47 pages • 1 hour read
Carla ShalabyTroublemakers: Lessons in Freedom from Young Children at School
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1, Introduction-Chapter 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Forest School”
Part 1, Introduction Summary
Shalaby profiles two veteran teachers, Mrs. Norbert and Mrs. Beverly—first and second grade teachers at the affluent, primarily white Forest School. Mrs. Norbert and Mrs. Beverly collaborate closely, frequently communicating across their adjoining classrooms. Both teachers are strong leaders running active, messy, and dynamic classrooms centered on multisensory and cross-curricular units.
Mrs. Beverly, as Shalaby describes, has an athletic build, bold dress and a loud, powerful voice—all reflected in her commanding teaching style. Though Mrs. Norbert is softer, more empathetic, she maintains control of (most of) the students as the classroom’s authority figure. Despite pressure to standardize their pedagogy, these teachers’ veteran status allows them to use the progressive methods of their choice. In their classrooms children rotate through literacy, art, and music; often, they’re busy at various stations around the room.
Shalaby explains that despite Mrs. Norbert and Mrs. Beverly’s efforts to engage a variety of learners, rigid rules and expectations for behavior prevail. Students must sometimes sit silently for long stretches; when they give presentations, the teachers correct their posture and voice. Forest School’s surrounding college community is highly educated and affluent; few Forest School students and no members of the staff are people of color. The school’s codes of conduct align with white, upper-middle-class cultural norms. The teachers work tirelessly to acculturate the children’s behavior to what Mrs. Beverly herself describes as “white-bread” standards, believing this will facilitate their acceptance and success.
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary: “Zora: On Being Out-Standing”
Seven-year-old Zora is a lively, creative, biracial Black girl and a second-year student in Mrs. Beverly’s mixed-age classroom. Shalaby explains that she met Zora the year before, by which point Zora already had a reputation as a “troublemaker”: She spent much of kindergarten relegated to the hallways with a paraprofessional. When Zora entered first grade, Mrs. Beverly was determined to keep her in the classroom, but this resulted in constant corrections for behavior deemed problematic: calling out in class, distracting peers, and refusing to follow rigid rules.
As Shalaby sits in on Zora’s first days of second grade, this pattern of reprimand and redirection continues. For example, when Mrs. Beverly asks students to brainstorm a list of classroom rules, Zora calls out answers repeatedly without raising her hand. Her suggestions tend to center on how to interact with someone who is lonely, which Shalaby finds telling. She is automatically isolated as the only person of color in her classroom, and her personality frequently clashes with those of the other students. She is too boisterous to gain acceptance into the girls’ play, but the boys tend to dislike her authoritative demeanor. Meanwhile, Zora herself consistently resists finding companionship with other outsiders, inserting herself into the mainstream groups’ play. Her only real friend is a boy named Tyler, but they have a fraught dynamic full of explosive argument.
Shalaby notes that Zora’s lively spirit echoes the vibrant chaos of her home, adorned with family artwork and Spanish labels. Her father is African American and a spoken word poet; her mother is Puerto Rican. Both dress in the bright colors that likewise characterize Zora’s bedroom. They also nurture her Black identity, decorating her room with quotes from various African American leaders. Shalaby notes that Zora’s parents encourage her to embrace standing out (as they themselves have) as a survival strategy—a way of thriving despite colorism and racism.
This directly contradicts the message Zora receives at school, where fitting in is a priority. Although Mrs. Beverly worries about making Zora “more white” through strict behavior enforcement, she persists, worried that Zora will otherwise be unready for the single-age classroom she will face in third grace, let alone a professional world that demands conformity to white, upper-middle-class culture. Moreover, she worries that Zora’s behavior will lead her white classmates to form negative associations with Blackness. However, even as much of Zora’s attention-seeking behavior seems to Shalaby to signal her desire for belonging, her disruptions—and Mrs. Beverly’s response to them—instead cement her reputation as a “troublemaker.” Though her dramatic acts often entertain her classmates, those same classmates are also quick to “correct” her. She becomes “public enemy number one” (18), according to Mrs. Beverly.
Frustrated, the teachers meet with Zora’s parents. At the school’s suggestion, Zora’s conflicted parents put Zora on ADHD medication to make her fit in more easily, although the medication’s side effects dampen her mood. A second medication proves more tolerable, but Shalaby still worries that Zora will lose what makes her unique—her playfulness, imagination, and, above all, fearlessness—due to pressure to conform. Shalaby notes that this is an impossible demand for a child in her situation, as her race inevitably makes her stand out. Citing W. E. B. DuBois’s idea of “double consciousness,” Shalaby wonders whether Zora can “love herself” through the eyes of the overwhelmingly white culture that surrounds her.
Part 1, Introduction-Chapter 1 Analysis
Zora’s chapter provides a complex case study in embracing difference versus forcing assimilation. Details of Zora’s high energy and creative antics depict a child full of life; a gifted child with talents to be celebrated. However, Forest School continually seeks to extinguish her spark through medication and correction.
Shalaby develops this tension through juxtaposed portraits of Zora’s home and Forest School. Details of Zora’s brightly decorated, artistic home filled with symbolic affirmations to “express yourself” contrast with the school’s silent halls. The difference is not merely cosmetic; Shalaby notes that the spoken word poetry Zora’s father performs encourages the very calling out that lands Zora in trouble at school. In The Clash Between the Cultures of Home and School, Zora’s home represents freedom, while her school insists on silence and order at all costs. Playing on the word “outstanding,” Shalaby suggests that the child caught between these spaces must decode competing definitions of what it means to “stand out.”
Shalaby suggests that such mixed messages are particularly fraught for children of color. Zora’s home life overflows with affirmations of Black identity and encouragements to stand tall in the face of racism. Her parents model pride in standing out, exaggerating their accents and wearing vibrant colors to counter hostility from the white suburban community. The school’s insistence that she “stop standing out” therefore manifests as a direct threat to Zora’s racial and cultural identity.
Zora’s teachers are not unaware of this dynamic; in fact, Mrs. Beverly worries considerably about erasing Zora’s identity but feels that acculturating her to white, middle-class norms is necessary if Zora is to succeed in life. While Shalaby’s closing worries about Zora’s future reveal her disagreement with Mrs. Beverly’s position, she avoids blaming Mrs. Beverly herself. The contradictions of Mrs. Beverly and her classroom—the self-articulated intention to make Zora feel “accepted” coupled with worries that she’ll get “watered down”—are the byproduct of larger tensions. Not the least of these are the racial inequalities that make Zora one of only a handful of students of color at her prestigious, well-resourced school. Among her white classmates, Zora cannot help but stand out, which becomes problematic when coupled with the educational system’s emphasis on conformity and assimilation. Thus, the education system frames Zora’s mere difference as defiance.
Ironically, Mrs. Beverly’s efforts to help Zora fit in have exactly the opposite effect, rendering her more visible and isolated from her peers. This in turn fuels Zora’s behavior as she leverages silly disruptions in desperate bids for peer attention and laughs. Zora also attempts to claim some power through disruption, positioning herself as a “junior assistant” authority figure by reminding other students to follow the rules. This highlights the layered power dynamics at play in classrooms, where children may also wield authority over one another. Even these attempts to side with the dominant authority fail Zora, however, suggesting that even acquiescence cannot win acceptance for her and other marginalized students.
That being the case, Shalaby suggests, there is all the more reason to celebrate Zora’s jokester antics and exaggerated facial expressions as thoughtful performance art. Her orchestrated classroom comedy attempts connection on her own creative terms even as the school demands she ignore her isolation and need. Ultimately, this chapter encapsulates the core question of whether schools should mold children according to standardized norms or nurture each as individuals. It also asks who gets to decide the definition and value of difference itself. By framing Zora’s passion as something with intrinsic value, the story challenges notions of which gifts are worth cultivating in compulsory education.
