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With Reporting Like This Who Needs Enemies?
My work is on belonging in schools for ALA (adopted/looked after) children. And the commonalities between ALA children and other groups of children (newcomers, migrant children, LGBTQIA+ children…) are striking. We see feelings of isolation, shock, confusion because traditional school environments and approaches throughout a school day do not center experiences outside of a very narrow example.
Sometimes, people don’t believe that schools are as harsh as they actually are. As you can imagine, these are usually people who have had pretty positive experiences with schools.
Here is an audio report where a reporter, Reema Amin from Chalkbeat Chicago, embedded herself into an affinity group for newcomer migrant students. Her language is continually othering: “newcomer students” rather than students first; “quiet” rather than thoughtful. She says that she was ‘just a reporter in the room just kind of observing,’ with no understanding that ‘just being observed’ when you’re a double or triple outsider may be enough to cause what may be a sacred space into an uncomfortable space.
The irony of the reporter then sharing the norms (which she conflates with ‘expectations’ repeatedly) of…
