It sounds horrible, but throughout the reading I kept thinking of all those cliche "inspirational movies" about the white teacher in an all black classroom that raised them up or helped them in some way or another, usually by teaching english. They all say "based on a true story" but I guess i didnt realize that i could definetly be teaching a class like that: surrounded by violence and hatred. I guess thats where the big importance of community comes in, which was repeated throughout the chapter. It was interesting reading that without a class feeling like a community, it pretty much didnt work.... which makes sense especially in a english class where students need to feel like they can talk about their feelings on the issue we're discussing.
I found more interesting that you could bring this community around with a common topic of violence... why would you want to do that. Such a negative subject... very sad for many people. I guess you have to start on negative topics rather than positive, kind of interesting that negative emotions can be brought out more than positive emotions.
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Christensen seemed troubled by using violence as a topic - it came up accidentally in fact. However, she found that this was a moment of connection between her students and the texts they were reading.
I don't think that discussing violence is akin to glorifying it or even condoning it. However, by acknowledging its affect on your students, they will know you care about them. It's better than ignoring it and pretending everyone lives the same peaceful life so many white teachers are allowed to live.
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