A review of "Flotation Strategies for Sinking Students: Kids, Cops, and Communication"

In February 1989, Carol Jago authored an article for the English Journal that discussed how she motivated students in her senior high remedial English at Santa Monica High School by partnering with the local police department.  Many of Jago's students live the lives that most parents warn their children about: drugs, sex, alcohol, and gangs.  Her students saw little connection between what they were learning in high school and the real world.  Jago partnered with Officer Joe Analco, who was the community relations officer for the police department.  Officer Analco would come into Jago's classroom once every week and would sometimes bring guests along with him.  Analco's continued presense in the classroom estabished relationships for students with the police department that were not driven by animosity and mistrust.  Jago would link the topics that Officer Analco discussed with relevant examples from literature.  Students would then write or discuss about what they heard, read, and experienced.  Students began to see the link between literature and life, and how their actions, attitudes, and appearance are read by police and others outside their social circles. 

Growing up in a white, suburban neighborhood, I am a bit intimated by the idea of teaching in an inner city school.  Jago's article basically advices teachers to care and respect their students enough to meet them, but not leave them, where they are.  Part of that responsibility comes from giving kids the freedom, space, and safety of discussing the more intimate parts of their lives as they relate to literature, but it cannot end there.  It also requireds teachers or speakers showing that have made mistakes, learned, and rebounded as well.  Jago recognized that it would be virtually impossible for all schools and police departments to arrange this kind of relationship, but she believes it was not about Officer Analco's position as much as what he offered to the kids: continuity, trust, respect, honesty, and presence. 

I'm not sure how school districts or teachers would handle this arrangement.  The strongest connections I have ever had with literature were based on personal identification or empathy with the characters.  If we are guiding students toward reading and writing, because of the personal catharthis that reading and writing provide, then how do we handle those situations where a student confesses something dangerous or illegal? Are we violating student trust, district policy, or the law, and which is more important to protect?  Where do we draw the tattling lines: keep the addict's secret, but expose the dealer; don't tell on the pregnant student whose parents don't know, but expose the girl who at one time entertained thoughts of suicide?  There is great value in having students in high-risk schools (or any school) reestablish positive relationships with law enforcement agencies, and it is important and rewarding to have students recognize how literature can mirror  reality to reflect the human condition; however, everyone needs to be aware of the limits of those relationships when literature and reality collide.