Troublemakers: Lessons in Freedom from Young Children at School

Compare and contrast the reasons Zora and Lucas resist conformity at Forest School. How do their personal identities and school context shape their modes of protest? Whose “songs” does the school fail to hear and why?

How do Sean’s and Marcus’s bids for power at Crossroads Elementary illustrate William Ayers’s argument that “disrupting order” is a way for children to be heard? Do their attention-seeking strategies achieve voice and visibility?

Discuss the conceptions of difference that underlie how educators identify, pathologize, and punish “troublemakers.” What stereotypes and implicit biases might teachers carry?

Assess how focusing on systemic issues, not individual deficits, transforms our view of ADHD diagnoses and medications for students like Lucas and Sean. What cultural factors and environmental triggers exacerbate their restless intensity?

Compare the reasons disciplinary practices escalate for Zora, Lucas, Sean, and Marcus. How much stems from adult power assertion versus their unmet childhood needs? What restorative alternatives could build classroom community?

Contrast Kate and Emily’s caregiving approaches. How does Kate’s empathy, patience, and reasoning with Sean model more compassionate norms than school culture allows? What institutional pressures constrain Emily?

Consider the metaphor of canaries in the coal mine. Why does Shalaby use this language to describe the students she profiles?

Compare Troublemakers to another text detailing interior lives of defiant children (e.g., Milner’s Start Where You Are, But Don’t Stay There). How do sociopolitical contexts shape their resistance and its consequences?