Teaching in Hard Times
by Steve Goodman

Young people are not spared the problems their parents face. This is now more true than ever as the recession grinds on into another school year. The question is, how do we as educators and citizens respond in good conscience when our students carry the pain and trauma of these problems with them to school everyday?

I believe we need to make sure our schools give students the time, space and support they need to safely talk about and critically investigate the most pressing emotional and social problems in their life – and then develop the voice and agency to work towards changing them. We also need to fight to protect and expand school and community health and social service programs for students (not in spite of sweeping budget cuts, but because of them). Reading the papers every day there is no getting around it: the numbers are stark and the picture is bleak. Unemployment is climbing into the double digits – 10.3 percent in New York and 9.8 nationally, 15.1 percent for Black Americans, and a staggering 25.5 percent this summer for teenagers looking for work – the highest level since these statistics were recorded in 1948. One in 36 Hispanic adults and 1 in 9 Black men between the ages of 20 and 34 are incarcerated. Ninety-five percent of the youth from New York City who are incarcerated in NY State juvenile detention centers are Black and Hispanic . And New York State taxpayers are spending $150,000 a year to incarcerate each of those youth as compared to spending only $16,000 a year to educate each student in school. Manhattan has the highest income gap of any other county in the country, and the Bronx is still the poorest urban county in the nation. The number of schoolchildren in homeless families has risen by 75 percent to 100 percent in many districts over the last two years.

Teachers witness the human cost behind these numbers every day when their students come to school malnourished because their parents are among the long-term unemployed; or hopeless after having visited incarcerated family members; or exhausted after their family was evicted and they are afraid to sleep in the shelter; or in pain from a tooth ache because their family can’t afford dental care. Unfortunately, in the rush to “cover the lessons” and “meet the standards.” Too many schools ignore, silence, punish, or expel those students most in need of help. In such cases, the teacher may have taught the lesson, but not taught the students. Research shows that social and economic factors contribute substantially to the so-called Black/White, poor/non-poor achievement gap in our country.

At EVC, we teach students to research and make documentaries about the social conditions of their life at home, in school, and in their community. Instead of marginalizing these problems (unemployment, poverty, homelessness, overcrowded schools, poor health care, adult and juvenile incarceration) as outside the curriculum, we put them front and center as subjects for open dialogue, and sustained student inquiry. When students screen their videos for their peers and community audiences, these youth producers educate and move them to take action.

This is why EVC is partnering with the New York City Transfer Schools and the Office of Multiple Pathways to Graduation. They too recognize the importance of addressing students’ family and community-related concerns within the curriculum. Serving approximately 138,000 teens and young adults between the ages of 16 and 21 both in and out of school considered “overage and under-credited, these small schools are founded on the notion of building a culture of personalization and social relevance. They provide regular opportunities in “advisory” classes for students to discuss the emotional and academic stresses they are experiencing at home and in school. Teachers are trained in youth development practices and are given additional support from social work, and guidance staff provided by community based organizations that partner with the school.

EVC is pleased to be working closely coaching teachers to integrate documentary video projects in the newly established High School for Excellence and Innovation in Washington Heights, the Brooklyn High School for Leadership and Community Service and continuing support for the ACCESS GED program.

This is also why EVC is partnering with acclaimed film director Eugene Jarecki in our students’ current project investigating the impact of the war on drugs and the high rate of incarceration on communities of color. We believe it is vital to contribute a youth perspective to the national dialogue of this critical issue.

There is no question that the worsening economy is damaging the health and wellbeing of our children, contributing to their anger, despair, and disengagement from school. We may not be able to spare young people our problems, but we can use them as opportunities for discussion, teaching, and civic action. Problematizing the social condition – teaching students to question, research, and make connections between their own personal experiences and the growing inequity and impoverishment of society at large – is an empowering and potentially healing process. When students publicly present their videos in school and community screenings, they amplify their voices and build their capacity for moral agency and democratic citizenship. Engaging students in the critical investigation of, and search for solutions to the forces tearing at the fabric of their family and community is a powerful and transformative practice.