Laws of Exclusion
In years before the mandates of NCLB pushed assertively into our school to commandeer
curriculum expectations at Central High; in years before the innovation-ordered, outsidercontrolled
programs began to outlaw the non-standardized inclusion of “ethnic” studies (totally
missing the fact that a forced study into an overwhelming surfeit of White males was,
unmistakably, ethnic) – I had enjoyed teaching an old-school non-scripted, fully inclusive
American Literature class.*†
Hoping to capture a broad student interest while waking less motivated imaginations, I
had asked my students to take a time-ordered look into the various cultural settlements particular
to the United States. Following events sequentially, we had studied the work produced by a
variety of disparate authors writing from dissimilar backgrounds; intentionally, we had read and
analyzed the work of the many culturally diverse writers who had most directly helped to fashion
our country’s best recognized and most iconic social movements.
Due to the fact that Central High served as a home largely to children who knew firsthand
how it felt to live with the less-than-comfortable stigma of being not only low-income, but
culturally different, it wasn’t long before I discovered that my students’ interest focused most
keenly upon, and repeatedly brought our conversations back to, the particulars which had
surrounded our country’s most exclusionary legislations. Recurrently my students asked to learn
about, read about and better understand the legalized actions behind our nation’s most openly
mandated separations:
- The governmentally supported caste divisions inside a Latino southwest.
- The relocation of, and bounded reservations built around, Native populations.
- The laws meant to regulate slavery, indentured servants and inter-racial marriage.
- The immigration rulings written to keep Asian cultures from attaining citizenship.
- The decades of Jim Crow legislation designed to enforce racial separations.
- The legal promotion of women and children as voicelessly owned property.
- The ruthless internment of unwanted citizens during years of war.
- The emergence, and subsequent suppression, of an intentionally inclusive Civil Rights’
legislation.
read about? Was not, specifically, the long years of a legally ordered exclusion. More exactly,
they wanted to hear about, read about, talk and write about, real people. Those most visibly
intrepid trailblazers who had seen the rules of exclusion, looked directly into the face of
intolerance, understood the legal lay of the land – and yet, still?
Resisted.
Those most notably recognized frontrunners who, through their long-term dedication toLaws Of Exclusion – STOP SCHOOL REFORM: THOUGHTS FROM the LIFE OF A"BAD" TEACHER: