Classroom disruption: Is blame the answer?

In a windowless classroom on the South Side of Chicago, complete with posters of mathformulas and motivating quotes, a fascinating yet common struggle for power unfolds between a young teacher and a crowd of rambunctious students. Five minutes after class begins, during a quiet "do now" period, a student releases a jokethat gets half the class roaring in laughter. In response, the teacher raises his voice and asks for calm. Much to his chagrin, viral pockets of side chatter begin popping up in all corners of the room and the teacher's initial redirection has failed. Mr. Johnson resorts to calling out the names of guilty parties, but as he does so, he is rebuffed by multiple cries of dissent, vehemently opposing his accusations and protesting the consequences the he assigns. While Mr. Johnson and his students debate the disruption, the whole class devolves into social time and chaos. For me, as a paraprofessional inside the classroom, two thoughts came to mind: accountability is incredibly difficult to bring forth in real time, without losing control of the entire classroom; and some of these kids are really disrespectful.   

Are parents the problem?

In a similar vein, when posting about the achievement gap on social media, a facebook friend relayed how his Teach For America friend often talked about how "bad" students are. The students were apparently so disruptive that she could never properly do her job. Following a similar hypothesis, while guest lecturing to a classroom of college students in a teacher-education program, a student passionately posited that parental responsibility is what we should focus on: "Parents need to be teaching their students morals, and not to disrespect teachers." As someone who has witnessed classroom instruction in urban schools and taught a class, I can see how the visceral reaction to disruption is to blame students and possibly even parenting.

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