When Mama J., as Jocelyn Pinkerton is known by her students, walks into her Chicago classroom she is greeted by what most teachers would consider a nightmare: Chicago Vocational Career Academy’s most troubled and malicious students. But as a journalism teacher, Pinkerton couldn’t be happier.

After only two years of teaching journalism Pinkerton has discovered that the most compelling stories come from the most unreliable and troubled kids. “Assume nothing,” she said. “Often if you have a troublesome kid you have a story.”

On the surface this could simply mean the troublesome student knows all the latest gossip. Dorchelle Spence, Director of Communications for the Riverfront Development Corporation (Memphis, TN), said, “Trouble makers usually know more about what's going on with the majority of students…. Therefore, [the troublesome students] tend to have a wealth of diverse information that may appeal to a wider audience.” However, it goes much deeper with Pinkerton and her students.



Pinkerton believes her best writers are the ones no other teacher wants in their class. She notes that many teachers want to pay a student back for being troublesome or difficult, and those teachers, she says, need to check their agendas. The students that teachers are quick to dismiss and ignore have something going on in their lives that keep them preoccupied. “Trouble is usually a symptom, not a problem,” Pinkerton said. “Trouble doesn’t come from a vacuum, it comes from life.” Often the greatest writers were once the troublesome kid. These are the same students that you see in high school. “Troubled kids are work,” Pinkerton said, “but they have a story to tell and they need a tangible outlet.”

Spence shares this idea. "Trouble makers,” she said, “often thrive when asked to be involved in something that they secretly believe they are good at or have a hidden interest in. They are also often turned around by positive attention and reinforcement.”

Sherie Sanders, a high school junior, disagrees. She says the troublesome students don’t care about the school, don’t want to get involved, and only want to entertain the other students. “When they have the chance to speak up and say something, they say something crazy or not intelligent. No one takes them seriously.”

For Pinkerton’s students, the school newspaper is more than just another class. It is their way to be recognized as more than a hard to teach student. “We need love most when we are most unlovable. That is the hardest thing to do,” she says. By giving these otherwise unwanted students a place to be heard Pinkerton watches her students become more trusting, more open, and generally better students. Ultimately, these students make it through another year of high school, despite what others expect and what the statistics say.