What’s Today’s Vocabulary Word? C-R-I-M-I-N-A-L

The bullhorn blares across the yard. Young Latinos and African Americans quickly scan their surroundings, noticing the many faces that watch them. A chain-link fence, 20 feet high, surrounds them on three sides. Dutifully, they fall into place in line. Heads up, hands clasped behind their backs, shoulders straight. Most know better than to talk. A few test the rules and murmur among themselves. “You’re wasting my time!” barks the attendant. Rumpled play dollars are doled out to the well behaved; order is maintained through this token economy. Thus begins their day.

A day at boot camp? A day in juvenile hall?

No. This is elementary school. First grade. Our inmates are 6 years old. They are not criminals. Small and wiry, these are children whose usual offenses are pulling braids or not sharing Hot Cheetos. The children must walk in straight lines. Hands must remain behind their backs, as though in handcuffs. The high fences separate them from the outside, physically and symbolically.

What does it mean when you are 6 and your school is run like a prison?

It is lunchtime. The students are herded through line, picking up their cardboard trays of chicken nuggets and milk. Eating must be done in silence. Misbehaving children face a “three-strikes-you’re-out” policy.” The same policy that puts many neighborhood men in jail is also used to deny chattering children recess. A teacher bends over to help a girl open her ketchup. An administrator reprimands her for being too soft with the child. “You are enabling her dependency,” he chides.

In the years I have worked in public schools in South-Central Los Angeles, it is hard not to notice how schools are run like prisons. Or how the language we use to talk about these children assumes criminality. It is hard to ignore that this is the way we speak in this place. The vocabulary of prison is not used with wealthy children. Such practices are not used in private schools. Where do we learn that it is OK to treat children of color like this?

Educators and parents expect their children to be well behaved and respectful. But there are distinct differences between teaching children internal control and self-regulation and treating them as if they are incapable of controlling themselves. This prison model insists that the only way to maintain order is through coercion, manipulation and threats. We must ask ourselves what a system like this prepares children for.

In 2000, there were 188,500 more African American men in state and federal prison systems and local jails than in higher education, according to a Justice Policy Institute report.

There are many social forces and individual choices that shape such outcomes, but I can’t help but think how far back this path begins. I am not suggesting that the language used in first grade equals a one-way ticket to San Quentin, but the link between how we treat children of color in schools and current statistics must be noted.

We provide these children with the bare minimum of resources, in dilapidated facilities, surrounded by communities that have been abandoned by the city. We then fill the children up with the language of criminality. Children will rise to the level educators ask of them. By using such language and adhering to such policies are schools simply creating a self-fulfilling prophecy?

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Kerri Ullucci teaches at Cal State Los Angeles and has trained new teachers in the Los Angeles school system.