teacher perceptions

I think the main point of this article is that teacher perceptions are being clouded by too many negative connotations of our youth lifestyle. The media and other forms of distortion like to label youths are "Troublemakers" or even "Unsalvageable" youths and we as critical thinking teachers need to end this. The part of this article that really stuck with me is the part on Trouble and Emotion: Attitude. It is sad that some students have to feel as if they are in a postion of little-to-no power when it comes to authority. Some authority figures in schools believe that just because they are the adult and the student is a child, the adult is automatically in the right. There was a time when i was in school that i fell into this predicament. I at least had the nerve to speak up and prove the teacher wrong, but i had to do it with the fear that the principal or who ever would take the word of the teacher before mine. A friend of mine and i were working on his english project in the computer lab. He had to make a poem and since he was the class clown, which probably what was going against us in the first place, he decided to make his poem funny. After we started laughing at his funny poem, the computer lab monitor got our teacher and the head librarian and told them we were looking at "inappropriate" websites. Since i knew he was lying, i flat out said, "I know you are lying about us and i just want to know why?" After that, we were not in trouble but just had to leave the lab for that day. It is sad that teachers get this power trip, which as the chapter points out is "asymmetrical" when the earn this licence and this it a serious problem. Students need to be able to express themselves and allow for us teachers to hear there stories (aslong as it is respect for both parties), because if this never happens, schools will no longer be democratic.