TV: Inventing An Ed School Course On "The Wire"

There are lots of folks already teaching The Wire in college and (some) high school classrooms, but little of it I've read about so far focused specifically on the education issues raised in the series and particularly in Season Four.  That's why I was excited when my tocayo, Catholic University communications study professor Alexander Russo, emailed to ask what I'd suggest as background reading focused on that part of the show.  He's teaching a broad-based course this summer and was looking for ideas about Season Four. And I, unused to being asked to do anything, desperate to be helpful, and to avoid doing what I should be doing, spent too much time asking around and thinking up what I would include in a reading list. The results -- including many ideas from friends and colleagues -- is included below.  Take a look, and be sure to weigh in with any ideas or disagreements you might have.  Maybe we can get someone to teach The Wire at an ed school, which to my knowledge hasn't happened yet. 

ACADEMIC PAPERS, ARTICLES

Jukin' the Stats: Education and Inequality in the Fourth Season of The Wire Jonathan Gayles, Assistant Professor of African American Studies, Georgia State University 

Sorting Out the Bad Apples: Public Schools and the Code of the Street in the Fourth Season of The Wire Shavon Holcomb, Sociology Undergraduate UM-Dearborn, Paul Draus, Assistant Professor of Sociology, UM Dearborn, and anonymous student at Ryan Correctional Facility

Lambs to the Slaughter: Pedgagogy at Edward Tillman Middle School Dirk C. Wendthorf, Professor of Humanities and German, Florida Community College at Jacksonville

Anything else out there from academia? Anyone know where to find these papers?

POPULAR COVERAGE AND COMMENTARY 

Breaking Down The Wire Alex Kotlowitz, Steve James, and David Mills discuss Season 4 (Slate)

Why The Wire: Season Four Wasn't As Good As Everyone Says It Was (More Than Fine)

“These Are Not Your Children” The Wire's 8th graders and their fate at Tillman Middle School (darkmatter.com 2009)

Ed Burns:  Burning Man Teacher Magazine

Ed Burns, Now Wired Enough to Move On to Battles Beyond the Streets NYT

The Bleakness of The Wire American Scene

The Angriest Man In Television The Atlantic

What Barack Obama Could Learn From The Wire Hufffington Post

Nice White Lady (Mad TV)*

*There's also a radio segment from Chicago Public Radio's "Vocalo" in which Bill Ayers analyzes the skit, along with other movies like Stand And Deliver (Part One, Part Two)

Kevin Carey has a series of blog posts that I think include Season Four 

NONFICTION DEPICTIONS OF URBAN EDUCATION

something from There Are No Children Here?

something from random family?

something from Jonathan Kozol, Savage Inequalities (Harper Perennial, 1992)?

A Hope in the Unseen from Ron Suskind

Test Of Their Lives Los Angeles Magazine Jesse Katz 2007 

Saga Of Rayola Carwell Chicago Tribune Stephanie Banchero 2004

What It Takes to Make a Student NYT Sunday Magazine Paul Tough

ACADEMIC BACKGROUND READING

Posing Problems and Picking Fights:  Critical Pedagogy and the Corner Boys Potter, Beliveau and Bolf-Beliveau

Risk and protective factors for urban African-American youth American Journal of Community Psychology 39: 21 Tinsley Li, S., K.M. Nussbaum and M.H. Richards (2007).

Childhood risk factors for adolescent gang membership: Results from the Seattle social development project, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 36: 300-322. Hill, K.G., Howell, J.C., Hawkins, J.D., and Battin-Pearson, S.R. (1999).

They wear the mask: Hypermasculinity and hypervulnerability among African American males in an urban remedial disciplinary school, Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma, 11, 53–74. Cassidy, E.F. and H.C. Stevenson (2005).

Psychological mediators of violence in urban youth,” in McCord, J. Violence and children in the inner city. Slaby, R. (1997).

Something from Ralph Payne or Pedro Noguera?

Comments

[john]

The first thing to remember about the overall set of stories in the Wire was that the deindustrialization of America was dramatically accelerated by government actions that were the result of corporate influence, as well as Reaganism. For instance, the shipping industry, and its unions, had adjusted imperfectly to technology (container ships etc) and globalization. But the tax expenditures under Reagan VooDoo econonmics, and other governmental supports for gentrification dramatically accelerated the destruction of working class communities and families. Similarly, as mentioned in Treme, charter schools are further subsidized by coalitions that include the press as essential services for attracting affluent young people back to cities. The last season, more controversially, deals with the press dealing with similar dynamics in the 21st century, allegedly accelerating the decline of old instittuions.

And we also should remember, anyone with street smarts knew that the data-driven war on drugs would fill the prisons with non-violent inmates. Also, anyone with realworld experience, and now bolstered by social science, shows that the prison industrial complex has long been responsible for increasing generational poverty. And ts hard to believe that anyone with ANY knowledge of schools wouild not have anticipated the damage caused by data-driven accountability.

[Linda Perlstein]

You might include a book that David Simon himself loved. In his own words:

“When reform itself becomes the lie, what then? Linda Perlstein’s Tested is essential reading for anyone who still believes that statistics alone can be the measure of a child’s educational potential and standing — and for those, as well, who have long doubted the simplistic premise of No Child Left Behind but were without the facts to affirm those doubts. Tina McKnight, the principal of Tyler Heights Elementary, is a woman worth cheering, but the crusade she and others have been asked to fight is far more suspect. Children, teachers, school administrators — this is the human element, the souls actually at stake, and they are now — all of them — prisoners of politics and public perception.”

[john]

Linda,

You must be so proud - and you should be. Thank you for writing such an influential book. It sure had an influence on me.

[John in NC]

Mike Rose, *Possible Lives* - if we dare hope.