Respect

The leaders do bear the responsibility for coordination and, at times, direction--but leaders who deny praxis to the oppressed thereby invalidate their own praxis. By imposing their word on others, they falsify that word and establish a contradiction between their methods and their objectives. If they are truly committed to liberation, their action and reflection cannot proceed without the action and reflection of others. --Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed)

Throughout the year, my students had been extremely disrespectful to me and to each other. They either laughed, hit, humiliated, isolated, interrupted, ignored, and devalued another person in class including myself.  Every time, the incident happened I stopped them and talked about what had just happened as a class. Every time, I gave them my definition of respect. I labeled the act as disrespectful.  I tried to have students talk, and to be as understanding with both parties as much as I could. 
On May 31, 2013 it was as much as I could take. We were having a pizza party for all of 3rd grade at the end of the day, and most teachers held the party as a threat if they misbehaved. I wanted all of my students to participate in the party.  Trust is another issue in class. We didn't get passed having a class monitor--someone who watches the class when the teacher is out, or when they are alone in the hallway. I explained that they are watching that no one is playing rough, fighting, or talking loudly.  On this day, my classroom monitor was a soft spoken girl who tried to keep the class noise level down, but the rest of the students ignored and laughed at her. I arrived just as they pointed fingers and the boys rough-housed.
I stopped them by asking loudly, "What is this?!!!?"  "You all know how to act in the hallway, I trust you to whisper to each other and stop playing rough"  This was before I knew what my monitor was doing. I was so mad, I forgot myself, and sank back into the public teacher mode. I took the job away from my monitor because she was ineffective watching out for the class and keeping them quiet.  She went to the back of the line and we proceeded to the restroom. 
During the restroom break, my monitor approaches me. She calmly states that she could not contain the class so she was trying to get someone to help her. They all laughed at her and the boys told her they didn't care what she said. 

In my rage, I felt like taking away their pizza party. I felt like injecting respect into their veins with a painful blow to their privileges, but I knew this would not work. They would not learn to be respectful out of punishment.
After I took them to Physical Education (P.E.) I went to my reading, and came across the quote written above, by Freire.  I had to find a way to dialogue with them and simply ask them why they did what they did, and also give them my reasons for asking them to do what I am asking of them.

When they returned from P.E. they took their seats in class. They were quiet and immediately opened their books and kept working. Their heads were low, their faces grim.  I told them "stop working in your books for a moment, please.  I want to speak to you about something. Although most teachers agreed that I should take the pizza party away from you, I have decided that I would like all of you to enjoy your Friday with some pizza at the end of the day.  The only thing I ask is that we have conversations about what respect is to you. If you really don't know how to define respect, or you don't know what it is, that is fine. You will be able to define it once we have conversed."

I gave them all an index card where they could write, because nobody wanted to have open dialogue. They felt more comfortable writing it down, and then expressing it. So I gave them an index card, and asked them to answer the following questions on it:

What is respect to you?

How do you show respect?

To whom do you show respect?

Most of the class did not know. They went off and wrote the one example I had given about listening when another person is talking.  Some wrote that showing people they are important, was a sign of respect. Others said that they respected elders and anybody in charge.  Others said, that respect was when you treat people the way you want to be treated. Yet others, wrote, that respect was not talking back, and not hitting, yelling or mistreating other peoples emotions. 

Each person got a turn to speak including myself. The bell rang on us before we could finish our conversation. They got their pizza before the bell and ate on the carpet as we chatted. On Monday, they will have their index card by their desk, and we will create a class definition of Respect. They will keep their card for the remaining 4 days of our year, and hopefully keep the idea and definition of respect for the rest of our lives.