Troublemakers vs Trailblazers

 

 

Main Argument (Thesis):

This author, Carla Shalaby, argues that education must become a site of radical love, liberation, and humanization, particularly for children who are labeled as “troublemakers” by systems built to reward compliance and control. She challenges us to stop viewing these children as problems and instead see them as prophets. Through storytelling and reflection, she asserts that these children are not broken but powerful. They are truth-tellers who expose the injustices embedded in our classrooms. Rather than punishing their resistance, she invites us to see their behavior as sacred disruption and an invitation to reimagine discipline, justice, and care.

 Three Talking Points That Moved Me

1.     The “Canaries in the Mine”: Children as Warnings, Not Problem

“These children were warning me. They were warning us. They were saying: something is not right here. Something is hurting me.”

This line truly shook my core. What if the very children we label as difficult are actually the ones most attuned to the dysfunction of our systems? Shalaby reframes misbehavior as a message, cry for help, and mirror of harm. These children, the canaries, are not the issue. The problem is the box we are trying to force them into. In my work as a nurse and an advocate, I have come to see that those who disrupt, protest, or act out are often the most sensitive, aware, and honest. When children act in resistance, it is not because they are broken. It is because something around them is.

Thought to hold: What would it mean to listen to the troublemakers as truth-tellers rather than silencing them as threats?

Personal Reflection: I think about the children I have cared for in clinical and educational settings. How many of them were dismissed, restrained, medicated, or punished when what they really needed was to be understood, protected, and loved?

2.      Visibility as Violence: The Myth of Neutrality

“If you are invisible in the way that race makes you invisible, you are erased. If you are hyper-visible in the way that race makes you hyper-visible, you are criminalized.”

This sentence is both poetic and painful. Shalaby names the impossible bind that children of color are forced into. They are simultaneously unseen and over-scrutinized. This paradox echoes in every space where privilege is treated as the norm and difference is seen as deviance. There is no neutrality here. Classrooms are not objective spaces. They mirror our damaged  society. Shalaby is sure to support the reality that children of color are often forced to navigate a world that punishes them simply for being. When their authenticity cannot conform to the tight constraints of privileged normativity, they are cast out as “trouble”.

Question to ponder: How do I, as a future holistic nurse and healer, challenge the systemic gaze that criminalizes Black and brown children just for existing?

Personal Reflection: We must create spaces where children are not punished for being passionate, expressive, or different. We must unlearn the lie that compliance equals goodness. Healing cannot happen where survival is the only option.

3.      Love as a Revolutionary Practice

“I do this work not because I love teaching. I do it because I love children. And because I want them to be free.” 

This reminds me that love, radical, unconditional, and liberatory, is not passive. It is the most powerful weapon we have against a system designed to crush our spirits in the name of control. Shalaby does not call for better behavior charts or stricter rules. She calls for freedom and understanding. We are called to dismantle the cages that have been built around our future generations. This is not just a mere educational philosophy, but a moral imperative call to action.

Call to action: What would our classrooms, clinics, and communities look like if we treated love as the foundation, not the reward?

Personal Reflection: I am reminded that in both nursing and education, love is not an extra. It is the very essence of caring and compassion. Every child deserves to know that they are deeply, unconditionally loved, especially when they are most vulnerable.

Final Reflections

Carla Shalaby’s work with, Troublemakers,  invites us to see that” bad” behavior is not a flaw to be fixed. It is a message to be honored. An opportunity to guide and impart knowledge and wisdom. It is a sacred disruption in the warped standard of society. Education, like healing, must be rooted in truth, justice, and love. If we continue to silence the children who disrupt the routine, we lose the very people who can teach us how to build something better. To be a holistic nurse, educator, or leader means to open my eyes and ears to listen and see all those I serve in a deep and meaningful way. To trust that the ones we are told to discipline may actually be the ones sent to set us all free.