207: The Youth Boxing Club That Is Changing Lives: Jamyle Cannon and The Bloc

The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast

Jennifer Gonzalez

Education, Teaching, Instruction, Classroommanagement, Educationreform

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 19 March 2023

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The core activity of this after-school program is boxing, but it offers so much more to students. In this episode, I talk with Jamyle Cannon, executive director of The Bloc Chicago, about why this program has been so wildly successful at helping students achieve personal and academic success, and how other educators can follow the same model by building engaging programs around student interests in their communities.

Thanks to EVERFI and Giant Steps for sponsoring this episode.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Jennifer Gonzalez welcoming you to episode 207 of the Cult of Pedagogy Podcast.
0:06.0	In this episode, we're going to look at a youth boxing program that is changing lives in Chicago.
0:11.5	It's called The Block.
0:24.5	I remember listening to a conversation once between two men I taught middle school with.
0:29.5	Some of the details are fuzzy now, but I still remember the gist of it.
0:33.0	I think both were classroom teachers and both were coaches of our school's football team.
0:39.0	Midterm grade reports had just come out and they were talking about one kid, a player on the team who was failing one of his classes.
0:47.0	According to the team's policies, the student was supposed to face disciplinary action for this grade.
0:53.0	Something that amounted to being removed from the team temporarily with the threat of permanent removal if the grade was not brought up.
1:01.0	Both teachers were clearly struggling with the situation.
1:04.5	One of them said to me, if we're going to have a policy like this, we have to enforce it or it means nothing.
1:10.0	But if he loses football, all of his grades are going to go down. It's the only thing keeping him on track.
1:17.0	I still don't remember what they decided to do.
1:19.5	Part of me thinks they made an exception, either negotiating with the teacher in question to arrange enough makeup work or extra credit to raise the grade.
1:28.5	Or just looking the other way for this one student one time.
1:32.5	But the conversation, the conflict these teachers were having, illustrates a much larger problem.
1:39.5	In most schools, extracurriculars are used as a carrot to get students to perform academically and behaviorally.
1:47.5	The assumption is that all students need is the right motivation, something they love enough to make them want to do well in school.
1:56.0	If they choose not to do well, they lose the thing they love.
2:01.5	I think most people who work within this system hope that they never have to actually enforce these policies, that they will work as intended and get students to do what they need to do.
2:13.0	But when they don't work, then what?
2:16.5	What happens to the kids who are turned away from extracurriculars away from the very activities that would help them thrive?
	...

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