Gauging Graffiti in the Classroom
Healthy Subtle Resistance to Digital Domination & Indifference
I only speak for myself
But the word around town
Is that something's shaking
In the underground
I only speak for myself
But the word on the street
Is that the writing's on the wall
And the cop's on the beat
—Michelle Shocked, “Graffiti Limbo” (1988)
Young kids making cops run like mental patients
Don't they know that graffiti can't be stopped
Writers unlike rappers can't go pop
—Looptroop Rockers, “Ambush in the Night” (1999)
High School classroom scene from a long time ago. . . or maybe fairly recently. Aging BOYER informally questioned by curious STUDENT.
STUDENT: Mr. Boyer, you ever tag? In high school?
BOYER: Tag? Tag with my sons? And their friends?
STUDENT: Tagging. You know. Graffiti? Spray can?
BOYER: Well, certainly not an occupied residence, active business or educational institution.
STUDENT: Uh, what do you mean?
BOYER: Would you say there’s a line between wall-writing and plywood proclamations?
STUDENT: I don’t get your question.
BOYER: Is there difference between constructive free speech and destructive vandalism?
STUDENT: I just tag boarded-up buildings, abandoned houses, maybe a railcar. . . .
BOYER: You mean like Tyree Guyton?
STUDENT: Who?
BOYER: Wow, we really need to take another economics field trip, to the Heidelberg Project, to some street art in the D. . . .1
Anyone still work with chalk?
Not just white, but also yellow? Maybe pink, green?
When mandated promethean and white boards invaded our classrooms several years ago, most assumed chalk and the reduced board space would doom the medium to the same fate as card catalogues, film strips, microfiche and slide rules.
Just let the kids submit to the screens?
And yet these old forms can’t be totally erased. Desk and wall graffiti still hides under a laptop, or within a hard copy assignment. An updated twist may include a student’s Instagram or related social media handle, yet taking the odd opportunity, some of these teenagers still stubbornly reveal many interesting (if hidden) statements.
“Such informal art suggests a student desiring stronger connections, or at least a colorful way to ask the teacher for more assistance.”
Chalk and pencils offer less aggressive commentaries than semi-permanent sharpies, which seem reserved to more obscure crevices of our school. Obscenities and bullying-type remarks remain surprisingly rare in my weekly surveys of these unsolicited student outbursts, as I swipe my desks and chalkboards clean, typically each Monday morning.
KP also scribbled me a note, “I picked a mouse because Boyer thinks he’s hilarious but this class be quiet as a mouse when he tells a joke.”
One or twice a year I will ask students to free-form some open-ended questions or comments about a particular topic using the chalkboard, such as an introductory inquiry into economics and an imagined million dollars.
Doodling, graffiti’s close cousin in miniature, frequently surfaces in notes and frustrated test answers. Such informal art suggests a student desiring stronger connections, or at least a colorful way to ask the teacher for more assistance.
Somewhere beyond the vibrating cellular devices, beyond the illuminated prison cells of electronic hypnosis, some continue to reach out, not usually as a desperate cry for a vague therapeutic intervention (as in, say, the severely disturbed Oxford High School shooter), but maybe for just a humorous aside. . . or a welcome observation in a world of banalities, bewilderment and sadly, occasional brutalities.
Such in-class sketch artistry typically displays more concentration, not someone seemingly off-task.2 One of my quiet artists (CL) eagerly echoed this in an extra credit journal question, giving hope through her impromptu drawings that I can still improve as a teacher three decades into my career.