Hi folks! Back again to share another reading. This reading comes from a chapter book called Troublemakers by Carla Shalaby. Carla was a  former elementary school teacher. She received her education at the Rutgers and Harvard graduate schools of education. She focuses on the critical role that children and teachers play in the ongoing struggle for justice. Here is a website that speaks more about the book and you can have access to purchase the book if you are interested 👉 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29502429-troublemakers 👈

    In this post I will speak about the chapter on Marcus, the author is the person that is observing Marcus. Marcus is a student who is filled with energy and light. He is surrounded with adults that are actively helping him and caring for him.  What I liked about this chapter is that Carla broke it down into tips that she informs the mother that will help him and other children in the future. In each of the tips there are examples of Marcus's behaviors and how the adults handle it. Also Carla speaks on how the adults play a role in his daily life and how they view him as a person. 

    The adults that are mentioned in the chapter are his mom Cheryl, the teacher Emily, the counselor, the principal, and the librarian. These adults view Marcus as hopeful, they all give him a chance to turn around and make a better choice. Cheryl sees her son as a leader and a loving helpful boy. 

    Emily faces many obstacles with him but she manages to have patience with him. Even when he refuses to listen to her she tends to ignore him and continues to help the other students. When the teacher runs out of patience she sends him to the other room or the principals office. Emily has tried many ways to help him stay on task. She tried doing a rewards method, she noticed that he liked helping others so his reward was going to the kindergarten class to help. She said that he didn't get the chance to earn that reward. 

The Librarian was a heartfelt moment. During library class Marcus began to disruptive and say negative comments about books. Instead of the librarian kicking him out of class she spoke to him about his actions, she finds out that he does not own books and gives him books to take home. 

Carla struggles in the classroom, she doesn't want to step on the teachers toes and she doesn't want to be seen as another authority figure. There was one incident where the teacher assigned the students to write a letter. She noticed he began to become fidgety and disrupt the class. Emily believed that the students should be independent and figure problems on their own. Carla notices that Emily's hands are all tied up so she sits between him and another student that he was playing around. She mentions that it was his brothers birthday and suggest that he should write a letter to his brother. There are other moments where Carla wants to step in and help. The tips that she writes is what she sees the type of person that he is and should be treated as. 

     I felt like I was in a time machine when I was reading this article. I used to work in a special education classroom and we had a student with similar behaviors. Marcus reminded me of this student, the staffs in the building and in the classroom struggled to understand him. There were a lot of ups and downs but at the end of the day we all wanted the best for him just like how all the adults want the best for Marcus.

**Remember link is posted for more info on the author and book** Below there is a link to her twitter account**

 👉 https://twitter.com/carlashalaby?lang=en 👈