had a culture of violence, metal detectors might be necessary. But students and teachers at Smith and in other schools had created a climate of caring and concern. They called it a team culture. But the city had no policy in place to remove metal detectors when a school’s culture no longer warranted them. Since Alfred E. Smith is a vocational school, students don’t have to smuggle weapons into the building. If they wanted a weapon, they could find one in the shop classrooms.

The campaign by the Smith high school students stalled in September 2017 when an eighteen-year old student in a different Bronx high school stabbed two students in his class, prompting demands for more airport-like metal detectors in schools. Dennis had a very different reaction to the incident than that expressed in the local media. According to Dennis, “Metal detectors might prevent actual weapons in a classroom, but they cannot prevent a student from doing harm to another. When pushed to their limit, a student can either find a way to bring in a weapon or use something available within the school. Smith is an automotive school and we are in possession of very dangerous equipment every day. All an angry person needed to do was grab something from a shop class.” When they became seniors, Dennis and classmates in a Participation in Government class, decided to make one more effort to have the metal.

Supporting Civics Education With Student Activism by Pablo A. Muriel and Alan J. Singer

Supporting Civics Education with Student Activism: Citizens for a Democratic Society by Pablo A. Muriel and Alan J. Singer

This book empowers teachers to support student activists. The authors examine arguments for promoting student activism, explore state and national curriculum standards, suggest activist projects, and report examples of student individual and group activism. By offering suggestions for engaging students as activists across the K-12 curriculum and by including the stories of student activists who became lifetime activists, the book demonstrates how activism can serve to bolster democracy and be a component of rich, experiential learning. Including interviews with student and teacher activists, this volume highlights issues such as racial and immigrant justice, anti-gun violence, and climate change.

“Support Civic Education with Student Activism: Citizens for a Democratic Society is an exemplary contribution to civics by showing how students can take part in democracy with social activism unafraid of expressing views and showing up personally when confronted by political and social issues, a noted contribution for the usually dull and legalistic way social studies and civics are taught. Filled with excellent examples of participatory democracy in action by students and their teachers.” – Jack Zevin, Professor Emeritus, Macaulay Honors College/CUNY, and Co-Director, The Taft Institute for Government

“Every social studies teacher should read this book. It is about how students became involved in their democracy and made critical changes in their communities. Pablo Murial and Alan Singer taught students the tools of activism and leadership. Students believed in social justice; their actions come from the heart. Get to know the stories of the students and their teachers. This is an extraordinary book.” – Valerie Pang, Professor, School of Teacher Education, San Diego State University

“In today’s challenging times, social studies teachers are more important than ever in developing student civic literacy. A core component of this effort is in promoting student activism, so they can both exercise and benefit from such practices. Pablo Muriel and Alan Singer, in their book Supporting Civics Education with Student Activism: Citizens for a Democratic Society, provide a template for teachers to help students become the type of citizens we profoundly need today.” – Mark Pearcy, Assistant Professor, Rider University, College of Education and Human Services, Executive Editor, Teaching Social Studies

“This is the book social studies educators K-12 across the nation need today. As an advocate for civic education, I find this book practical, informative, and most importantly, empowering for young people. It takes you on a journey of the authors’ own self-discovery as activists and their experiences as teachers encouraging student voice in and outside the classroom. A true guide for any educator who supports students as change agents.” – April Francis-Taylor, Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Eastern Suffolk BOCES and member of the NYSED Civic Readiness Task Force.

How Do We Teach Politics in a Society Where Political Affiliations Have Become Toxic?

How Do We Teach Politics in a Society Where Political Affiliations Have Become Toxic?

Nick Zolkiwsky

Throughout my time as a student from kindergarten up until the eighth grade, politics and government were never taught in my classes. To which I was not at all surprised, after all how do you teach a second grader the difference between a conservative and a liberal when they should be learning how to construct paragraphs and learn how to use a keyboard? Let alone how do you get them interested in such a topic? Even more importantly, how do we get them interested in the topic and teach them to respect others who may hold different political views?

The first time I can vividly recall politics being taught in my class was when I was in fourth grade and we were fastly approaching the 2008 Presidential election. During those short and brief lessons, my teachers did not tell us where Senators McCain or Obama sided on certain issues or even a basic background of the parties they were affiliated with. Instead, we were all taught to like Obama because he was younger and was the more “favorable” candidate among teachers at my elementary school. The same situation occurred four years later when I was in eighth grade and the 2012 election was approaching. To which I was genuinely surprised because at this point we were all teenagers and had a better understanding of how the world works compared to when we were still in grade school, at least I thought I did. However, it wasn’t until the 2016 election that my teachers actually began talking about the issues that Americans would be voting for and where Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stood. While for the first time we were having open discussions about beliefs and the two major parties it was undoubtedly one of the most toxic environments one could have ever imagined. Instead of listening to each other oftentimes I would find classmates getting into heated arguments, which were then followed by one person attacking the personal character of the other. Even as a 17 year old I knew this was no way to hold political discussions. Where was the respect? Where were the listening skills? And most importantly, where was the maturity? The answer, nowhere to be found. So the question is, how do we, as teachers, teach and create a healthy environment where students can learn and discuss politics when we live in a society that becomes toxic when these discussions arise?

To say 2020 has been one of the most unpredictable years in recent memory would be an understatement. It’s been a 12 month period where every 30 days or so we are met with another apocalyptic type event: first it was wildfires, then a pandemic, then heightened racial issues, and to make it all the more fun we threw in a Presidential election into the mix. According to an article from “weareteachers.com” there are easy steps to teaching politics within the classroom in the current climate that we live in. The first step that the article suggests is to discuss biases and “fake news” within the American mainstream media. This is a perfect starting point as understanding biases will better help all students fully understand the concepts of politics and how different media outlets portray a candidate/policy than a rivaling network. This also opens up the door to teach students the importance of fact-checking and doing their own research, which in the past few years has become so much more important than ever. Unfortunately, due to the easy access to media and the increasing influence of social media, individuals will typically see a picture or a meme on Twitter or Instagram and assume it to be true. Not only will they outright believe it but they won’t even go through the effort of reading up on the issue or using that additional information to form their own opinion.

The next three steps that the article discusses are more so related to notifying parents that you are about to discuss politics within the class. As many social studies teachers know, politics is a very touchy subject to teach about, and as many teachers in general know, parents sometimes are not afraid to tell you how they really feel about you teaching a particular subject. What this step aims to do is to notify the parents before the lesson is taught and lay out for them how the subject will be delivered to the students. By doing so, not only will the parents be as caught up as their students are but, it better prepares them to answer those difficult questions that their children may ask at the dinner table or in some cases, provide clarification and context to when a student tells their parents what they did in school that day. In addition to notifying parents about the upcoming lessons on politics and how you intend on delivering the information, it is a good idea to also encourage parents to talk about politics with their students at home. This is done so not only will the students have a better understanding of what they are getting into and about to learn, but it will also help them start to relate to certain focal points and issues that personally matter to them and their family.

Lastly, once the day has arrived to start teaching about politics in your classroom there are a few ground rules that you should establish right off the bat. The first rule, and quite possibly the most important rule, is to ensure that your students will show respect and remain respectful during the lesson. The way I like to think of it is, respectful ears are ears that are open to hearing the voices of others without judgment. The next rule is more geared towards you as the teacher and that is to remain neutral on the subject matter. While it is oftentimes difficult to remain neutral on certain topics, you have to understand that some of your students might have little to no understanding of the issues that you are about to discuss. Rather than giving them a biased opinion, which they have learned about at this point, you are giving them a non-partisan view and allowing them to make their own opinions on the topic. The third and final rule is to make sure that the students know that their opinions are their own opinions and they have the right to have them. This can be very empowering for students, especially those in High School who now find themselves in the “young adult” category. By having their own free-formed opinions this helps them establish a sense of identity as to who they are and where their morals lie and if you think about it you’re killing two birds with one stone.

How you want to present the information is totally up to you, just as long as you feel that you can provide the necessary information and that the information provided will be retained by the students in the classroom. Some suggest that PowerPoints and lectures may be the best option because this allows students to ask questions throughout the lesson and does provide room for a short class discussion. The more you allow students to voice their opinions and ask questions shows that they are engaging in the topic and that they are getting curious about why things are the way that they are. Other ways could include holding a mini-election within your own classroom, however, this activity may take a few class periods to run its full course, but on the flip side is it keeps them engaged longer and it allows them to go home after class and do their own research to further their own side of the topic. The last way you could do it is a much more laissez-faire approach and that is an open class discussion where you go around and have students speak up on what they know about politics. In doing so, the students are teaching one another and it gives you the teacher the opportunity to expand on talking points, correct any misconceptions brought up and even guide them to areas of further discussion. However, the one drawback that this approach comes with is that you will have biased opinions from students, so be sure to neutralize any bias that could be presented and most importantly, if a student holds similar views as you do, do not promote those as the “correct” way of thinking.

In conclusion, it is safe to say that we live in a time like no other. Our political climate in our nation today has never been as divisive as it has been over the past few years. But we as educators and even future parents must realize that if we want to change the toxic climate that is our political spheres, then we must lead the charge. Show our students it’s okay to disagree with others and that you can still be friends just because one person voted for one candidate and the other voted for the opposite candidate. The sooner we implement respect in our classrooms and when discussing politics with younger generations the more likely they will pass those traits down to their children.