You may have come across the term “mouth bubble” when reading about charter schools. Or maybe you have not.
But they are real. Here is a picture of charter school children blowing “mouth bubbles.”
A reader suggested googling the term, and there was the picture.
Children in “no excuses” charter schools are not allowed to speak in the hallways. They are told that if they feel an urge to speak, they should blow a “mouth bubble” instead.
And that is what you see in the photo.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There’s no photo attached, but I did a Google image search. Frightening!
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This VILLAGE VOICE piece on SUCCESS ACADEMY article includes two “mouth bubble” pictures, one at the beginning of the article, and one and the end:
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/class-struggles-at-a-bronx-charter-school-6430026
The writer, Steve Thrasher, seems underwhelmed by some of what he witnessed during his multi-day visit to Eva-Land, but at other times comes off as approving:
(I’ll ask, for the ka-jillionth time, how would Campbell Brown or her husband Dan Senor react if the teachers and administrators at Heschel — the rich kids private school where their two son attend — tried to impose this “North Korean-like” (Thrasher’s word) sh#% on their own children? I imagine they’d be displeased.
“What Eva does as SUCCESS ACADEMY is great for OTHER PEOPLE’s KIDS, but don’t you even think of pulling that on my kids!”
Campbell sits on SUCCESS ACADEMY Board of Directors, and has given countless speeches, and written countless articles praising SUCCESS ACADEMY.)
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VILLAGE VOICE’s Steve Thrasher: (Excerpts)
“The newly opened charter school is part of a network run by Eva Moskowitz, a woman who inspires a remarkable loathing from New York’s teachers’ union and other advocates of traditional public education. Employing non-union instructors, Bronx Success exists not only to educate kids, but to show that it can do so better than traditional public schools, like the one it shares a building with, P.S.30
“The Voice was there the day Bronx Success opened its doors for business in August. For now, it has only kindergartners and first-graders.
“And miraculously, they know how to keep their mouths shut.
“The sheer efficiency with which the students, teachers, and parents present themselves and govern nearly every gesture and utterance is so striking that the thought ‘North Korean–like’ kept coming to mind during multiple Voice visits over a four-month period to Bronx Success.
“From day one, students are indoctrinated with drills: how to clear their trays and deposit trash at the cafeteria; how to stand in line and walk up stairs; how to track adults with their eyes when they walk and when they talk.
“And to really make it sink in, movements are matched with rhymes.
” “Hands on top!’
” … adults ring out, and children instinctively know to respond,
” ‘That means stop!.
” … as they put their hands on their heads. Sitting with their hands in their laps is “magic five.” Spend just a few hours there, and soon you’ll be responding like a trained poodle: Months later, there hasn’t been any let-up from the day of the school’s opening, and the rhyming and gesturing is as hard-wired in the children as a soldier’s salute.
“Every staff member takes part; every one of them refers to their five- and six-year-old students as ‘scholars.’ Each class, meanwhile, takes on the identity of the alma mater of its teacher. So one group of kindergartners is known as the ‘2027’ scholars of ‘the University of Michigan,’ referring to the year they will graduate from colle ge if they go to the school that educated their instructor. A group of first-graders is known as the ‘2026 scholars of NYU.’
“On a rainy day in August, the principal, Michele Caracappa—a reservedly energetic white woman who appeared in the divisive education documentary WAITING FOR SUPERMAN—wears a business suit one might mistake for that of a media executive. She is bending to greet each kindergartner, reading their names off the tags around their necks and shaking hands.
“Her attention to each and every child is not just a first-day ritual. Principals in the Success Network group of schools are required to shake the hand of every student, every day. That’s some 186 handshakes a day, and just one of numerous drills that staff members, children, and parents learn with military precision at all seven of the Success Academies. When a parent picks up a child at the end of the day, he or she is required to shake the teacher’s hand. Every time.
” ‘Welcome, scholars!’ Caracappa addresses the student body. ‘We are so excited to have you here. We have been waiting so long for you, and have been working so long for your arrival.’ Her speech is going over the heads of some youngsters, who squirm in their little uniforms. The girls wear matching skirts, and the boys polo shirts. (The kindergarten boys are spared the indignity of a clip-on tie for another year.)
“On this first day of school, not all goes according to the very detailed, down-to-the-minute plan. Quivering lips sometimes give out to cries for mommy. (A typical response from the staff: ‘You’re a big kid, now, and you’ve got to learn to do for yourself.’) One child wets his pants. Another little boy goes to the bathroom after much pleading, only to have a complete and utter meltdown inside, crying hysterically.
” … ”
“So why is a woman (Eva Moskowitz) who spends all her time educating poor children of color so hated, especially when she puts her own kids where her mouth is?
“For one reason, her Success Academies are blamed for cannibalizing. The more Bronx Success grows, the more its ‘co-location’ neighbor Wilton will have to shrink—putting Wilton’s staff and parents on the defensive as their school is pushed toward irrelevance and possible extinction.
“For a charter to grow, the other school in its building must die (or, reformers hope, rise to the challenge). The battle for space alone can make enemies out of entire school communities. That movie is playing out right now on the Upper West Side, where Moskowitz is attempting to open her first charter in an affluent white community, against great opposition.
“Why, contend charter school critics, pit kindergartners against each other? Why should Wilton kids see that Bronx Success has better bathrooms, a longer school day, and more resources in the same building?
” … ”
“It’s not for every family. One child, a kindergarten boy, showed up almost late the first day of school, back in August. While the Voice was observing, he was almost always the slowest child to respond to discipline routines, dawdling when other kids were in ‘magic five’ or had already gotten their ‘hands on top.’
“During our visit in January, he was pulled out of the school by his family, who enrolled him in P.S.30 in the same building. It’s precisely this type of thing—families who can’t cut the routine and leave—that gives charters a huge advantage over traditional public schools, which have to serve everyone.
“But it’s precisely this kind of discipline that a lot of Bronx Success families desire.
“Those small scenes of tenderness stand out in a school with North Korean–like military precision. Students line up and keep quiet by holding ‘air bubbles’ in their mouths, their cheeks puffed out, moving through the hallway from classroom to classroom in utter silence. They must hold the handrail by the correct hand going up and down the stairs. If any students make too much noise, the entire class (or even the entire school) may be made to do a drill again, until it’s perfect.”
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Training, like animals or military personnel, not education. SIT! BEG! FETCH! ROLLOVER! CHARGE! FIRE! RETREAT!
Certainly not education “to promote the welfare of the individual so that each person may savor the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the fruits of their own industry.”
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Jack,
What you describe is a parasite that kills its host.
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can you send the link? thank you
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Just FYI, this happens in public schools too. In poor areas anyway. One of the big reasons my kids don’t attend our local public school.
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Unfortunately far to many adminimals have embraced militaristic discipline styles, including for their staff. “Yes Sir, You’re the best adminimal since sliced bread!”, “No Maam your adminimalistic s#!t doesn’t stink”
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too not to, tut tut to me!
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I have no strong opinion about mouth bubbles, but I do know that poor behavior is a big problem in most schools. We’ve empowered kids to ignore teachers with impunity on the grounds that it would habituate them to resist tyranny as adults. Authoritarian teachers would breed desire for authoritarian leaders. Um, in light of recent events, perhaps it’s time to revisit this logic?
Alternative logic: empower teachers to efficiently stop student talking so that all students can acquire the knowledge that will empower them to recognize authoritarian politicians and understand the harm they can do, etc. Most kids’ natural desire is to chat. This natural desire must be curbed for listening to occur. Listening is the vehicle for learning (pace ed school orthodoxy). Ergo if we want learning to happen, teachers must be able to efficiently stop chat.
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Quite correct, Ponderosa. And I agree with your thoughts on students acquiring a base of knowledge.
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I’m thoroughly nonplussed with excessively restrictive and punitive discipline measures. I get more effort out of students with a smile and open desire to be helpful than with requiring conformity. My students need not fear me. They need not stand at attention and salute me.
Students learn better doing fun projects and reading fun stories than with filling out worksheets in uniforms and tactical corporal positions. I have visited and worked in hundreds of public schools in Southern California, and I have never seen mouth bubbles or anything like it, not even in the cruelest parts of South L.A. And besides, this is, you know, America, land of the free, home of the brave. Let’s not be fascists.
To the students of the land: Be yourselves.
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I too am against punitive, harsh, dictatorial classrooms. We do get more from students when we respect them and engage them in the learning process. In fact, my doctoral research is on teaching students to own the process of learning mathematics and to seek justifications for the methods they learn.
I am also a math teacher who has been insulted by parents (albeit infrequently) and cursed at bu frustrated/angry children. So I do understand why educators resort to military models. I just know that they don’t help us to teach.
Unfortunately, as funds for education drop, class sizes grow and the staff available to support high need children dwindles. As this happens, we begin the abandonment of the most fragile students. This turns us into activists or turns us away from teaching.
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Joyce,
Very true.
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It is not fascist to require a student to stop interrupting a lesson.
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“Mouth bubbles” are done as students transition from one place to another – no lesson is going on.
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Exactly, and that is the teacher’s job to ensure the lesson is completed with minimal unnecessary interruptions. If the student doesn’t comply then it is the administrator’s job to do what needs to be done to get the student to comply (but don’t count on adminimals to do so). I doubt that I sent more than one student a year to the office for discipline issues but when I did, the administrator would usually start off with something like: “Okay what did you do to make Sr. Swacker so ticked off that he had to send you to the office?”
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It’s all in how you do it, how you deal with circumstances and treat others. Class disruption can be a problem, but is usually a symptom. Assertive discipline is sometimes needed, but progressive discipline most often works better. I contend that a significant reason no excuses students drop out of university in greater numbers than public school students is that they did not learn to overcome problems with thinking and reason instead of masking them behind mouth bubbles. As a teacher, I must do the same, think through individual problems and communicate well. I admit I am capable of lazily relying on lesson scripts or suspensions to do my job. But I always try to do better than that. There in fact is a better way, and I think it’s more democratic.
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If “fun projects” were all that was required to create competent adults, I’d be all for fun projects all the time. But some –much? most? –critical content will never be fun for many students. Math comes to mind. And even if all critical content could be transmitted via fun projects, projects are inefficient compared to other time-honored methods like lecture. So 12 years of projects would impart only a fraction of the critical content that more efficient modes would impart. Kids would graduate still dangerously ignorant…which, alas, is what our schools are cranking out today.
I just finished doing a fun project with my students. I do think we ought to vary our instruction and try to make it as joyful as possible, when feasible. The occasional fun project seems OK to me. And doing the project does cement this select bit of content more firmly in the mind than much else. But I know that if I had given ultra-lucid, well-crafted, engaging lectures over the 6 days the kids did the project, and then given a quiz on them, they would have learned at least twice as much about the complex world we are trying to prepare them for.
Teachers, we have an urgent mission, as this past election shows. We must transmit as much of the important information WE know into the minds of our students ASAP. That’s what education USED to be about: transmitting critical knowledge to prepare kids for a dangerous world (scorpions, Cossacks, plague, swindlers, demagogues, etc. ) That’s what education is still about in China and India and Japan. We in Western education today have forgotten this eternal mission; fecklessly, baselessly, we have faith that they’ll get the knowledge they need somehow, so no need to ID and ensure transmission of the key knowledge. ” Just do fun projects! Just be yourself! It’ll all work out.” This is a modern American, Romantic faith, not an empirical fact. It doesn’t stand to reason. Dispelling kids’ inborn ignorance is the only hope for decent, democratic civilization, and we’re not doing it well enough now. After the Holocaust, the Germans didn’t say, “Let’s do fun projects about the Holocaust!” No, they said, “Let’s make sure kids know what happened, and let’s NOT make it fun. It shouldn’t be fun. But it’s important to know.” Nor did they say, “The particular facts don’t matter. If we want to prevent another Holocaust, let’s just build up kids’ critical thinking faculties so they can see through a future Hitler’s lies.” No, they saw that particular facts matter and that’s it’s important for the adults to transmit them.
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Ponderosa, I wouldn’t be citing Japan, India, and China as exemplars in education. Those three countries have among the highest suicide rates for school-age students in the world, because of the expectations and extreme pressures on the students.
Is this really what you want in this country?
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Well, as the kids say, “You’ve got to give respect to get it.” Interesting reference to Germany. I’m not sure having Success Academy kids walk on a painted line, sit “at attention”, and sing songs praising their leaders — with mathematical precision — would have been the way to avoid repeating that disaster.
You can’t just say it’s all of one or all of the other. It can’t be just project-based learning or just lecture and quiz. Success Academy is an example of extremism, and extremes are to be avoided. Saying that American schools are failing is another example of extremism.
We’re not failing. We’re doing miraculous work in the face of poverty amidst bank bailouts and outsourcing. The American student does not need to be made “great again”. We do not need to expel from school or society the unwanted, the nonconformist, the underperformer. We rely on diversity. And we need to regain our balance after getting knocked off our feet with the swat of Michelle Rhee’s broom. We need respect. It’s a two way street.
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If i had to choose a militaristic school that imparts the critical knowledge (e.g. why global warming is real; that Muslims are humans, not demons; that authoritarianism is to be avoided at all costs; etc, etc. etc.) or a relaxed school that leaves it to chance whether kids learn this stuff, I’d choose the former. The former would be better for kids and for society. (By the way, I hate the maxim “you need to give respect to get respect” because it’s sloppy and false. Sometimes this is true, but often it’s false. Do Muslim-Americans endure disrespect because they failed to give respect to racists? Does a spoiled kid disrespect her kind parent because the parent was disrespectful to her? Kids’ disrespectful behavior in the classroom often has nothing to do with the respectfulness of the teacher; on the contrary, it’s often the nicest teachers who get run over by kids, who are impelled by innate sadism or perverse peer dynamics).
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Ponderosa, this is a false dichotomy.
You can be a “nice” teacher but still teach discipline to the students, as well as teaching them the important things they need to learn, without being “militaristic” about the whole thing.
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Zorba, it’s not the high-pressure that we should emulate; it’s the focus on transmitting content.
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To be clear, I’m not a FAN of militaristic discipline; my point is that schools’ top priority must be teaching about the world, and if tough discipline is required for this to happen, then so be it. It’s worse abuse to allow kids to remain ignorant than to punish them for talking during a lesson. I have a pretty good group of kids this year –few problems –but in some classes in some years, I know tighter discipline would have permitted more learning. And this angers me because now, more than ever, I know that kids need to acquire the knowledge we have. Rome is burning, and our schools are fiddling around with fun projects and far-too-many interruptions.
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It’s not just militarism to which I am opposed; it’s uniformity. It’s standardization too. Thank God I don’t teach math like you do. (There’s a reason I stopped teaching math back in the 1990s.) What works for you doesn’t work for me. And what works in my English or social studies classes probably doesn’t work in your math class. What works in 3rd grade doesn’t work in 5th grade, nor does what works in 6th apply to 8th.
I don’t believe in school uniforms. I don’t believe in high stakes, standardized tests. I don’t believe in codes of conduct so rigid they do not allow for any variance in personality or learning style. Sometimes, the most loquacious youngsters turn in the most thoughtful, well researched essays, after disrupting the class with their desire to lead. And many times, the quietest kids turn out to have been zoning out when the essays are due. What works for one doesn’t work for the other. In summation, I believe in administrative flexibility and teacher autonomy.
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I can’t find it by searching.
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http://bfy.tw/94IZ
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What’s with all the fish images?
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Maybe you “charter” a fishing boat and you realize the fish kind of look like they’re blowing mouth bubbles?
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That’s as good a guess as anything I can come up with.
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No one is kissing their fish? I thought that was what mouth bubbles was all about!
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Good one, FLERP!. Like the students and families in Success Academy, the fish in those images have been caught. They took the bait. They took the hook, line…
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Duane,
Are you sure fish kissing is consensual?
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LCT,
Now that’s a good one!
The answer lies (double entendre intended) with WJ Clinton:
“It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is. If the–if he–if ‘is’ means is and never has been, that is not–that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement.”
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No wonder education is in a mess. This “instructional approach” is a systemic disease that is rooted in conformity and dictated by command and control.
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If I may correct your first sentence Amer: No wonder PRIVATE CHARTER education is in a mess.
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Compliance and submission training!!
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Another phenomenon is the charter school “raspberry” (for lack of a better term). It happens when air begins to escape the bubble.
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And I thought some of the crap I experienced in Catholic grade school was inane and insane.
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They catch mouth bubbles in my non-charter too.
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This is only a small part of what is skating very close to child abuse, in the “no excuses” charter schools, and in too many public schools which have adopted many of these methods.
It seems as though nobody running these schools have ever studied child development.
Yes, we need a certain amount of discipline in the classrooms in order for learning to take place, but there are ways to do this without these militaristic methods.
Discipline but with humane methods. When I taught the severely disabled and the severely emotionally disturbed and behavior disordered students, we were able to deal with them without this type of thing.
OTOH, can we get Eva Moskowitz to blow a “mouth bubble” before she opens her mouth to speak?
And even more so, can we get Donald Trump to do the same thing?
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Success Academy already has a history of child abuse scandal.
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Yes, it’s true, LCT.
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I wish sometimes that there were a space between. I was raised in a southern state in integrated urban schools where corporal punishment was (and still may be) the norm, where kids were admonished and sent home for mouthing off, disrespecting teachers, cussing, talking back, roughhousing, etc. And now I have worked in California schools where high school students can be sent right back to the classroom with not even a phone call home for doing the same. I have watched my own son and his friends attend elementary and middle school classes and witnessed the crucial importance of classroom management. I have said a million times over that I would rather my kid have a strict teacher with boring lessons over any teacher that cannot control the classroom, no matter how “fun” the lesson or projects. I had both types of teachers, my son has had both types of teachers, and I know which ones benefitted most students, including the poorest and most special needs students. Strict teachers that seem fair, yet serious, are always the best for most (but not all) kids. We as educators seem to not be able to address the dire issue of effective discipline in classrooms and schools, and how essential it is for student learning and to keep teachers in the profession.
Articles like this one suggest that parents choose strict charter schools because they cannot abide by the lax and unsafe conditions created in public school classrooms. And, there is truth to this. But, many charter schools seem to take it overboard (I liken no-excuses charters to Indian Boarding Schools), but their uniform militaristic strictness attracts families with no-nonsense (possibly colonialist) attitudes about how quiet and safe schools should be, even if their kids miss out on the pleasures of a more loving and progressive play based education that wealthier children might enjoy. But there is love in a safe strict environment too. And this is the crux.
It would seem that strict discipline and coerced family involvement are the issues that drive parents’ choices away from public schools. How can we create better neighborhood schools that directly tackle the issues of parental involvement and classroom management? I think we have to be willing to create school cultures in all of our schools to ask (or require) parents to step up and do more. I think they should be hugely involved at the younger ages, and continue through early adolescence. As a high school teacher, I take great pains to contact parents, aunts, uncles, and guardians of my students, but I feel like this should be systematic, and not just due to my own sense of urgency and family agency. I strongly believe that we should be having these conversations more openly and without prejudice with each other- experienced and knowledgeable teachers and parents. (Excuse the length and typos-I’m typing on a phone).
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Great comment. However I’m leery of calls for more parent involvement. The vast majority of parents are already giving all that they can. Often this is inadequate, but demanding more is not going to change that: they’re maxed out. If parents can’t provide effective discipline at home, schools must step up and provide more effective discipline, sub-optimal though that may be.
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I haven’t read all of these comments. I just want to say that in the public school system that I teach in, horrible behavior is acceptable. Kids can use use profanity all they want. They can dress however they want. There are virtually no rules. I think these charter school rules are awful, but wish we had more discipline in public schools.
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As long as graduation rate is the be all and end all, there will be only the discipline limited by that parameter. Administrators, given no choice will pass that on to teachers rather than fight their bosses, who,do not want to fight the public, who do not want to pay taxes to provide for undisciplined kids.
If Success Academy is indeed a success, it is probably because they get to create hoops for children to jump through so they can learn something. Why does this have to be? All schools should be funded to provide a place to learn, and all schools should be allowed to create a vision of what learning is relative to their community. Students who fail to grasp what a school vision is should be provided with an alternative vision. Finding none of the alternatives palatable, these students should be allowed to leave after proper counseling.
We do no students any favors by teaching them that misbehavior is appropriate. We hurt good students by allowing the misbehavior to exist, then we wonder why they want to leave.
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It’s a common thing, at least in the school system where I work in Alabama. It’s paired with requiring that one finger go over the mouth in a shhhh motion while the other arm is held in the air.
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@Dienne and LeftCoastTeacher
Public grade school in affluent So. Cal district has whistle blowing and children freezing in place for 30 seconds before transitioning. Play time is cut short. Yellow lines to walk upon and and silence required for transitioning. Points are deducted if caught speaking during transition. The rules have intensified. Minions for the war effort and the fascist regime well under way. If you missed this 2007 interview with Retired General Wesley Clark or have forgotten about it….you’ll see the seven wars called for back then are still being planned and executed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSL3JqorkdU
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