CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT

38   “These Kids Are Out of Control”

as well as potentially unhealthy living conditions, yield greater physical and
health challenges for students (Camilli, Vargas, Ryan, & Barnett, 2010; U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services
Administration, Maternal and Child Health Bureau, 2014), which may affect
their capacity to learn and negatively influence behavior and physical and
cognitive development (Anderson et al., 2003; National Research Council,
2009). Relatedly, limited access affects both what students believe they can be
and their perceived connection to the schooling system, which may manifest
in classroom engagement and behavior. Thus, a lack of geographic opportu-
nity and unequal access to services for both students and their families have
very real implications for students’ experience and outcomes in school and the
ways educators may perceive and engage them.

Inequitable School Funding

For nearly 40 years, growth in governmental funding for state correc-
tions has far outpaced growth in educational funding (U.S. Department
of Education, Office for Civil Rights, 2016). Additionally, in all but four
states, differential school funding (such as flat rates, which provide the same
funding to all schools regardless of needs, and regressive funding models
that provide less money to high-poverty schools) means that schools in high-
poverty districts do not have sufficient funds to serve students (Baker,
Sciarra, & Farrie, 2015). Almost 1.5 million students are educated in the
47 most fiscally disadvantaged school districts across 16 states (Baker et al.,
2015). Suburban schools with largely White student populations tend to
receive more funding than urban schools, which tend to have larger popula-
tions of Black and Brown students. Typically, inequities in school funding
have been attributed to variation in local property taxes; however, states pro-
viding a large share of state aid are not necessarily more equitable in their
distribution of school funding. Moreover, research points to the fact that 31
states have cut their state funding to less than 2008 levels, and while there is
variation across local funding, nationally the United States saw overall local
school funding cut (Leachman, Albares, Masterson, & Wallace, 2016).

Schools that receive less funding tend to lack safe, modern buildings, small
class sizes, experienced teachers, a sufficient number of books and other school
supplies, access to high-quality curriculum, and advanced courses compared
with more affluent schools (Adamson & Darling-Hammond, 2012; Darling-
Hammond, 2015). Such disparities exist both across and within districts
(Baker & Welner, 2010; Condron & Roscigno, 2003) and affect students’
experience and outcomes in school.

Experiences of Trauma

Students of color, students living below the poverty line, and their families
experience both recognizable and unrecognizable traumas that manifest in
“problem behavior” that may ultimately lead to incarceration. Trauma can

Chapter 2  •  Connecting Classroom Management and the Cradle-to-Prison Pipeline   39

be caused by a single traumatic experience, such as a natural disaster or loss
due to the death of a loved one, or by multiple, ongoing traumatic experi-
ences, such as witnessing violence or sexual abuse (Cook & Newman, 2014).
Unaddressed trauma is a major contributor to the CTPP. There are direct
links between trauma and academic performance, behavioral challenges, and
incarceration (Blodgett, 2015). The numerous consequences of unaddressed
trauma can create challenging predicaments for students both inside and out-
side of school.

One major issue when referring to trauma and the CTPP is increased
exposure. In a large study using 2011–2012 National Survey of Children’s
Health data, a representative sample of more than 95,000 students between
the ages of 0 and 18 years was surveyed to examine the prevalence of trauma.
The investigators found that about half of all students surveyed had experi-
enced one incident of trauma, and 23% had at least two or more traumatic
experiences. The disparity in traumatic exposure tends to be related to sys-
temic and structural failures to address larger social issues such as poverty,
unemployment, adequate facilities, access to quality care, and others (Alvarez,
Milner, & Delale-O’Connor, 2016).

The second major issue related to trauma and the CTPP relates to the
lack of opportunity to develop and strengthen internal and external resources
to successfully manage the potential impact from trauma. Although the
response to traumatic experiences varies from person to person, the differ-
ences can be associated with individuals’ internal and external resources (van
der Kolk, 1989). For instance, a student who witnesses an act of violence at
age 7 may not respond in the same way as a student who is 15 because, with
age, some students develop positive coping skills, which help create a buffer
against the potentially negative influence of traumatic events. Coping skills,
an important internal resource, involve the beliefs and practices that an indi-
vidual engages in to feel safe and recover from trauma.

Broadly, the more traumatic experiences students have, the more likely
they are to have learning and behavioral challenges (Burke, Hellman, Scott,
Weems, & Carrion, 2011; Felitti et al, 1998). More specifically, students who
were exposed to two or more traumatic experiences were almost three times as
likely to have to repeat a grade, more likely to miss at least two weeks of school,
and far less likely to be engaged in school (Bethell, Newacheck, Hawes, &
Halfon, 2014). Furthermore, while these academic challenges exist for
students with unaddressed trauma, there are also nonacademic challenges
that may arise. For instance, the chances were greater that students with
unaddressed trauma would engage in risky, or unsafe, behavior such as sub-
stance abuse, dropping out of school, or other unhealthy coping skills. For
many students, the pathway to incarceration begins with learning and behav-
ioral challenges in school, particularly when it is related to unrecognized and
unaddressed trauma. Educators, unaware of trauma and its impact, may see
these learning and behavioral challenges as disrespect, disabilities, or defiance,

40   “These Kids Are Out of Control”

thus resulting in either inappropriate labeling of student ability or harsh disci-
plinary sanctions.

The impacts of trauma can manifest in school in a variety of ways, often
unnoticed. The danger is that some educators may misinterpret these mani-
festations as disrespectful or as “problem behaviors.” Students may exhibit
physical, behavioral, emotional, or cognitive indicators of trauma, includ-
ing lethargy in class, irritability or aggression, extreme mood swings, or an
inability to focus (Bell, Limberg, & Robinson, 2013). To be clear, though, not
every student who exhibits these behaviors is grappling with trauma (Alvarez,
2017), but educators should be mindful to notice sudden changes, especially
stark shifts, related to student behavior. Although this is not an exhaustive
list, it should provide some insight into the thoughts, feelings, and practices
of students who may be struggling with the consequences of traumatic experi-
ences and the associated considerations of the educators working with them.

Inside-of-School Factors

Inside schools and classrooms, a number of factors may further contribute
to the cradle-to-prison pipeline. In particular, certain types of disciplinary
policies, teacher practices, teacher preparation, and school facilities put stu-
dents at greater risk for involvement with the criminal justice system and
incarceration.

Discipline in U.S. Schools

The dominant model of discipline in U.S. schools today is a punitive disci-
pline model (Advancement Project, 2000). By punitive discipline, we mean a
discipline system that relies on the punishment of individuals who engage in
unwanted, “different,” or offensive behavior as defined by a classroom teacher,
school leader, or officials in the broader school system. Typically, unwanted
and offensive behavior is codified by a school discipline code. In U.S. schools
today, punitive discipline systems typically use exclusion from the classroom
as a punishment when students engage in behavior that is deemed offensive
by the school discipline code. Simson (2014) explained that this model has
not always been used in U.S. schools. He noted that until the 1960s, students
were regularly subjected to corporal punishment and public embarrassment as
remedies for committing offenses. For instance, a student who talked back to a
teacher might have been struck on the wrist with a ruler, a student who defaced
school property might have been struck on the buttocks with a wooden paddle
by the principal, and a student who came to class without his or her homework
completed may have been required to stand in the corner of the room facing
the wall for a period of time while other students engaged in a lesson.

However, after the civil rights movement of the 1960s highlighted the
importance of protecting students’ rights, school leaders began to use exclusion
in place of corporal punishment and public embarrassment (Simson, 2014).
During the 1970s and 1980s, school leaders frequently relied on the practice

Chapter 2  •  Connecting Classroom Management and the Cradle-to-Prison Pipeline   41

of in-school suspension as a means of punishing students who committed
offenses within the school community (Hanson, 2005). In-school suspen-
sion generally consists of sending the student to a separate room in the school
building for a day or more to complete academic assignments under staff-
monitored conditions. In-school suspension rooms typically permit students
very little social interaction with others. As mentioned in Chapter 1, in many
ways as a practice, in-school suspension mirrors prison- or jail-like conditions,
where those students deemed “bad” have been separated from those students
who are deemed “good” (Noguera, 2003). Throughout the 1980s and 1990s,
school leaders began to use out-of-school suspension more frequently (Skiba &
Peterson, 1999). Out-of-school suspension generally consists of requiring stu-
dents to stay home from school for 1 day or more and completing any missed
academic assignments on their own.

Get-Tough and “Zero-Tolerance” Policies

While policymakers purportedly want safe and academically produc-
tive schools, the policies aimed at achieving these ends often fail in their
administration and lead to disengagement, dropout, and expulsion, out-
comes that share strong and direct correlations with future incarcera-
tion (Children’s Defense Fund, 2007; Christle, Jolivette, & Nelson,
2010). As mentioned in Chapter 1 and taken up in Chapter 5, zero-
tolerance policies are policies adopted by schools that prescribe “predeter-
mined consequences,” or predetermined punishments, regardless of the
context or underlying reasons for the behaviors and actions that require dis-
cipline. For instance, suppose a student is found with a pocketknife in her
backpack. With strict zero-tolerance policies, this would result in the disciplin-
ary consequence associated with carrying weapons to school; the punishment
differs from school to school but can sometimes be as extreme as expulsion.
However, zero-tolerance policies are blind to the context behind such situa-
tions. With immediate implementation of the zero-tolerance policy regardless
of the context of the situation, school officials do not take into consideration
that the student may have had a pocketknife in her backpack because she
had been on a camping trip the weekend prior with her family and had for-
gotten to remove the pocketknife from her backpack before coming to school
that day. While zero-tolerance policies were initially developed to tackle drug
abuse (Skiba & Rausch, 2006) and deter the most serious offenses, such as the
possession of firearms, they soon became used as a remedy for offenses such
as bullying, making threats against students or school officials, and bring-
ing substances such as alcohol and drugs into schools (Advancement Project,
2000). These highly punitive measures are also designed to send a strong mes-
sage to other potential offenders at the school (Suvall, 2009). Violence that
occurs outside the classroom has trailed into schools, and some argue that
these issues of violence have caused zero-tolerance policies to be implemented
more severely toward African American and Latinx students. Programs such as
School-Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, Best Behavior,
Project Achieve, and Peace Builders are tasked with disciplinary as well as

42   “These Kids Are Out of Control”

character-building approaches to such issues. Unfortunately, such programs are
not widely adopted. We discuss in depth how restorative justice practices can
disrupt or address zero-tolerance policies in subsequent chapters of this book.

Zero-tolerance policies first came about in the 1980s, and at that time they
focused mainly on cracking down on drug trafficking and abuse. In 1994,
the Gun-Free Schools Act required schools to suspend students who brought
any type of gun or weapon to school for 1 year. Schools that failed to do so
would lose their funding. In 1997, zero-tolerance policies expanded to punish
students who brought drugs or alcohol to school and students who engaged
in fights while at school. Today, some schools implement zero-tolerance poli-
cies for offenses such as swearing, violations of dress code, and failure on the
student’s part to attend school.

Punitive school discipline systems that rely on exclusion are prob-
lematic for a variety of reasons. First, they discourage offending students
from wanting to be members of the school community in good stand-
ing. Exclusion from the classroom disrupts academic progress, fuels nega-
tive attitudes about the school on the part of the student, and promotes a
feeling of alienation between the offending student and the school com-
munity (Suvall, 2009). Indeed, research suggests that exclusionary prac-
tices such as suspension increase the likelihood that a student will repeat
a grade, drop out of school, and come into contact with the juvenile jus-
tice system (Fabelo, Thompson, Plotkin, Carmichael, Marchbanks, &
Booth, 2011; Noguera, 2005). Second, punitive school discipline does
not address the needs of those harmed in school offenses or necessar-
ily help those harmed to feel safer at school. Indeed, students harmed in
school may miss more days of school because they do not feel safe (Eaton
et al., 2008), and students who attend schools with highly punitive discipline
systems actually feel less safe than students in schools with more moderate
policies (McNeely, Nonnemaker, & Blum, 2002). Third, punitive discipline
systems do not address any systematic problems that may have set the stage
for disciplinary incidents (Suvall, 2009). Without addressing these system-
atic problems, similar disciplinary incidents may continue by the same stu-
dent or others. And fourth, students who have committed offenses are not
necessarily given an opportunity to make mistakes and improve (Milner,
2015). This stands in direct contrast to a growth-mindset approach that
allows students to learn and grow from their mistakes. Students should have
multiple opportunities to improve, take risks, and get it right.

Although all of these ideas highlight the problematic nature of puni-
tive school discipline systems in any school context, this approach to school
discipline may be most troublesome in urban settings because of con-
nections between punitive discipline systems, racism, poverty, and the
school-to-prison pipeline. Research suggests that punitive discipline sys-
tems that rely upon suspension and expulsion have negatively affected com-
munities of color and communities with many people living below the
poverty line (Schiff, 2013). Furthermore, as detailed in Chapters 1 and 5, zero-
tolerance policies and highly punitive discipline systems are disproportionately

Chapter 2  •  Connecting Classroom Management and the Cradle-to-Prison Pipeline   43

applied to African American students (American Psychological Association
Zero Tolerance Task Force, 2008; U.S. Department of Education, Office for
Civil Rights, 2014). Research drawing upon a national random sample shows
that schools with proportionally more African American students are more
likely to use punitive discipline measures than restorative practices (Payne &
Welch, 2015). These findings are germane to classroom management in urban
schools because urban contexts have more people of color and more people liv-
ing below the poverty line than other locales. Data from the National Center
for Education Statistics indicate the following:

• 45% of all African American and 45% of all Latinx students
attend high-poverty schools, but only 8% of all White students
attend high-poverty schools, and

• 40% of all high-poverty schools are located in urban areas, but
fewer than 20% are located in suburban, town, or rural areas
(Kena et al., 2014).

Furthermore, many urban schools are “highly segregated schools,” where
between 75% and 100% of students in the building are living below the pov-
erty line and identify as either Black or Latinx (U.S. Government Accountability
Office, 2016). As people of color and people living below the poverty line are
more concentrated in urban areas, punitive discipline systems have truly made an
impact upon urban schools and students in them.

Research shows an overrepresentation in suspension and expulsion
for African American students under zero-tolerance policies (American
Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force, 2008). However,
research also demonstrates that disproportionality in disciplinary referrals is
not due to economic disadvantages, nor are there data demonstrating that
African American students display higher rates of disruption or violence.
Instead, because of the absence of teacher preparation in understanding
behavioral differences, African American students may be disciplined more
extremely for “subjective” reasons.

Subjective Teacher and Administration Practices

In addition to zero-tolerance policies that explicitly dictate punishments or
outcomes, subjective administration of other policies has contributed to the
CTPP in a similar way. As discussed in Chapter 1, this includes subjective
administration in ways that negatively affect students living below the poverty
line and students of color.

For example, a teacher may refer a Black student to the office for being
“loud,” while the same behavior by a White student may elicit a verbal cor-
rection. As we indicated in the previous chapter, research has demonstrated
that teachers tend to refer students of color to the office more for subjective

44   “These Kids Are Out of Control”

infractions (being disrespectful), while White students are referred to the office
for more objective ones (being tardy to class) (Milner, 2015; Skiba & Peterson,
2000; Skiba & Williams, 2014). These subjective decisions are not trivial,
especially because the majority of teachers are White and middle class, and the
student populations in schools are increasingly diverse. Indeed, in the 2011–
2012 school year, more than 80% of the teaching force was White and more
than 75% was female (Robers, Zhang, Morgan, & Musu-Gillette, 2015). In
contrast, in 2012, White students made up 51% of the student population in
the United States, Black students 16%, and Latinx students 24% of the popu-
lation (Kena et al., 2014).

As data from the Civil Rights Data Collection demonstrate, starting as early
as preschool, Black students are 3.6 times more likely to be suspended than their
White peers and 3.8 times more likely in K–12 education (U.S. Department
of Education, Office for Civil Rights, 2016). Thus, because most “disciplinary
challenges” that lead to suspension and expulsion emerge inside of the class-
room, addressing the origination space for most disciplinary referrals is essential.

The U.S. Department of Education reported that in 2014, students of color
were suspended and expelled at a rate 3 times greater than their White peers
and accounted for 70% of police referrals (U.S. Department of Education,
Office of Civil Rights, 2014). Some studies have pointed out that African
American students are also more likely to be identified for special education
(Artiles, Harry, Reschly, & Chinn, 2002; Patton, 1998), though a recent study
points to the underreferral and the underserving of this same population of
students (Morgan et al., 2015). The tendency to target these vulnerable groups
of students begins as early as preschool, with African American students
representing only 18% of the student population but accounting for 48% of
suspensions as 4-year-olds (U.S. Department of Education, Office of Civil
Rights, 2014). Recent reports suggest that suspensions are the number one
predictor of whether a student will drop out of school and are strongly asso-
ciated with other negative impacts, such as academic disengagement, future
disciplinary exclusion, and failure to graduate on time (Achilles, McLaughlin,
& Croninger, 2007; Skiba & Peterson, 1999). Office disciplinary referrals and
suspensions are also one of the measures used to move students through the
tiers of schoolwide behavior support that can ultimately lead to special edu-
cation referrals (Nelson & Roberts, 2000). Milner (2015) outlined six rea-
sons for the disparate referral practices experienced by students of color and
students living below the poverty line: (a) teacher and administrative fear,
(b) institutional and individual racism, (c) underpreparation in teacher educa-
tion, (d) cultural conflict, (e) ineffective leadership, and (f) inadequate coun-
seling and psychological services (Milner, 2015, pp. 124–126).

Lack of Educator Preparation in Understanding Race and Class

Despite the negative outcomes associated with student race and class, issues
of race and poverty are often overlooked in teacher training and professional

Chapter 2  •  Connecting Classroom Management and the Cradle-to-Prison Pipeline   45

development (Milner, 2012, 2015). In particular, educators are not taught to
understand and build on the historical context of a community and school,
understand and negotiate the sociopolitical landscape of an environment, or
develop partnerships with family and community members of their students
and other stakeholders. These are explicit skills that can help teachers bet-
ter meet the needs of their students—and ones that are often overlooked in
the face of learning lesson planning and test preparation. Even when teachers
learn these skills in preparation programs, they are often discarded in the face
of other demands, such as test preparation (Jacobs, in press), thus pointing to
the need for both school leadership and broader educational policy to empha-
size the importance of teachers both developing and practicing these skills.

In addition, as we take up in subsequent chapters of this book, teach-
ers are not often explicitly taught to develop culturally relevant and
responsive instructional materials and instructional practices (Gay, 2010;
Ladson-Billings, 2009). Students living below the poverty line, students of
color, and their families are often characterized as “lacking” or “deficient.”
This carries into both teachers’ one-on-one engagement and the training
methods for professionals who interact with them. Specifically, this leads
teachers and school leaders to ignore or belittle different ways of being, engag-
ing, and learning. In particular, teachers and school leaders may not under-
stand or may even look down upon different forms of family engagement
and other outside factors that contribute to “undesirable” behavior: tardiness,
chronic absenteeism, and experiences and outcomes associated with inter-
generational exclusion or marginalization from schools. Simply put, school
personnel may “reward” families and students for engaging in traditionally
middle-class, White modes of participation in schools and not understand or
mischaracterize the ways that students and families act outside of these norms
(Lawson, 2003; Marschall & Shah, 2016).

Criminalization of School Facilities and
Inappropriate Juvenile Detention Facilities

Schools and other educational facilities that have staff and structures focused
explicitly on discipline can contribute to the CTPP by leading to increases in
court appearances and, ultimately, jail. Over the past two-plus decades, we
have seen a proliferation of school security measures in public schools across
the nation. Researchers have traced this increase in school security measures
to intense public responses to high-profile incidents of school-based mass
shootings, most prominently the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School
(Addington, 2009; Tanner-Smith & Fisher, 2016), as well as the proliferation
of zero-tolerance policies (discussed above) in schools (Price, 2009). Some of
the most popular measures include increasing the number of school resource
officers (SROs) and surveillance tools in schools (Addington, 2009). Additional
measures that experienced an expansion include restricting public access to
schools, requiring all school personnel and students to have ID badges, and the

46   “These Kids Are Out of Control”

use of metal detectors in school buildings (Addington, 2009; Simmons, 2015).
This reconfiguration of schools’ spaces to include more security guards, mon-
itoring capabilities, detection devices, and search and seizure practices often
resembles the structure of criminal justice facilities, which can create negative
environments for child and youth development; furthermore, it makes it dif-
ficult to create a welcoming environment for students.

A 2015 federal report (Robers et al., 2015) found that in the 2011–2012
school year, 88% of public schools reported limiting access to buildings dur-
ing school hours with practices including locking and monitoring doors.
Additionally, 64% reported using security cameras for surveillance (double the
rate in 2003–2004), and nearly one quarter (24%) reported conducting random
drug searches using drug-sniffing dogs. Fifty-seven percent of public secondary
schools and 28% of public elementary schools reported the daily presence of
police or security guards, as opposed to only 19% of private secondary schools
and 7% of private elementary schools. In the 2009–2010 school year, 63% of
public high schools and 51% of middle schools reported having one or more
armed security staff. The presence of school security measures is often associated
with a school’s location and the racial and socioeconomic characteristics of its
students. For instance, in the 2011–2012 school year, urban schools were more
likely than suburban schools to control access to school grounds (i.e., using
gates), have stricter dress codes (including requiring students to wear uniforms),
require students to have identification, expose students to metal detectors, and
have daily police or security presence (Robers et al., 2015). These disparate
measures of school security were also present when comparing high-poverty
schools (51% or more students approved for free or reduced-price lunch) to
lower poverty schools. With regard to school security personnel, urban schools,
high-poverty schools, and schools with higher proportions of students of color
are all more likely to have full-time security personnel.

This ubiquitous monitoring did not go unnoticed by students. For
instance, during the 2013 school year, 77% of students were aware of
one or more security cameras in their school, 76% reported their school
doors being locked during the day, 70% had security guards or SROs, 52%
reported locker checks by adult authority figures, and 26% were required
to wear ID badges. However, many students believe their schools to be safe
and do not believe that these measures are necessary (Bracy, 2011). Overall,
research suggests that even after controlling for factors such as local crime
rates, location, and school size, racial minority and students living below the
poverty line are still more likely to experience stricter school security mea-
sures (Nance, 2013).

The presence and use of SROs in school spaces can create especially para-
doxical situations for many students. On one hand, increased security person-
nel can provide a sense of safety and protection for students in schools with high
incidents of serious violence. On the other hand, negative interactions between

Chapter 2  •  Connecting Classroom Management and the Cradle-to-Prison Pipeline   47

SROs and students can further alienate them from school by cultivating a cli-
mate of criminalization and fear (Price, 2009; Tanner-Smith & Fisher, 2016).
These criminalized environments are often caused by law enforcement and sur-
veillance practices that many SROs bring into school spaces, including bag and
body searches and video cameras, which treat students as suspected criminals
(Hirschfield, 2008) and can socialize them into a society that normalizes mass
incarceration (Kupchik & Monahan, 2006; Noguera, 2003; Shedd, 2015).

Increased police presence has also contributed to disproportionate num-
bers of Black and Brown youth coming into contact with the juvenile justice
system (The Sentencing Project, 2017). This is due in part to trends that show
increased criminalization of school discipline issues (Hirschfield, 2008; Na &
Gottfredson, 2013; Price, 2009; The Sentencing Project, 2017). Evidence sug-
gests that schools have been increasingly outsourcing school discipline to law
enforcement. This transfer of power has several implications for how schools
handle issues of student discipline. For example, because many SROs are cur-
rent or retired law enforcement officers and may not be adequately trained in
child and youth development, they may be inclined to more severely punish
instances of disorderly conduct or insubordination by interpreting such inci-
dents as criminal acts (Tanner-Smith & Fisher, 2016). This was illustrated in a
2015 incident in a South Carolina high school in which an SRO was called to
a classroom and subsequently had a physical confrontation with and arrested a
Black female student who refused her teacher’s command to put away her cell
phone. The police department that employed the officer subsequently fired
him. While the sheriff of the local police department found the officer to have
handled the situation inappropriately, a larger issue, which received far less
discussion, was that an issue of nonviolent defiance by a student was handled
by law enforcement, a role traditionally handled by teachers and adminis-
trators, as well as the potential trauma experienced by both the student who
experienced this discipline and those who witnessed it.

Interestingly, although schools have increasingly added more security
measures, it is not clear that additional security promotes positive student
outcomes. In a study of both student-reported and administrator-reported
data, Tanner-Smith and Fisher (2016) found not only that increased security
measures had a minimal effect on student academic performance and post-
secondary aspirations but also that schools using security cameras, security
personnel, and metal detectors had worse outcomes for students than schools
that used only one of the three security measures. The researchers explained
that this finding could point to an “additive phenomenon” whereby the pres-
ence of all three security measures created environments that function like
prisons, restrict students’ rights, and erect barriers between students and their
schools that prevent full and meaningful engagement.

Another indicator of students’ disengagement from school, and a conse-
quence of the criminalization of school facilities, is the removal of students from

48   “These Kids Are Out of Control”

the communities of their home schools and placement in alternative schools or
programs. According to a 2010 federal report, alternative schools and programs

are designed to address the needs of students that typically cannot be
met in regular schools. The students who attend alternative schools
and programs are typically at risk of educational failure (as indicated
by poor grades, truancy, disruptive behavior, pregnancy, or similar
factors associated with temporary or permanent withdrawal from
school). (Carver & Lewis, 2010)

Many alternative schools and programs partner with outside agencies to
provide services for students. However, the nature of these partnerships varies.
This same 2010 report found that 80% of districts reported partnering with
the criminal justice system, the most frequent type of partnership in the study.
These findings have important implications for the types of services available
to students, particularly those attending schools with higher rates of students
living below the poverty line, as districts with higher poverty concentrations
(20% or more students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch) were more
likely to have alternative schools and programs for weapons and drug and
alcohol possession but less likely to have schools and programs for chronic
academic underperformance and mental health concerns. Unfortunately for
many students, alternative schools have not provided adequate support either.
Urban and high-poverty school districts are more likely to have students leave
alternative schools and programs because of dropping out or transfer to a
criminal justice facility (Carver & Lewis, 2010).

Students who are disciplined through the juvenile justice system are
more likely to eventually end up in adult prisons, due in part to the lack of
recourses and effective programming in juvenile facilities. Many facilities
fail to explicitly address appropriate reintegration into school and commu-
nity entities that foster positive youth development, as well as the trauma
affecting youth that may lead to recidivism.

Adolescents who have been incarcerated demonstrate lower academic
achievement in writing, reading, math, and oral language, as well as high rates
of academic failure and grade retention. Violence and maltreatment remain
widespread in juvenile facilities nationally (Finkel, 2015). In addition, inefficient
case processing lengthens the duration of stay for many detained youth, causing
young people to spend far more time than necessary away from their families
and out of school and to return to school further behind in their coursework.

Policies and practices inside schools, some of which are the domain of
school leaders, others that are more classroom and teacher specific, influence
the way students experience and engage in school. Furthermore, they affect
not only students’ social and academic outcomes but also the relationships
that are built (or not) with educators and ultimately the ways schools and
the educators within them can serve to build or dismantle the CTPP. In the

Chapter 2  •  Connecting Classroom Management and the Cradle-to-Prison Pipeline   49

vignette that follows, we offer an example of the ways the inside- and outside-
of-school factors may interact to build a pipeline toward the criminal justice
system for students.

VIGNETTE: INTRICACIES OF INSIDE- AND OUTSIDE-OF-SCHOOL

FACTORS—MARCUS’S STORY

Marcus, a young African American high school student, lives in Hill-
top, a predominantly Black neighborhood in a midsized urban area.
Hilltop was historically a thriving Black community; indeed, when
Marcus’s grandmother grew up there, it was viewed as a hub of Afri-
can American culture and was home to numerous nationally known
writers, musicians, and science and technology professionals. Cur-
rently, however, the neighborhood is economically depressed, with an
average per capita income well below the poverty line. Although the
community has a variety of resources, including strong churches and
a newly constructed public library, public transportation is limited,
with very few bus routes; there are no grocery stores within its bound-
aries; and the closest health care facility is more than 5 miles away.
In addition, many once thriving places of employment located in Hill-
top have closed or relocated. Marcus’s father has struggled to maintain
steady work since the small machine shop where he worked downsized
and moved to a regional suburb, where the limited bus routes from
Hilltop do not run. His mother works part-time as a home health care
aide, but currently the family does not have health insurance, and Mar-
cus and his three sisters have had limited access to medical and dental
care throughout their lives. Over the years, Marcus’s parents have also
struggled to find safe, high-quality early childcare and after-school care
for their four children. As the oldest of the four siblings, Marcus would
sometimes go to school late or leave school early to make sure someone
was in the house to watch his younger sisters.

Marcus attends the community high school, Hilltop High, a school
that receives roughly $5,000 per student less than neighboring sub-
urbs. The school shares a social worker with the community elemen-
tary and middle schools, and she is at Hilltop High 1.5 days per week.
Recently there was a series of shootings in response to a neighborhood
altercation, and Marcus’s uncle, Cisco, was killed. Marcus’s homeroom
teacher, a young woman in her first year at Hilltop High, did not know
about the neighborhood fights or the passing of Marcus’s uncle. She did,
however, notice that Marcus’s behavior had changed in the classroom.
In addition, as had been the case all year, he frequently did not show up
to school, was late, or left school early. When she referred Marcus to
the school social worker, she was told that it would be at least 8 weeks
before he could be seen. Unsure of what else to do, she addressed what

50   “These Kids Are Out of Control”

she viewed as Marcus’s disruptive behavior by sending him to in-school
suspension when he talked out in class or acted in ways she felt were
inappropriate. Before getting the chance to meet with a social worker,
Marcus got into a fight at school and was found to be in possession of a
weapon, an expellable offense at Hilltop High. He was sent to Phillips
Center, a juvenile detention center for the remainder of his junior year.
He returned to Hilltop High for his senior year, but he realized quickly
that he was behind because of his time at Phillips. He began skipping
classes, and he engaged in another fight in the hallway, during which
he was restrained and arrested by a school resource officer.

Marcus’s experience while attending Hilltop High demonstrates
that both outside- and inside-of-school factors shape his (and other
students’) experiences, and both act to build and support the cradle-to-
prison pipeline. As is clear from the vignette about Marcus, he experi-
enced serious outside-of-school challenges with his family that directly
influenced his behavior inside of school. For instance, his neighborhood,
and as a result his family, had limited access to opportunities such as
jobs, transportation, and fresh, healthy food. Additionally, the lack of
access to childcare directly affected Marcus’s school attendance. The
fact that his behavior shifted after his uncle was killed, for instance,
likely was a traumatic experience for him that the school did not have the
capacity to address because of both limited staffing and a novice edu-
cator who was unprepared to meet such needs. Marcus’s school failed
to address his experience and further exacerbated it with both its zero-
tolerance policies around violent actions and the criminalization of the
school through the appointment of the SRO.

Marcus’s story provides just one potential path through which a student
may experience the cradle-to-prison pipeline.

• How might educators address the nuances of Marcus’s
experiences outside of school to inform their work with him
inside of school?

• How can teachers connect students to counseling and social
services when there are so few resources available in the school?

• How can school leaders connect with the community to
support students after a traumatic event?

• How can the school offer a safe environment that does not
criminalize its students?

These are the kinds of questions we as educators must consider as
we connect what happens in and outside of classrooms and in individual
student experiences to the CTPP.

Chapter 2  •  Connecting Classroom Management and the Cradle-to-Prison Pipeline   51

In addition, we should also think about the ways students can play
an active role in thinking about and disrupting the CTPP. In particular,
educators can support students by building units and lessons around
the school-funding policies in their states, investigating and debating
the disciplinary policies and associated disciplinary data in their districts
and schools, and mapping out the resources of the community around
trauma, health, and other services. Students can use this knowledge to
ask questions about rates of incarceration in their and other communi-
ties and draw connections to their own experiences and those of their
classmates. Supporting students in interrogating these data allows
them to better understand their context and experience and to push for
accountability from adults around them.

CONNECTING THE CRADLE-TO-PRISON
PIPELINE TO CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

This chapter has focused on providing a broad understanding of the cradle-to-
prison pipeline. In the chapters that follow, we frame effective teaching and
classroom management as important ways to disrupt the CTPP. The mindsets
and practices we discuss throughout the remainder of this book support teach-
ers in developing a caring classroom environment. While some of these con-
tributors are outside of the purview of an individual educator’s responsibility,
understanding the CTPP provides genuine opportunities for addressing aspects
of it in classrooms and supporting the development of broader school cultures
that further act to disrupt it. It is essential that educators reflect on the causes of
the CTPP and the ways they act and react in the classroom that may connect to
the CTPP. Furthermore, it is essential that educators reflect on the root causes
and contributors of office referrals. Indeed, as the chapters that follow demon-
strate, educators can affect their students’ outcomes and associations with the
CTPP through their responses to student behavior, through the rapport and
relationships they build with students, and through their engaged teaching.

REFLECTING ON THE CHAPTER . . .

1. Educators might want to reflect on their feelings and thoughts as they read about
data on the CTPP. How did their understanding of the role of schools change after
studying the data on the CTPP?

2. Teachers may want to connect the factors discussed in this chapter to their own
communities and schools. Can they think of other factors that are not mentioned
here that could influence their students’ experiences with the CTPP?

(Continued)

52   “These Kids Are Out of Control”

(Continued)

3. Teachers should consider studying patterns with respect to race, disability, and
other variables of difference and their own disciplinary practices. How might
tracking the number of disciplinary referrals and suspensions over time in their
schools or in their own classrooms influence the ways they connect the CTPP to
their teaching?

4. Educators might think of students with whom they have challenging relationships
and ask how they think their personal biases may have shaped these
relationships. How do they think the students’ experiences inside and outside of
the classroom may have shaped these relationships?

5. Educators might think of a recent time when they sent a student out of the
classroom or to the principal’s office. Consider what led to that outcome. How
might the factors discussed in this chapter connect to that experience?

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3 CLASSROOM
MANAGEMENT IS
ABOUT EFFECTIVE
INSTRUCTION

Being a spectator not only deprives one of participation, but
also leaves one’s mind free for unrelated activity. If academic
learning does not engage students, something else will.

—John Goodlad, Educational Researcher

Teachers who regularly incorporate meaningful, relevant learning
rarely hear this dreaded student question, “Why are we doing this?”

—Dr. Tony Kline, Dean of Franks School
of Education, Trine University

Classroom management in is about effective, good, responsive, emancipa-
tory, and relevant instruction. By effective instruction we mean teaching
that incorporates four central elements. First, effective instruction requires
that both teachers and students engage in critical reflective practices.
Second, effective instruction requires that teachers shepherd students into
high engagement in course content. Third, effective instruction calls for
teachers to positively frame all aspects of a student’s learning experience—
that they build on the assets and strengths of their students, families, and
communities—and reject deficit mindsets (Milner, 2010). Finally, effective
instruction requires teachers to build a vibrant classroom community that
bridges the wider community with the more local social context of a school.

Teachers in urban settings are less likely to share racial, cultural, lan-
guage, and socioeconomic backgrounds with their students (Kena et al.,
2015; National Center for Education Statistics, 2012). Further exacerbating
this divide is what Haberman (2010) describes as a “pedagogy of poverty,” in
which teachers may have very low expectations and students are taught only to

57

58   “These Kids Are Out of Control”

follow orders and directions. Haberman describes the core functions of teach-
ers in a pedagogy of poverty as

• giving information and directions,

• asking questions,

• making and reviewing assignments,

• monitoring seatwork,

• giving and reviewing tests,

• assigning and reviewing homework,

• settling disputes,

• punishing noncompliance,

• marking papers, and

• giving grades. (p. 82)

As Haberman explains, this pedagogy does not work, because teachers spend
much of their time trying to force students to do things they do not necessarily
want to do, or, perhaps most important, students are completing tasks that do
not make sense to them. Teachers tend to be met with serious student resistance.
However, resistance behaviors such as sleeping in class, refusing to engage in class
activities, and disrupting the learning of others are sometimes the only authentic
expression students can display, as they may feel like the learning environment
does not recognize their language, their culture, their community (Weinstein,
Tomlinson-Clarke, & Curran, 2004), their ways of experiencing the world,
and their preferences. Effective instruction upends the pedagogy of poverty
that dominates some urban spaces and gives students an alternative: authentic
engagement in learning. In this way, effective instruction actually uses student
resistance as a tool to make learning opportunities more accessible to students.

In this chapter, we explore how a teacher can incorporate all four elements
of effective instruction into daily classroom practice, why these elements are
particularly important in urban settings, and how effective instruction can
shape and cultivate teachers’ management of a class. As discussed in previous
chapters, classroom management is not about controlling students, it is about
propelling students’ learning opportunities. These learning opportunities are
accomplished through a range of instructional moves, four of which we outline
next. We capture these elements in the chart on the opposite page (Figure 3.1).

CRITICAL REFLECTIVE PRACTICES

Effective teachers constantly think about and try to solve problems related to
their educational practice (Zeichner & Liston, 2014). In other words, effective

Chapter 3  •  Classroom Management Is About Effective Instruction    59

FIGURE 3.1  ■  Four Elements of Effective Instruction for
Classroom Management

Critical High
Reflective Student
Practices Engagement
in Content

Building Positive
Class Framing

Community

teachers constantly engage in reflection. Schön (1983) offers a useful concep-
tualization of how reflection informs the work of teachers and other profes-
sionals. He begins by suggesting that when teachers act, they do so guided by
a personal “repertoire” of experiences, understandings, and feelings related
to their profession. At times while teaching, teachers engage in “reflection in
action” and adjust their actions in the moment on the basis of their repertoire.
After an activity, teachers may engage in “reflection on action,” in which they
explore why they acted as they did and what was really happening during the
activity. Schön asserts that reflection on action can occur through practices
such as written reflection on an event, discussing an event with colleagues,
or engaging in professional reading related to the event. Through engaging
in practices such as these, Schön posits that practitioners can develop new
understandings, feelings, or experiences that can extend their repertoires and
guide their actions in new ways when working in the future. In this section,
we argue that effective instruction in urban schools requires not only reflec-
tion on action as described by Schön but “critical reflective practices.” By
critical reflective practices we mean reflection on action endeavors in which a
teacher considers his or her own actions and what was really happening dur-
ing an activity with regard to issues of equity, access, and social justice in the
classroom (Howard, 2003).

Although reflection is an important part of effective instruction and
should inform classroom management in any context (Zeichner & Liston,
2014), critical reflective practices are particularly important in urban spaces
because teachers sometimes contribute unknowingly to classroom manage-
ment problems, particularly when responding to the behavior of racially,
ethnically, linguistically, and culturally diverse students (Milner & Tenore,
2010; Weinstein et al., 2004). To illuminate, because teachers are overwhelm-
ingly White, middle class, monolingual, and female, there can be dissonance

60   “These Kids Are Out of Control”

between teachers and students that can stifle students’ opportunities to learn
(Milner, 2011). Of course we understand that all people represent variations
in cultural diversity, but for the purposes of this discussion, we acknowledge
that historically in the United States, White people have been considered
members of the dominant culture (Zeichner & Melnick, 1996), and all other
people have been considered “diverse” (Milner, 2010).

Thus, critical reflective practices are essential for many reasons, and the
nature and focus of that reflection must include but not be limited to research
that has produced the following findings:

• Teachers routinely send Black and Brown students to the
office for more subjective infractions such as “disrespect”
than they do White students, while White students are sent
to the office for more “objective” ones such as being late to
class (Cartledge, Lo, Vincent, & Robinson-Ervin, 2014; Skiba,
Michael, Nardo, & Peterson, 2002).

• Teachers tend to teach through frames that make sense in
their own cultural worlds and how they teach or have taught
their own biological children, sometimes missing important
features of students’ life worlds (Howard, 2010; Milner, 2010).

• Many new teachers say they want to teach because they “love
children” and “want to help them” (Grant & Sleeter, 2011),
yet “high poverty, high minority, and urban schools” have the
highest rates of teachers moving both between schools and
leaving teaching (Ingersoll, 2011, p. 41).

• Many teachers hold traditional beliefs that teaching is an
“objectifiable” craft in which technical components can be
applied to all teaching contexts and all student populations
(Gay & Kirkland, 2003). These beliefs may blind teachers
to nuances of particular classroom contexts and individual
students.

• The influence teachers have on their students does not end
at the end of the school year: they shape the people their
students become and the kind of society their students want to
live in (Ladson-Billings, 2006). Teachers must understand how
their beliefs and actions permanently influence the lives of the
students that they teach.

When teachers engage in critically reflective practices related to topics such
as these, they are able to generate new understandings, feelings, and experi-
ences that expand their repertoires and inform how they approach their work
in the future (Schön, 1983). In doing so, they can modify both their future

Chapter 3  •  Classroom Management Is About Effective Instruction    61

instruction and classroom management practices to better meet student
needs (Valli, 1997; Woolfolk, 1998). Indeed, research suggests that engaging
in reflective practices such as these may be particularly helpful for teachers
who are seeking to make their teaching practice responsive to the needs of stu-
dents in diverse learning contexts, such as urban classrooms (Howard, 2001;
Milner, 2003; Rios, 1996).

Critical reflective practices should also be taught to students. Teaching
students to reflect upon their own lives and how they have come to believe and
feel as they do is one way to engage in good teaching (Haberman, 2010). When
students engage in critical reflective practices, they become aware of the rep-
ertoire of experiences, feelings, and understandings that inform their actions
both in school and in other parts of their lives. As they increase this aware-
ness, they become more capable of enlarging this repertoire (Schön, 1983).
As their repertoires of experiences, feelings, and understandings expand,
they can adjust their behavior to more fully participate both in the classroom
and in wider social contexts. In other words, engagement in critical reflective
practices allows both students and teachers to think about themselves, their
own beliefs, and their actions as all in the classroom work to improve the
social context.

We suggest that teachers integrate critical reflective practices into their
work by adding specific activities into their routine as they plan for a new
semester or school year, as they plan for a new unit, and as they plan for the
next day’s lesson. As teachers plan for a new semester or school year, engag-
ing in a deeply critical reflective practice such as critical self-reflection will
allow teachers to become more aware of the mindsets, perspectives, and beliefs
they hold and that shape their work. As teachers plan for a new unit, we sug-
gest the integration of a set of equity-focused reflection questions that will
prompt them to reflect on ideas such as how frequently they differentiate
lessons and how they assess students (Howard, 2003). And as teachers engage
in daily planning for tomorrow’s lesson, we suggest the integration of a set
of questions that prompt teachers to consider, frame, and attempt to solve
dilemmas of their daily classroom practice (Zeichner & Liston, 2014) using an
equity-focused lens. More about how to integrate critically reflective practices
into all of these typical planning routines is described in more detail below.

Critical Self-Reflection

New semesters and new school years are often filled with rituals and routines
for teachers. New supplies are opened for the classroom, bulletin boards and
posters for the classroom are frequently updated, and teachers may consider
implementing new systems such as new grading rubrics or organizational
plans to improve their overall teaching practice. This time of renewal is the
ideal time for critical self-reflection. By critical self-reflection we mean a deeply
reflective process in which teachers examine the perspectives, mindsets,
and beliefs they hold that shape how they approach their work as a teacher.

62   “These Kids Are Out of Control”

Danielson (2009) describes critical self-reflection as a very sophisticated
type of reflection. As such, it is ideal for teachers to engage in critical self-
reflection when they are between semesters or between school years. These
relatively more open spaces in a teacher’s work cycle lend themselves well to
the focused and intense engagement that is part of critical self-reflection.

Critical self-reflection should include consideration of a teacher’s perspec-
tives, mindsets, and beliefs, particularly as they shape classroom management
practices. This self-reflection should acknowledge that teachers’ beliefs about
how a well-managed classroom should look are shaped by their cultural iden-
tities and cultural values, and that many classroom management practices
intended to create order by U.S. teachers express White middle-class values
(Cartledge et al., 2014; Weinstein et al., 2004).

Moving reflection into spaces of the critical can help teachers pose ques-
tions that allow them to question who they are and what they have done
through their instructional practices to advance learning opportunities for
students. Thus, critical self-reflection can help teachers become familiar with
their privileges, issues, and experiences that have shaped them as people,
such as those arising from their racial or ethnic background, their socioeco-
nomic status, their gender, or their political beliefs (Gay & Kirkland, 2003;
McIntosh, 1990). These facets of teacher identity shape the lens through which
they perceive the people and the world around them. Because critical reflection
requires posing the tough questions about the self and instructional moves, it
has the potential to help teachers transform their instructional practice.

For teachers, acknowledging that they may have made some racist moves,
that they may be biased toward or against their students, and that they may
not be developing effective instructional practices because they do not under-
stand their own privileges can be an important step forward toward improv-
ing instruction (Grant & Sleeter, 2011; Weinstein et al., 2004), which is a
central anchor for effective classroom management. Once teachers reflect
upon the beliefs, privileges, issues, and experiences that have shaped them
and their perceptions of others, they can become more aware of how their
approaches to classroom management need to shift in order to better meet the
needs of their students. Coming to this awareness and enlarging their profes-
sional repertoires to include new feelings, understandings, and experiences
allows teachers to release deeply held beliefs about classroom management
that do not necessarily meet the needs of all their students.

The awareness that comes with critical self-reflection is particularly impor-
tant for teachers working in urban settings. It helps teachers keep in the fore-
front of their minds specific beliefs they have about students in urban schools,
their families, and their communities. Critical self-reflection on these beliefs
may help teachers make instruction and management more responsive to the
needs of students in urban schools (Medina, Morrone, & Anderson, 2005). For
instance, do teachers believe that culturally diverse students and students living
below the poverty line are capable of academic and social success? Do teach-
ers believe they should modify their instructional and classroom management

Chapter 3  •  Classroom Management Is About Effective Instruction    63

practices to meet student needs? Teachers who hold negative beliefs about stu-
dents in urban schools place their students at a significant disadvantage in the
classroom (Milner, 2015). Questions such as these may seem more important, at
first, for White teachers working in urban settings, as these settings have higher
populations of culturally diverse students than other school settings (Kena
et al., 2015). However, all teachers must engage in this critical reflective pro-
cess, as teachers of color, for instance, may also have internalized negative and
damaging stereotypes of their students (Milner, 2015; Tatum, 2001). Negative
and damaging beliefs about students in urban contexts can block a teacher
from making classroom management through his or her instructional prac-
tices responsive to student needs.

Engaging in Critical Self-Reflection

Many activities exist that may assist teachers in engaging in critical self-
reflection. Building on the work of Johnson (2002), Milner (2015) described
critical autobio­graphy as one effective way to engage teachers in such a pro-
cess. Writing a critical self-reflective autobiography requires that teachers
think about past experiences relating to their race, gender, sexual orientation,
religion, and socioeconomic status and many other areas to critically examine
how their past experiences influence their work as teachers (Terrell & Lindsey,
2009). Again, this is a deeply reflective process that may be most effective
when teachers are between semesters or between school years. Teachers may
choose to work on their critical autobiographies for an hour or more a day over
a period of a few weeks. After writing their first critical autobiographies, suc-
cessive engagements in this practice will be updates or revisions of early drafts.

The following questions are offered as starting points in writing a critical
reflective autobiography (adapted from Milner, 2015, p. 161):

• What is your racial background? How do you know?

• In what ways does your racial background privilege you (or
not) in society?

• How and when did you first see yourself as a racial being? How
do you know?

• What is your socioeconomic background? How do you know?

• What was your socioeconomic background growing up?

• How has your socioeconomic background influenced your
educational opportunities?

• In what ways do your race and socioeconomic background
shape your worldview, what you do, how you experience the
world, and what/how you teach?

64   “These Kids Are Out of Control”

This reflective process may need to be revisited again and again over time
as teachers come to know themselves in more critically aware ways. After com-
pleting critical self-reflective autobiographies, teachers can make connections
between their identities, personal and professional autobiographies, and class-
room management practices using questions such as these:

• How does my racial and socioeconomic background influence
decisions I make about what to emphasize in course content,
how to teach it, and classroom management practices?

• How might students of gender identity, sexual orientation,
racial and socioeconomic backgrounds different than my own
respond to my instructional choices and classroom management
strategies and approaches?

• How does my personal experience with regard to family structure
and family life patterns growing up shape my expectations of
student behavior in the class?

• How do my beliefs about personal and community
responsibility inform the expectations I have about how
students treat the physical space of our classroom and
school?

• How do I shape instructional practices and classroom
management strategies in ways that create classroom spaces
of collective expertise, interests, and motivation?

It is important for teachers to understand that there are no wrong or bad
answers to questions like these. The real point is for teachers to consistently
engage in critically reflective practices that allow them to understand what
is happening and why in both the academic and behavioral aspects of the
classroom.

Critical Reflection in Unit Planning

Practices that allow teachers to consider how students are faring in terms of
equity through their teaching practice should be a regular and integral part of
a teacher’s unit planning process. Howard (2003, p. 200) offers a series of ques-
tions that teachers can use to consider questions of equity in the classroom:

• How frequently do I differentiate instruction? How do I
differentiate?

• Do scoring rubrics give inherent advantages for certain ways
of knowing and expression?

Chapter 3  •  Classroom Management Is About Effective Instruction    65

• Do I allow for differences related to cultural practices with
regard to language, speech, reading, and writing to shape my
perceptions about students’ cognitive ability?

• Do I create a multitude of ways to evaluate students? Or do I
rely solely on paper, pencil, and oral responses? How often
do I allow nontraditional means of assessment, such as
role-playing, skits, poetry, rap, self-evaluations, Socratic
seminars, journaling, student-led conferences, or cooperative
group projects to be part of my class?

• What students routinely fare poorly in my classes? What is the
racial breakdown of these students?

• What is the racial breakdown of students I refer for special-
needs services?

• What is the racial breakdown for students I refer for
honors courses, Advanced Placement courses, or gifted
education?

In a similar fashion to engagement in critical self-reflection, critical reflec-
tion in unit planning allows teachers to become more aware of how they are
really engaging in their teaching practice and what is really happening in their
classrooms. Becoming aware of these new understandings enlarges a teach-
er’s professional repertoire, which in turn shifts how a teacher approaches the
practice of teaching on a daily basis. In this way, critical reflection in unit
planning enables teachers to adjust their teaching practices to better meet the
needs of their students.

Critical Reflection in Daily Lesson Planning

In addition to adding critical reflective practices to planning for new semes-
ters and new units, practices should also be added to a teacher’s daily les-
son planning routine. Critical reflective practices for daily lesson planning
prompt teachers to consider, frame, and attempt to solve dilemmas of their
daily classroom practice (Zeichner & Liston, 2014) related to questions of
equity. Although a number of sources (Clift, Houston, & Pugach, 1990;
Danielson, 2009; Zeichner & Liston, 2014) encourage teachers to engage
in daily reflection after teaching a lesson to look for areas for improvement
or problems that arose, the following set of questions specifically prompts
teachers to consider their own actions and what was really happening

66   “These Kids Are Out of Control”

during an activity with regard to issues of equity, access, and social justice
in the classroom:

• Who was successfully engaged in learning during the lesson?
How do I know?

• Who was not successfully engaged in learning during
the lesson? How do I know? What might have blocked the
engagement of these students?

• How could the lesson structure be altered to engage more
students?

• What different instructional strategies could have worked better?

• Should the content be altered or enhanced to promote student
learning?

By adding these critical reflection questions, either in writing or sim-
ply in thought, to their daily lesson planning routines, teachers can become
more attuned to how their students are experiencing learning on a daily basis
and the connections that these learning experiences have to issues of equity.

Sharing Critical Reflective Practices

Although teachers can certainly improve their practice by engaging in these criti-
cal reflective practices on their own, many teachers find great meaning in sharing
their critical reflective work through a collective process with colleagues. Indeed,
Zeichner and Liston (2014) encourage reflection through teacher-led discussion
groups in which participants meet to discuss the events that occur while they are
teaching and help one another reframe their understanding of classroom events in
new and perhaps more helpful ways. By meeting regularly, teachers can share their
work developing critical autobiographies, discuss with one another the assess-
ments of student equity they undertake as part of unit planning, and they can help
one another with the equity-related challenges they uncover as part of daily les-
son planning. Groups that meet regularly, such as biweekly or monthly, can even
extend their collective work into other reflective activities. To mention just a few,
teacher reflection groups can engage in collective reading of professional articles or
books, examine case studies through film or print, or even write and share teacher-
produced poetry, images, or journal entries (Zeichner & Liston, 2014) that
encourage group discussion of equity issues. All of these group encounters have
the same goal of enlarging a teacher’s repertoire of experiences, understandings,
and feelings related to equity issues within his or her teaching practice. And by
enlarging their repertoires with respect to equity issues, teachers are able to make
their actions in the classroom, and indeed their classroom management, more
responsive to the needs of their students.

Chapter 3  •  Classroom Management Is About Effective Instruction    67

Teaching and Modeling Critical Reflection With Students

Effective instruction also encourages students to engage in consistent reflec-
tion about their identities, their participation in a particular class, their
school community, and the community outside of the school. Just as teach-
ers, students can become aware of why and how they participate (or do not
participate) in a particular class, as well as what was really happening during
the class that they may have misinterpreted. Just like teachers, students may
misinterpret the actions or words of others in the room. Through critical
reflection, students may come to realize that what they at first interpreted
as an intentional slight from a teacher or another student was actually not
so at all. Students may also come to see how they contribute to a problem
through critical reflection. From the perspective of classroom management,
developing this consciousness in students helps them understand how they
contribute to or detract from learning opportunities in the classroom, their
school, their community, and their society.

Students can be taught to engage in critically reflective practices through
structured class activities. Simply encouraging students to engage in reflection
without guiding them through a structured process is not enough, as youth
may either not know how to engage in critical reflective practices on their own
or simply will not take the time to do so on their own (Cunningham, 2015;
Sharma, Phillion, & Malewski, 2011). The following practices may prove
helpful in leading students to engage in critical reflection:

• Journaling about their experiences of learning in various
classes and connections they can make between these
experiences and their behavior in each class. Journaling also
about specific episodes and interactions they have had with,
between, and among educators and other classmates provides
excellent opportunities for students to critically reflect.
Students may ask, What was really happening during this
interaction? What role did I play in the interaction? Do I study
and exert the necessary energy in my classroom assignments?

• Class discussions where students can discuss their thoughts
about a particular topic in a supportive environment, such as
what and how they are learning during a particular curriculum
unit or a problem occurring in the school or community.
Students may discuss as a group questions such as, What is
interesting about the topic? What questions do they have or
what are they struggling to learn? Is any obstacle blocking them
from a deeper understanding of the topic? Where do they need
to most focus their energies to more fully understand the topic?

(Continued)

68   “These Kids Are Out of Control”

(Continued)

• Research projects where students can synthesize data
and process their own reactions to what they find, such as
analysis of discipline referral practices for their school
and others in their district. This can be accomplished using
public information such as that offered by the Department of
Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection (http://ocrdata
.ed.gov).

All of these activities involve processes that can lead to critical reflec-
tion on self and society. Again, teachers can model these forms of reflection
as well to help students build their capacity to engage in such processes.
Haberman (2010) would argue that the reflective activities here are par-
ticularly important for teachers working in urban settings, as the pedagogy
of poverty described at the beginning of this chapter may influence some
urban schools to lead students to act indifferent about the world around
them, dependent, and passive.

In the following vignette, Miss Thomas participates in professional devel-
opment about reflective teaching practice that improves her ability to manage
her class. The professional development focuses on self-reflection related to
the cultural practices that she as a teacher brings to the classroom. It is impor-
tant to clarify what we mean by cultural practices. As Gutierrez and Rogoff
(2003) explain, cultural practices are activities a person engages in as a result
of participation in a particular cultural community over time. Engagement in
these practices is not static or located within individuals, but rather dynamic
and may vary from one individual to another as the context for participation
changes.

VIGNETTE A: HOW SELF-REFLECTION HELPS A FIRST

GRADE TEACHER MANAGE HER CLASS

Miss Thomas is a first grade teacher in Washington, DC. Last month,
Miss Thomas’s school held a professional development session that
helped her think about the cultural values and practices she brings to
the classroom as well as those of her students. When asked to describe
her own cultural background in the session, Miss Thomas identified
herself as coming from a “White, working-class, U.S. American family
of Eastern European ancestry.” Cultural values she identified from her
own upbringing included showing respect to her elders, working hard,
and demonstrating self-control. Cultural practices that she identified

Chapter 3  •  Classroom Management Is About Effective Instruction    69

as important while she was growing up included listening quietly and
attentively when adults spoke to her. When asked how she saw her
cultural values and practices influencing her expectations of stu-
dent behavior, Miss Thomas offered that she expects her students to
show her respect by listening silently and attentively when she is
speaking. It was helpful for Miss Thomas to identify these values
and practices as cultural. It enabled her to see her students, most
of whom are African American, as cultural beings as well and recog-
nize that they may have values and cultural practices different than
her own.

Recently, Miss Thomas has become frustrated because a few of her
students consistently interject comments loud enough for the whole
class to hear while she is giving directions or explaining new informa-
tion to the class. The student comments are not offensive, she just finds
them unnecessary, mildly disruptive, and disrespectful because she is
talking. Yesterday as she was reviewing the day’s activities, Jamilah
called out, “Yes Miss Thomas! We will be doing great things today!”
Miss Thomas responded to Jamilah, “Yes, Jamilah, we will. But please
don’t interrupt me while I’m talking.” A bit later in the class while she
was introducing a new read aloud book, Isaiah interjected, “I don’t really
like this book. I like the book about foxes that we read yesterday. Can’t
we read that one again instead?” Miss Thomas felt her frustration level
increase as she responded to Isaiah, “No Isaiah, we are starting a new
book today. And it is disrespectful to interrupt me while I am speaking!
We have only been in school for two weeks and you have interrupted
me every day. You just lost five participation points for today.” Isaiah
seemed bewildered by her sharp response.

After her students went home for the day, she thought back to the
professional development discussion and wondered if differences in cul-
tural practices and values between herself and her students were shap-
ing the disconnect between her expectations and student behavior. Miss
Thomas wondered:

1. Why did the same students interrupt her so much while she was
speaking to the whole class?

2. Did Jamilah and Isaiah interpret their own behavior today as
disrespectful?

3. Some students may prefer a “call and response” active listening
type approach in the classroom as a means to positively affirm a
speaker (Gay, 2010). Could the behavior that frustrates her in the
classroom be rooted in this cultural practice?

70   “These Kids Are Out of Control”

4. Is there a way she could modify her expectations of student
behavior to make it more responsive to the cultural values and
practices of her students?

As we see in this vignette, reflective practices can help teachers
improve classroom management by helping them see their own role
in shaping classroom management nuances and how cultural values
and practices may be a factor. By reflecting upon her own values and
practices and those of her students, Miss Thomas is one step closer to
making classroom management practices responsive to the needs of
her students. What else does Miss Thomas need to know to learn about
those cultural practices and how can she develop such knowledge and
understanding?

In summary, we hope educators who read this chapter will remember the
following points:

• Critical reflective practices can help teachers with classroom
management because it makes them more aware of the part
they play as adults in shaping their students’ experiences of
learning. This is imperative for teachers in urban spaces, who
may not share a racial, cultural, socioeconomic, or language
background with many of their students.

• Critical reflective practices help teachers understand how
their own identities, expectations of behavior, and beliefs
shape students’ opportunities to learn. Once they understand
this, it is much easier to understand why students respond
as they do in the classroom and how to interact with students
in ways that bring out the best in them rather than eliciting a
greater likelihood of discipline problems.

• Teaching and modeling critical reflective practices through
structured class activities can help students think about
their own reactions, responses, and successes in learning.
These activities help students to take more responsibility for
their own contributions to a classroom community, as well
as their contributions to the school and wider community.
When teachers model critical self-reflection, it shows
students how important it is for them to think about their own
strengths and also areas where they—any of us—can get
better.

Chapter 3  •  Classroom Management Is About Effective Instruction    71

HIGH STUDENT ENGAGEMENT
IN COURSE CONTENT

A second feature of effective teaching is about high engagement of students
in course content. By high student engagement in course content we mean that
teachers design and deliver lessons that

• focus on student comprehension of rigorous content (such as
in mathematics, science, art, and other content areas);

• draw upon students’ experiences, cultural backgrounds, and
cultural practices;

• provide students multiple meaningful pathways for learning
that draw upon students’ varied learning strengths; and

• allow classroom knowledge to be co-constructed by students
and not just the teacher alone.

In other words, high student engagement in course content means that
the teacher has considered and thought deeply about the student experience
of the lesson just as much as the content of the lesson itself. Ladson-Billings
(2015) describes “21st-century” students in U.S. classrooms today as youth
who are looking to teachers to help them innovate, solve problems creatively,
and deeply engage them in learning. However, the pedagogy of poverty that
may influence some classrooms may lead teachers to perceive some students
in urban spaces as passive and lacking curiosity (Haberman, 2010). Cartledge
et al. (2014) draw from two empirical studies (Greenwood, Hart, Walker,
& Risley, 1994; Stichter et al., 2009) to make the argument that students in
“urban” classrooms engage in responding to questions posed by the teacher
less frequently than students in more “affluent” classrooms (p. 417). For this
reason, we are stressing that high student engagement in urban spaces requires
an explicit and intentional focus on learning tasks that are rigorous, draw upon
student references, offer multiple pathways for learning, and give students an
active role in knowledge construction. In this section, we will describe what a
classroom looks like when students are highly engaged in course content.

Focusing on Student Comprehension
of Rigorous Content

High student engagement in course content is promoted through thoughtful
lesson design and lesson delivery. In both instructional phases, effective instruc-
tion means that teachers draw upon both their own knowledge of the content,
as well as their knowledge of how their students may best learn the content.
Shulman (1987) refers to these knowledge bases as content knowledge and

72   “These Kids Are Out of Control”

pedagogical content knowledge. Content knowledge refers to knowledge of the
subject matter itself. Pedagogical content knowledge refers to expertise in how to
best organize and frame content so that students can learn it, that is, how the
content is taught (Shulman, 1986). Pedagogical content knowledge entails a
teacher’s understanding of which content to select for various teaching goals and
levels of difficulty and how to best frame content to respond to students.

Teachers with strong pedagogical content knowledge know how to select
the best content and effectively present it to students. In the primary grades,
a teacher with strong pedagogical content knowledge knows which book to
select for a class read-aloud to demonstrate the particular letter blends students
are learning. This teacher also knows which review activities to engage students
in if they are still struggling with these letter blends after the initial lesson. In
middle school, a science teacher with strong pedagogical content knowledge
understands which lab experiment will best help students discover the process
by which matter can shift between solid, liquid, and gaseous states. This teacher
can also simplify the steps of the experiment for students who struggle with
reading complex directions, while still allowing the students to meet the learn-
ing goal by conducting the experiment. And at the high school level, a world
history teacher with strong pedagogical content knowledge understands how to
present World War II as a series of related events for a group of students when
the learning goal is understanding cause and effect among historical events. This
teacher also understands how to modify this lesson for a different group of stu-
dents who already understand historical cause and effect and are ready to ana-
lyze the war’s human rights implications. These teachers are also able to make
connections between and among other subjects and topics explored, as well as
connections relevant to students’ own experiences and preexisting knowledge.
In all of these cases, strong pedagogical content knowledge on the part of the
teacher leads to student learning experiences that should match student needs.

When teachers design lessons and units that take into consideration how
best to present a topic to a particular group of students in a particular place,
at a particular time, they should expect student engagement to be higher.
Kirkland (2011) stresses the importance of teachers carefully selecting texts for
male African American students to read in class and notes that they will engage
deeply in reading texts that connect with how they see themselves and their
beliefs and how they want others to see them. Journell and Castro (2011) make
a similar point, highlighting increased engagement among a group of Latinx
students in a high school politics class when the teacher used a semester-long
thematic focus on the topic of immigration. This was a highly relevant issue
for many students in the class. But when the student experience of a lesson is
overlooked, it may be more likely and more appealing for students to disengage
from learning or disrupt class. Students who see lessons as conveying ideas out-
side of their own belief system and worldview can even believe that school is
trying to impose new and different beliefs and ways of thinking upon them and
completely resist engagement in class activities (Kirkland, 2013). And as pre-
viously discussed, when teachers attempt to force students to engage in tasks

Chapter 3  •  Classroom Management Is About Effective Instruction    73

they do not want to engage in, they are more likely to encounter significant
resistance and therefore classroom management problems. For this reason,
effective instruction requires a teacher to use pedagogical content knowledge to
carefully select both content (the curriculum—the what) and methods
(instruction—pedagogy) that are the best fit (Kirkland, 2013) for a particular
group of students. In this way, high student engagement in rigorous content
reduces temptation for students to engage in distractions or disrupt class.

Drawing on Students’ Experiences

and Cultural Backgrounds

High-engagement lessons also customize both content and delivery to student
experiences and cultural backgrounds. When teachers get to know their stu-
dents and the communities in which they live, it becomes an essential part of
their practice to draw examples from student lives to help them make sense
of academic content. For instance, if students have to pay to ride the public
bus system to get to school every day, a math teacher may use news articles
about potential bus fare rate increases to teach a lesson about ratios, rates, and
percentages. Teachers at first may be unfamiliar with the neighborhoods in
urban spaces where their students live. Taking the time to learn about all of
these facets of students’ lives makes it possible for teachers to build upon stu-
dents lives and experiences in the classroom.

The work of ethnomathematician Gloria Gilmer provides teachers with an
excellent example of how to present course content in a way that draws upon stu-
dent backgrounds (Boutte, 2016; Delpit & Dowdy, 2008). Gilmer (2008) stud-
ied patterns and tessellations in African American hair braiding. A tessellation is
the covering of a two-dimensional space by a repeated shape without any gaps or
overlaps (Pearce, 2013). Students from a variety of backgrounds are interested in
braiding and hairstyles, and this topic can be used to introduce math concepts to
students at a variety of levels. At the primary level, this topic can be used to intro-
duce the concept of basic shapes such as triangles and squares that are commonly
used in braiding patterns. At the middle and high school levels, students can be
engaged in drawing and modifying tessellations.

Rothstein-Fisch and Trumbull (2008) highlight the success of teachers in
the Los Angeles area who emphasize collective learning practices in the class-
room as a way of connecting with student-held values. These collective learn-
ing tasks include activities such as asking students to quiz one another with
flash cards to learn sight words instead of asking students to study sight words
independently. These teachers shared with researchers that their students seem
to prefer collective learning over independent learning. They believe that this
preference may be related to a strong emphasis on collectivism in the local
immigrant Latinx community.

In all of these examples, the goal is not to add new curricular units or make
more work for teachers but rather to make the learning of new content more
accessible by scaffolding it with students’ existing knowledge, interests, and

74   “These Kids Are Out of Control”

values (Gonzalez, Moll, & Amanti, 2005). These instructional moves make
it far more likely that students will engage in learning instead of resisting
and turning to distractions and disruptions because they can see themselves,
their culture, their language, and their community in and through classroom
endeavors.

Multiple Meaningful Pathways for Success

Providing for student engagement in learning also means that teachers rec-
ognize that all students have different learning strengths and offer students
meaningful and varied pathways to build upon these strengths to learn
about a particular topic (Milner, 2006). The important work of Gardner
(2011) around multiple intelligences reminds us that whereas some stu-
dents learn best through activities that involve reading and writing, others
learn best though visual, kinesthetic, and other pathways. Using a variety of
learning pathways makes it likely that more students will engage in learning
during the lesson. For instance, teachers could consider the following ideas:

• At the primary level, teachers may ask students to order plastic
letters of the alphabet on their desks, in addition to completing
speaking and reading activities about consonant-vowel pairs.

• In middle school, teachers may teach students to draw pie
charts as a visual means of conceptualizing the multiplication
or division of fractions.

• High school science teachers may ask students to write a
poem or a rhyme that includes key information students learn
about the human body and organ functions.

While the idea above may seem general, the point is that teachers should use
these examples as a way to think about engagement of students that respond
specifically to how their particular students best learn. In all of these examples,
teachers recognize that students learn through a variety of modalities and offer
opportunities for students to engage in visual learning, kinesthetic learning,
and other learning modalities as well. Sometimes when students disrupt class,
they do so because they do not see the material as accessible to them. However,
student complaints such as “This is boring!” or “I’m not doing this worksheet!”
usually evaporate when students are presented with tasks that engage them
using the pathways in which they prefer to learn.

Recall the description of “21st-century” students as yearning for deep
engagement and opportunities to creatively problem solve offered by Ladson-
Billings (2015). Instead of asking students to read a passage and complete
multiple choice questions, a teacher of 21st century students could ask them
instead to read a passage, then work with a partner to develop a 1-minute

Chapter 3  •  Classroom Management Is About Effective Instruction    75

(simulated) video podcast in which they summarize the main ideas of the pas-
sage and emphasize what they believe to be the most important “takeaways”
from the passage. Offering students a challenging learning task such as this
reduces a teacher’s need to actively manage a class (Lemov, 2014). By provid-
ing engagement opportunities that are challenging and attractive to students,
the allure of disrupting instructional time should dissipate.

High-engagement lessons may take a variety of forms. In a primary class-
room, a high-engagement class lesson could be a math assignment that uses
game pieces and requires students to work together to solve puzzle problems. At
the middle school level, a high-engagement lesson might involve a mock trial
activity where students do historical research to prepare to play a role in social
studies. At the high school level, a high-engagement lesson might be a science
laboratory activity that requires students to bring in items commonly found in
their homes to test their scientific properties. These types of challenging and
participatory lessons keep classrooms away from the pedagogy of poverty, where
students spend much of their time following orders and directions given by the
teacher (Haberman, 2010). The learning tasks described in these scenarios pro-
vide students with a variety of pathways to experience learning opportunities.
Offering these diversified yet meaningful pathways provide students with the
focus and motivation needed to engage in learning. This increases the likeli-
hood overall that students will engage in learning instead of engaging in resis-
tance behaviors that become classroom management problems for the teacher.

Co-Construction of Classroom Knowledge

High-engagement learning in course content means that knowledge that is cre-
ated in the classroom is co-constructed by students and teachers together (Delpit,
2006; Emdin, 2016; Ladson-Billings, 2009). Instead of the teacher standing at
the front of the room giving students information, effective instruction means
that teachers instead act as guides who let students figure out answers for and
among themselves. Haberman (2010) identified 12 student behaviors that may
indicate positive, meaningful learning environments, and many of these behav-
iors include co-construction of knowledge with the teacher. These behaviors are
as follows (Haberman, 2010, pp. 85–87):

 1. Students are involved with issues they regard as vital concerns in their lives.

 2. Students are involved with explanations of human differences such as
race, gender, and religion.

 3. Students are being helped to see major concepts, big ideas, general
principles—not just isolated facts.

 4. Students are involved in planning what they will be doing in class.

 5. Students are involved with the application of ideals such as fairness,
equity, and justice to their world.

76   “These Kids Are Out of Control”

 6. Students are actively involved in learning tasks.

 7. Students are directly involved in a real life experience.

 8. Students are actively engaged in heterogeneous groups.

 9. Students are asked to think about an idea in a way that questions
common sense or widely accepted assumptions, relates new ideas to
ones learned previously, or applies ideas to problems of living.

10. Students are involved in re-doing, polishing, and perfecting their
work.

11. Teachers involve students with technology and accessing information.

12. Students are involved in reflecting on their own lives, and how they
have come to believe and feel as they do.

For instance, teachers encourage students to come to answers on their own
or work with peers to do so. Instead of saying, “Yes, the answer is 4,” a pri-
mary teacher may say, “Well, the answer could be 4 . . . how did you get that
answer?” when discussing math problem-solving strategies. It also may mean
arranging a middle school science lesson so that students critique their peers’
lab reports instead of turning them directly in to the teacher for feedback.
Or it may mean a high school teacher facilitates a class discussion in which
students discuss their ideas about how best to address a local problem such
as improving access to bus transportation across city neighborhoods without
raising the bus fare. In any case, when a teacher acts as a guide instead of as the
classroom knowledge authority, students take on a more active role in con-
structing knowledge they encounter. When students are given opportunities
to co-construct classroom knowledge, they are less likely to resist engagement
and turn to disruptive and distracting behaviors. Overall, promoting high stu-
dent engagement means attending to the learning experience of the particular
group of students in the classroom just as much as the content delivered in the
lesson. In the following vignette, Mrs. Williams leads a lesson that keeps her
students engaged from beginning to end.

VIGNETTE B: HIGH STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

IN MIDDLE SCHOOL MATH

Mrs. Williams teaches sixth grade students in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Her current math unit helps students construct numerical data sets, dis-
play the data, and calculate measures of central tendency such as mean
and median. Today’s lesson was a cumulative review, designed to give
her students practice with all the new skills and concepts they learned
during the past week.

Chapter 3  •  Classroom Management Is About Effective Instruction    77

Mrs. Williams asked students to join their three-person teams, which
she carefully designed at the beginning of the semester to balance stu-
dents of varying strengths and weaknesses. Alejandra and Ian were
the math activity leaders today. As such, Alejandra followed the activ-
ity directions and told students that within each team, students must
decide who will be the spokesperson, who will be the data recorder,
and who will be the graphic artist. Once these roles were set, Ian told
his classmates that each group must develop a survey question to ask
fellow classmates that will yield a numerical answer. Candace asked,
“So we can ask whatever question that we want, but whatever the ques-
tion is, the answer has to be a number, right?” Alejandra responded,
“Exactly,” and Ian nodded in agreement with a serious look in his eye.
Mrs. Williams smiled at Alejandra and Ian. They were doing a great
job as activity leaders! Students brainstormed questions among them-
selves, and the most popular question across groups seemed to be,
“How many different video games have you played?” After Mrs. Williams
checked to be sure that each team had a clear question, Alejandra
gave students 15 minutes to ask their questions to 10 other students
in the room and recorded results in the data recorder’s notebook. The
room became animated and loud, as students mingled about asking
and answering one another’s questions. Most students stayed focused,
having fun with their questions. Ian, Antonio, Jonas, and Marcus,
however, began to argue about the existence of a few games Antonio
claimed he had played and opened an Internet browser on Marcus’s cell
phone to verify the titles. Mrs. Williams noticed this and approached
the four boys. She asked them why they were using Marcus’s phone.
Both Antonio and Marcus heatedly explained. After they explained their
points of view, Mrs. Williams asked Marcus and Jonas to take Antonio’s
word for it that the games exist, as the point of the lesson was to gather
data for the bar graphs and talk with more classmates, not engage in
Internet research about video games. She also reminded them they
only had about 5 minutes left to talk to other classmates. Marcus and
Jonas decided to drop the quarrel and interview Janette and Ashlyn
instead. Antonio and Ian moved on as well, deciding to ask Robert about
all the games he had played. Alejandra soon gave all of the students a
3-minute warning. Once all the time had passed, Alejandra asked them
to take their seats at their tables with their teammates.

In the next step of the lesson, Ian explained to the other students
how to make a pie chart from their data responses. This is a skill they
learned during the previous week. Mrs. Williams was proud that Ian gave
such a clear explanation, and she was happy that she had practiced this
step with him a few times during the past few days. Alejandra then said
that the graphics artist in each group would draw a circle on the chart

78   “These Kids Are Out of Control”

paper she gave to them, and reviewed how to fill it in: Each piece of the
pie should be approximately the same size as the percentage of
people who gave the answer. Alejandra reminded students to use
different-colored markers for each pie piece, and make a key that
explains what each color represents. Once the pie chart was finished,
Alejandra told each group to display and label the following calcula-
tions: the mean (or average of all numerical responses), the median
(the middle number, or mean of the middle two numbers), and the
mode (the number[s] that appear most often). At the end of this les-
son, Ian asked the spokesperson for each group to present their infor-
mation to the rest of the class.

Mrs. Williams reflected on this lesson during her free period. She
wondered:

• Although this lesson worked fairly well, how could she continue to
increase the challenge and attractiveness of participating so that
even fewer students become distracted, as Ian, Jonas, Antonio,
and Marcus did?

• How can she add more pathways for successful learning to
better engage students who have difficulty deriving the correct
math responses from the pie charts? Although her visual
learners did well at this task, some students struggled using
this representation.

• Mrs. Williams has noted that her students seem to have a
much easier time understanding complex concepts when
she can link new ideas to ones that students synthesized
themselves. How can she continue to refer to the student
data charts displayed around the room in future related
lessons?

• Finally, Mrs. Williams wondered, In what ways could her
students participate more in the design of the lesson? In
other words, while the students seemed engaged in the
lesson from beginning to end of the lesson, only Alejandra
and Ian had significant roles in enacting it. How could Mrs.
Williams increase the number of students involved in the
planning and enactment of class learning experiences? How
could she increase the depth of student participation in the
planning and enactment of class learning experiences?

Chapter 3  •  Classroom Management Is About Effective Instruction    79

Mrs. Williams considered enhancing the learning opportunity by giv-
ing group awards at the end of the lesson, as she knew that her mid-
dle school students loved competition. She considered announcing the
awards at the beginning of the lesson the next time she taught this unit.
Some of the awards that she could give would be best teamwork, most
creative, most accurate, and overall best display. She knew that these
awards did not have to be fancy or elaborate, but the friendly competition
might enhance student engagement even further.

As we see in this vignette, high-engagement lessons can lead to
an exciting classroom experience for students. In teacher-directed
lessons, students mainly engage through listening and answering
teacher-posed questions. But in high-engagement lessons, students
engage in the content in multiple ways. The 15-minute period when
students were “loud” and mingling freely around the room might seem
like a recipe for a classroom management disaster to some teachers.
But Mrs. Williams and her students structured the learning task in a
way that made it attractive and enjoyable for students to stay focused
on the task even during this segment. When a few students became
distracted, Mrs. Williams was successful in redirecting them back to
the task at hand. Lessons that build upon high student engagement, as
Mrs. Williams and her students developed, keep students engaged in
learning and decrease the likelihood that they will turn to distracting or
disruptive behaviors instead.

High Engagement Lessons
Improve Classroom Management

Overall, in summary, high-engagement lessons

• use teachers’ content knowledge and pedagogical content
knowledge to select the most relevant and responsive content
and methods to engage a particular group of students in learning;

• draw upon student experiences and backgrounds in a way that
draws them into learning;

• recognize that students have a variety of learning strengths
and styles and therefore offer multiple pathways of
meaningful engagement; and

• engage students as co-constructors of knowledge who are
actively involved in what is learned in the classroom.

80   “These Kids Are Out of Control”

By engaging students in rigorous content, drawing upon what they know
and believe, offering them a variety of ways to meaningfully learn and partici-
pate, and calling for students to co-construct classroom knowledge, students
do not feel the need to resist learning tasks and turn to distractions or disrup-
tions that become classroom management problems.

POSITIVE FRAMING

In addition to consistent teacher and student critical reflective practices and
high student engagement in content, effective instruction for classroom man-
agement requires what we are calling positive framing. By positive framing we
mean that a teacher uses an optimistic and enthusiastic outlook when talking
about all facets of student learning, believes and communicates to students
that they can and will succeed, and holds the work of teaching and learn-
ing in high regard. All of these aspects of positive framing communicate to
students that their endeavors as students are worthwhile and that they are
likely to experience success in the classroom. An intentional emphasis on
positive framing is particularly important for successful classroom manage-
ment in urban settings, as these spaces have higher concentrations of cul-
turally diverse students and students living below the poverty line (Kena,
et al., 2015). Many teachers unknowingly approach culturally diverse stu-
dents and students living below the poverty line in urban classrooms with a
deficit lens that undervalues their assets and silently communicates to them
that the activities taking place in the classroom are not worth their attention
(Haberman, 2010; Milner, 2015). Positive framing helps students see some-
thing that is critical to their achievement: that they do indeed belong in the
classroom and they are capable of academic and social success (Cartledge
et al., 2014). In this section, we will explore how a teacher can integrate posi-
tive framing into daily classroom practices.

Optimism and Enthusiasm

Optimistic and enthusiastic mindsets, beliefs, and outlooks can be conta-
gious. Consider when people experience attending a party where not much is
happening—people stand quietly in the shadows, steering clear of the dance
floor. They make small talk with other party guests, clutch their drinks, and
glance at their watches. And then it happens. The party starter walks in. The
person everyone loves to be around arrives. The party starter smiles and greets
everyone because she knows everyone. She tells a few jokes, asks the DJ to
play her favorite song, jumps to the dance floor, and then the party really gets
started. The room is transformed. Many others join her on the dance floor,

Chapter 3  •  Classroom Management Is About Effective Instruction    81

and everyone starts to really have fun. Drinks are cast aside and no one even
remembers that they are wearing a watch.

Teachers who use positive framing in their classroom are party starters.
When a teacher uses positive framing, even the most mundane task can seem
interesting and worthwhile to students. Enticing students through positive
framing to join with the group in a class activity is likely to yield far more pro-
ductive results than publicly correcting students for off-task behaviors (Lemov,
2014). When students are corrected in front of their peers, they get embar-
rassed, and they often shut down. This can also lead to disruptive behaviors
because students may feel they have to impress their classmates, compete with
them, and redeem themselves. Optimism, enthusiasm, and a sense of excite-
ment should inform everything a classroom teacher does, as all are contagious
and help students engage most fully in the learning process. Positive framing
is specifically needed to draw students—all students—into engaging in class-
room learning activities.

Communicating Student Success

Another important feature of positive framing is communicating student suc-
cess. Teachers who engage in positive framing believe and communicate to
students that they can and will succeed. Students will engage in even very
challenging learning tasks—such as writing out calculus proofs, completing
chemistry labs, and critiquing esoteric literature—if their teachers communi-
cate optimism that they are capable of these challenging tasks (Delpit, 2012;
Lemov, 2014; Milner, 2010). Imagine a student’s response to the following
introduction from a math teacher:

Alright everybody, today we are completing our first calculus proof
from beginning to end. Yes, I know this is a challenge, and some of
you might feel intimidated. But you have succeeded in challenging
tasks before. Think about something tough you had to do in the past
few weeks and how you eventually succeeded. This could be at home,
in the classroom, playing a video game, or in any part of your life.
How did you know that it was challenging? How did you get it done
anyway? Did you struggle or fail before you succeeded? You probably
did, because that is how growth works. You are capable of succeeding
even when tasks are difficult. Your minds are sharp. We are ready.
Let’s jump in and do this!

On the contrary, students with teachers who do not engage in positive
framing may not be able to see themselves being successful at completing a

82   “These Kids Are Out of Control”

challenging learning task. Imagine a student’s response to a different introduc-
tion of the same mathematics task:

Okay, everyone, today we are attempting to finish a whole calculus
proof before you go. This is really tough, so do not beat yourself up
too badly if you get stuck and do not finish.

Now compare the two introductions. Which students would be more
encouraged or motivated in completing the calculus proof? Positively fram-
ing this challenging task in a way that communicates the teacher’s belief
that students will succeed can make a big difference in student success. It is
important, too, that teachers actually believe that students can be successful.
And although positive framing can make a big difference to all students, it is
even more critical for students in urban spaces, who are not always viewed by
teachers as capable of attaining success (Milner, 2015).

Demonstrated Regard for Teaching and Learning

Finally, teachers who engage in positive framing demonstrate a high regard for
themselves as teachers, their students, and the serious work involved in teach-
ing and learning overall (Ladson-Billings, 2009). This means that teachers see
their career as making a valuable contribution to society, not just a paycheck
they receive until they can find a “better” or different job. It also means that
teachers demonstrate a belief that students are worth their time and attention,
both during and outside of classroom time.

Consider Mr. Freeman and Mr. Atwell, two teachers at Lighthouse
Middle School. Mr. Freeman always reminds his students about the signifi-
cance of their work. He frequently tells his students, “You will be running
our community and our world in a few years—so stay focused.” He also
reminds them how important his work is: “No one shapes the future of our
planet as much as teachers and learners.” When he notices that students are
struggling either in his class or in another class, he asks them to drop by
before or after school for a snack and talks with them. He helps with home-
work and reviews lessons if needed, even if the lesson is not for his class. He
lets them talk about challenges they are having at home or at school that are
preventing their academic, behavioral, or social success. He helps students
refocus and get back on track in their coursework or calls on the proper
support systems to assist them. Mr. Atwell, on the other hand, likes to tell
his students that “the best three things about teaching are June, July, and
August.” He tells his students he does not like to be “bothered” when he is
not teaching class, and his students rarely disturb him during what he calls
his “me time” in his classroom.

Communicating to students that they are worthy of a teacher’s time and
effort both inside and outside of class time can help them succeed in learning.
Indeed, when students have a teacher like Mr. Freeman whom they know they

Chapter 3  •  Classroom Management Is About Effective Instruction    83

can count on for support, it is much more likely that they will succeed in all of
their classes.

Teachers like Mr. Freeman who communicate this worthiness to stu-
dents find themselves the “go-to” teachers who are consulted about all types
of coursework. It is no wonder that students seek out Mr. Freeman and not
Mr. Atwell. Mr. Freeman communicates the importance of learning and the
importance of his students’ success in everything that he does. In an urban
setting, communicating this high regard for teaching and learning is perhaps
even more vital, as students in urban spaces are more likely to be exposed to
low expectations for their academic and social success than students in other
settings (Milner, 2015).

VIGNETTE C: HOW POSITIVE FRAMING PROMOTES

SUCCESS IN HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH

Mr. Long lets his students know every day that he loves being their
English teacher and considers it important work. He tells them he
wears a dress shirt and a tie every day because they are engaged in
important business in the classroom. This morning, he stands outside
of the classroom door and greets students as they walk in the room, as
he always does. He tells them to jump into the warm-up exercise on
the board, because they have lots to do during class and will need to
be warmed up in order to do their best. Mr. Long likes to start off each
class with a quick summary of what they will be doing, and makes even
the most mundane task sound vitally important. He explains, “Today
you will be working in teams to get your essays publication ready. This
means you need to edit your classmates’ work and help them revise
any unclear sentences or grammar problems that would make them
look less than brilliant when their writing hits their audience. Imagine
former President Obama reading their work—because once we publish
these online, who knows, he just might!”

After the class ends, Mr. Long reflects on his teaching practice:

• Mr. Long believes he demonstrates enthusiasm about the peer-
review task and communicates his optimism that students will
do well at the task. But how does he convey enthusiasm and
optimism when his students have to engage in tasks he finds
more mundane, like improving their spelling and grammar skills?

• Mr. Long knows that he demonstrates high regard for himself
and his students by wearing a dress shirt and tie every day and
sharing why he does that with his students. But he wonders,

(Continued)

84   “These Kids Are Out of Control”

(Continued)
what else can he do or say to help his students understand that
their academic success matters?

• Mr. Long senses that his positive framing is contagious and
that it increases the engagement of many of his students.
Still, a few seem to resist his positivity and take some coaxing
in order to engage in daily tasks. How else could Mr. Long
use positive framing to attract these challenging students to
classroom lessons?

Overall in this vignette, we see that Mr. Long engages in positive framing
on many fronts. He approaches the day’s lesson with optimism and enthu-
siasm, encouraging students to “jump in” and “warm up” for the lesson at
hand. And he demonstrates high regard for their work, mentioning that even
perhaps a former president might read it once everyone’s work is published
online. Teaching moves such as these draw students into academic success.

Positive Framing Improves
Classroom Management

In summary, positive framing helps teachers because it allows them to cre-
ate learning atmospheres in which students want to participate. This occurs
through instructional moves such as the following:

• Using optimism and enthusiasm to set the stage for an
environment students want to join. Teacher efforts to create a
space that invites student participation are far less exhausting
than continuously correcting undesired student behaviors.

• Communicating the likelihood of student success on the basis
of their past successes. Even if students have not always been
successful in the classroom, teachers can call attention to
successes students have had in other areas of their lives.

• Demonstrating a high regard for teaching and learning.
Teachers should demonstrate that their own time and effort
engaged in classroom activities, as well as that of their
students, are important and valuable.

Using positive framing is especially important because teachers who
hold deficit views about students’ capabilities tend to be unsuccessful
(Milner, 2015).

Chapter 3  •  Classroom Management Is About Effective Instruction    85

BUILDING A CLASSROOM COMMUNITY

Finally, effective instruction is about building a supportive classroom com-
munity. Of course, developing powerful relationships between the teacher
and students is an essential part of building a supportive classroom commu-
nity. We discuss in more depth the nature and importance of relationship
building and sustaining in a subsequent chapter. But building a supportive
classroom community also means

1. acknowledging that the classroom is situated within both the local
community and wider social context;

2. creating a space that is safe for students to make mistakes, learn, and
actively support one another; and

3. physically organizing the classroom learning space to promote
interaction between and among students.

Creating a supportive classroom community means acknowledging and
drawing upon the diverse values and cultural practices of the students who
make up this community (Rothstein-Fisch & Trumbull, 2008). In this sec-
tion we will explain what each of these three ideas looks like in practice and
how each one can aid the teacher in the overall management of the class.

Acknowledging and Understanding
Community and Broader Social Contexts

Teachers should build classroom communities that make sense within both the
local community and the wider social context in which students live (Gay, 2010;
Ladson-Billings, 2006; Weinstein et al., 2004). In other words, teachers should take
the social context of a particular place into consideration when managing the daily
classroom life for a particular group of students (Milner, 2010). Opportunities and
resources are not equal and certainly not equitable across educational settings. In
urban spaces, this means paying attention to urban contextual factors such as poor
access to stable and well-paying employment for parents, neighborhood housing
and safety concerns, and challenges such as the need for older students to contrib-
ute to the family through work or caring for younger siblings.

For instance, asking primary grade students to get help from parents with
their reading homework every night may be difficult if parents in the commu-
nity are working multiple jobs to make ends meet. Focusing on completing
reading activities in class where teachers and paraprofessionals can help stu-
dents may make more sense in this context. Similarly, asking middle school
students to interview five neighbors about community issues may be difficult
if students are apartment dwellers and do not know neighbors well enough to
ask them interview questions. Having students interview anyone living in the
community or people working at community spaces such as libraries or youth

86   “These Kids Are Out of Control”

centers may make more sense. And asking high school students to complete
multiple hours of homework every night may be setting students up for aca-
demic failure if they have to work many nights to contribute to meeting the
needs of their families. Giving students homework packets at the beginning
of curricular units so that they can plan ahead to complete the tasks on nights
they do not work may prove to be a better strategy, or developing project-
based assignments that allow students multiple weeks to complete a task may
prove to be a better strategy. By creating learning experiences that make sense
for the context in which they live, students are more likely to be engaged in an
assignment and have less motivation to avoid it. In all of these cases, adjust-
ing the rhythm and flow of the class to fit the lives of students within it allows
them the best opportunity to fully participate as class community members.

Creating a Safe Space for Learners

As teachers build community in classroom, they should also focus on cre-
ating a safe space where students feel like they are part of a community of
learners. Dweck (2006) describes the concept of a “growth mindset,” in which
learners view making errors and receiving feedback from others on their
errors as positive because these occurrences lead the way to improvement.
When a teacher promotes this growth mindset in the classroom, students can
come to understand that making errors is an expected part of the learning
process, and getting help from peers and the teacher is part of the classroom
culture. Social interactions in the classroom should promote this feeling of
community among students (Ladson-Billings, 2009), not build a sense of
competition between students. For instance, when teachers in Los Angeles
promoted peer-support strategies in the classroom, they found that these
approaches were in harmony with the strong emphasis many area immigrant
Latinx families place on helping and sharing with others (Rothstein-Fisch &
Trumbull, 2008).

Students can begin to feel comfortable asking for help from peers and the
teacher when it is a normalized and routinized classroom practice. A teacher
can take steps to build this process into the classroom culture by adding
explicit steps to lessons where students consult peers for feedback on their
work. At the primary level, this might involve students’ showing their work
in progress to other students as they solve a word problem in math. In middle
school, this could involve students’ sharing a draft of a science lab report to
peers to get feedback on any reporting steps they missed or how well they
communicated what they saw in a class experiment. In high school, this could
involve students’ showing early drafts of an English essay to peers to get feed-
back about how to further develop the ideas they have shared or get a fresh
set of eyes on their grammar and spelling. In all of these cases, students show
their work in process to multiple peers to normalize the experience of getting
peer feedback.

Chapter 3  •  Classroom Management Is About Effective Instruction    87

Teachers can make peer feedback activities more successful for students
by providing students with structure and support in the process. To begin,
teachers should provide students with very specific classroom directions on
what to look for in their classmates’ work and ensure that students give posi-
tive feedback to one another in addition to highlighting areas for revision.
Teachers can also model feedback processes with students to give them a
good picture of how feedback can function and how to provide feedback
that is constructive but encouraging as well. Teachers should also mix up
feedback partners frequently, so that students can grow accustomed to get-
ting feedback from many peers and steer clear of the idea that constructive
feedback from a peer is only because one particular student “just doesn’t
like” the writing. By building community within the classroom that seems
natural and comfortable, students can feel safe enough to engage in learning
and most importantly take risks.

Physical Classroom Design

Classroom designs should be deliberately organized and constructed. The
physical organization of a classroom should promote the types of interactions
teachers want students to have (Lemov, 2014; Manning & Bucher, 2012).
Therefore, teachers can promote community in their classrooms by physically
setting up the rooms in a way that promotes positive interactions between and
among students (Marzano, Marzano, & Pickering, 2003). Classrooms can be
arranged in ways that promote cooperation and respect and that build helpful
peer relationships (Tomlinson, 2014; Wong & Wong, 2009). Some starting
points for teachers to consider as they think about the physical organization of
their classrooms include the importance of being able to see all students, easy
student access to all class materials and important room locations, pathways
between desks that can accommodate daily traffic flow, elimination of obvi-
ous distractions, and a layout that lends itself to students’ easily working in
pairs, triads, or groups (Marzano et al., 2003). All of these physical aspects
can contribute to the building of class community.

There is not only one way to set up a room to promote community, as
each classroom community is unique and may have different needs. Some
teachers set their rooms up in pods of four desks, so that students are social-
ized to interact frequently as they engage in learning tasks (Rothstein-Fisch &
Trumbull, 2008; Wong & Wong, 2009). Other teachers prefer straight rows
of paired desks, so that students primarily focus on the teacher and the board,
always have a partner, and can easily shift to interact with those behind them
and next to them (Lemov, 2014). A U shape constructed of paired desks, with
the U open to the front of the room, is a useful design popular in high school
classrooms that involve frequent full-class discussions (Boynton & Boynton,
2005). And some teachers who move students through frequently rotated
stations or differentiated working groups assign “home seats” to start and end