Among the news stories that have shadowed these bright, late-summer days is a recent report from Houston, where the state of Texas has announced its plan to close public school libraries in some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. The former library spaces will now be used as so-called “multipurpose” rooms, which actually seem to have one single purpose: punishing “disruptive” students by making them watch, on computer screens, what’s happening back in their classrooms.
No one seems clear about the fate of students who remain disruptive in the multipurpose rooms. Surely I am not the only adult who remembers that being sent to detention was more of a vacation than a punishment. So it’s uncertain how precisely a student’s internal exile is meant to function. It’s hard to imagine what students will learn from these cheerless, punitive spaces – except for the grim possibility that they are being prepped for incarceration.
