They Gon' Study Some [Things]

“They gon’ study some [things]”: Representations of schools and schooling in HBO’s The Wire Habib Siam Department of Integrated Studies McGill University, Montreal August 2013 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy © Habib Siam, 2013 “He never was a silly little boy Who whispered in the class or threw spit balls, Or pulled the hair of silly little girls, Or disobeyed in any way the laws That made the school a place of decent order Where books were read and sums were proven true And paper maps that showed the land and water Were held up as the real wide world to you. Always, he kept his eyes upon his books: And now he has grown to be a man He is surprised that everywhere he looks Life rolls in waves he cannot understand, And all the human world is vast and strange– And quite beyond his Ph.D.’s small range.” (Langston Hughes, 2001, p. 224) ii DEACON WILLIAMS: “This thing over at the University of Maryland School of Social work, they got a grant, big money.” MAJOR COLVIN: “Just stop.” DEACON WILLIAMS: “Half million to look at repeat violent offenders. Clinical intervention, all that mess.” MAJOR COLVIN: “So they gon’ study some shit, huh? Melvin, I had me a good helping of them downtown, tie-wearing, come to do good, stay to do well college types last year.” (Price & Burns, 2006a, 6:43) iii “[L]’école fait la nation.” (Georges Davy, 1929, p. 233) iv Abstract This qualitative inquiry is a close reading of the representations of public schools and schooling in HBO’s television drama The Wire. I pay particular attention to the experiences of school administrators, educators, and students. The Wire draws from the ethnographic work of David Simon, a former Baltimore Sun journalist, and Edward Burns, a retired homicide detective and public school teacher. In examining the show’s critiques of public schooling, I ask these questions: What types of representations of public schools and schooling are revealed in season four of The Wire? What kind of knowledge do these representations produce, and how is this knowledge socially and culturally relevant to teachers and to teacher education programs? I conceive of The Wire as a heteroglossic text that challenges dominant conceptions of schools and the education enterprise. Linguist Mikhail Bakhtin defines heteroglossia as the presence of different languages within a body of work, where each language presents and represents distinct worldviews. I use French philosopher Julia Kristeva’s view of texts as productive entities that disrupt unexamined assumptions and generate new forms of seeing, being, and doing. Through my interpretive understandings, I suggest that schools are resistant to organizational change but that institutions of formal education may offer the potential to forge interpersonal relationships through which meaningful learning can occur. I also propose a revaluation of managerial approaches to education that rely on statistics to quantify learning. In closing, I recommend further research into the social functions of schooling, and the similarities that exist between schools and other normative institutions like law enforcement, mental health, and prisons. v Résumé Cette enquête qualitative est une lecture approfondie des représentations des écoles publiques et de la scolarisation véhiculées dans la série télévisée de HBO : Sur écoute (The Wire). Nous nous concentrons plus particulièrement sur les expériences des administrateurs dans les écoles, des éducateurs et des étudiants. Sur écoute s’inspire de la recherche ethnographique de David Simon, un ancien journaliste du quotidien The Baltimore Sun et de Edward Bruns, un investigateur de homicide retraité et enseignant de l’école publique. C’est à travers les critiques de la série vis-à-vis du système scolaire publique que nous soulevons les questions suivantes : quels types de représentations de l’école publique et du système scolaire sont révélés dans la quatrième saison de Sur écoute ? Quel rapport à l’école ses représentations forment-elles et comment ce dernier est- il socialement et culturellement pertinent par rapport aux enseignants et à leur programme éducatif ? Nous considérons Sur écoute en tant que texte hétéroglossique qui questionne les conceptions dominantes de l’école et de l’entreprise éducative. Le linguiste Mikhail Bakhtin définie l’hétéroglossie comme la présence de différents langages au sein d’un même corpus et où chaque langue présente et représente des visions différentes du monde. Nous utilisons la pensée de la philosophe Julia Kristeva sur la théorie du texte comme élément de travail qui repense des hypothèses infondées et génère de nouvelles façons de voir, d’être et de faire. Au travers de notre interprétation, nous évoquons l'idée que les écoles résistent au changement organisationnel mais que les institutions de l’éducation formelle offrent un potentiel pour forger des relations interpersonnelles qui permettraient un apprentissage significatif. Nous proposons également une réévaluation des approches managerielles à l’éducation qui se fondent sur des statistiques pour quantifier l’apprentissage. En vi conclusion, nous recommandons une recherche plus approfondie sur les fonctions sociales de l’école et sur les similarités qui existent entre l’école et d’autres institutions normatives, telles que celles du maintien de l’ordre, les hôpitaux psychiatriques et les prisons. vii Acknowledgements The list of people I am indebted to for this accomplishment is lengthy. Considering the fallibility of even the best of memories, and mine is not that, I am bound to omit a few names. I hope that those I inadvertently forget to mention do not begrudge me. Graduate school has taKen me away from that which I hold dearest: my family. To my mother and father, Golda and Georges, I owe more than I can express or ever repay. It took me six years to complete my undergraduate degree, including a period where I dropped out of university altogether. I dare not imagine the paths I might have ventured on without your love, support, and sacrifices. This dissertation and its accompanying degree are as much yours as they are mine. To my sisters, Nancy and Tracy, who have had to endure having me as an older sibling, thank you for persevering through my insolence and immaturity. I hope it has been worth it. To my aunt Nelly, the teacher in the family, you have been more instrumental to this project than you may know. To my grandmothers, Tamem and Alice, the grandfathers I never met, Habib and Philippe, I hope I have and will continue to make you proud. To my surrogate grandparents, Laurette, Rose, Nawal, Samira, Therese and Chafik, I am blessed to have had you look over me. To my extended family, the people whose friendships have enriched my life in countless ways, I am forever grateful. Yassin and Sundus, we have been through valleys and peaks, and I hope that we will continue to go through more of both together. Martin, I sound more like you than I care to admit. Thank you for the countless hours you spent sharing your wisdom, in person, in notes, and over the phone. Simmi, without your love and encouragement, I might still be writing my comprehensive exams. Fares, if you chose not to finish yours, you can have mine. Brad, we are one step closer. Daniel, Jaysn, Pascale, viii Nathalie, Amin, Yasmine, Shadi, Hala, Nawar, Ramzi, Bruno, Nagib, Josephine, and Ketty, distance and circumstances oblige, but the frequency with which we keep in touch is not a measure of the gratitude I owe each one of you. Omar and Nawaf, the imprints you have left are indelible. Miles and Shams have next. Completing this dissertation would not have been possible without the supervision of Dr. Mary Maguire. I am immensely grateful for the generosity you showed with your time, be it in meetings or in your attentive reviews of my drafts. Your sense of when to allow me space and when to pull in the reigns is a reflection of the extent to which you are invested in your students’ success. Working with you has made me reassess my skepticism of academia, if only in part. Drs. Straw and Paré, I appreciate your willingness to act as committee members despite what I know are considerably heavy workloads. Rima, your editorial input has been invaluable to my writing process. “All steak, no fat,” which, of course, says nothing about the quality of the meat. For everything I have been granted in life, the unearned privileges I have been blessed with, the opportunities that a number of parents strive to afford their children but cannot, as we say in Arabic: “Al-hamdulillah.” All praises due. ix Author’s Note This compact disc contains an electronic version of my dissertation, in which I have embedded scenes from The Wire that are relevant to my analysis. The hyperlinked text is in underlined font; blue in the electronic version and black in print. These minor formatting alterations should help readers locate the scenes in the print dissertation and watch them electronically. Viewing the scenes is not mandatory but adds to the level of reader engagement with the text. An internet connection is required. x Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................................... v Résumé ........................................................................................................................................................................ vi Acknowledgements

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