Week 12- Youth in The System

Questions about Restorative Practices

1. What should our first step be to ensure that Restorative Practices are implemented not only in classrooms but in the schools as well? Who should be the first person/people we approach? (principal, parents, youth, school district, etc)

2. What should be our vision/mission when trying to implement restorative practices in schools? We as youth workers should not go in with the "save them mentality". 

Reflections on Restorative Practices

3. Watching the assigned material for this week on restorative practice, gives me hope for Providence schools. If the administration at Roger Williams implements this tool in their school, I believe their be a lot less disrespect from students. What I found to be critically important, is the role of the adults. They are not there to discipline the youth. There not there to chastise them or even lead the circle. They are participants. We could even go as far as to call them facilitators. But there are not meeting with their students to hand out punishments.

4. Our youth have way too many people in their lives that yell at them. Or make them feel inferior. We need to stray away from the "control factor" in our educational system. Holding onto the notion of control will not earn the respect of our youth. In the videos, the facilitators did not come into the circle with a superior attitude. They didn't tell the participants, "I'm in charge and you have to do what I say". They didn't stand in the front of the room and raise their voice. They treated their youth as their equals. Every body's voice mattered. 

5. The level of vulnerability from the facilitators is whats missing from our educators today. If you want to reach our youth, you have to be willing to share who you are?  You can't expect your students to share who they are, where they come from, if you're not willing to do the same. It's apart of the meet them where they are model. You get out what you put in. 

Week 11- Leading With

After reading "Urban Youth Building Community", I have come to agree with the four lessons mapped out after conducting research on three youth projects (PARTY, TNL, and AYPAL)

1. The importance of positionality-  

One way to create change in our society is to understand the potential obstacles, discrimination and oppression that some groups experience over others. Initially, the youth in PARTY, viewed Ms. Nygreen as an authority figure not as an ally. In addition to her being a teacher, she did not share the youth's racial background. She was a white woman who was seen as privileged. In order for her to gain her students trust, she had to walk into that room open minded, vulnerable, and honest. It would have been impossible for her to walk into the room with a teacher's mentality and become an ally. Ms. Nygreen had to admit that she as white woman held certain privileges. Privileges that were masked from her students. But most importantly, she had to acknowledge that her students were being oppressed by the educational system. 

2. The role of adult allies in youth-led projects

If adults are committed to youth-led projects, they must know their place in the organization. Too often than not, adults either inadvertently or deliberately take the power away from the youth. My after school program is housed out of  Roger Williams Middle School. Last year, the school brought back student council. The adults promised to give complete control over to the students. Three months after the student council elections, the administration started vetoing proposed ideas. They took control over the student council and started making decisions without asking the student body what they wanted. It was easy for the administration to say no to proposed ideas because they must adhere to school policy and regulations. 

3. The creation of safe spaces

Some people like to believe that people exist in environments that are open and accepting, unfortunately this is not true for many people, especially for those in oppressed communities. I believe everyone wants to be comfortable within their own environments. To be able to express their thoughts and feelings. Without fear of not being heard. Even something as simple as having a space outside of a school can help to establish a safe space free of authoritative figures. PARTY decided to change their meeting space from a university classroom to the home of one of its members. By changing the venue, youth were able to disregard the oppressive "school-like" environment.

4. The building of trust and relationships

Building trust with youth is crucial if you want to establish meaningful relationships. You must meet them where they are at. Its all about finding a balance. On the one hand, you have to maintain a level of professionalism. But on the other hand, you have to be willing to be vulnerable. If you share certain hobbies, acknowledge that. If you have similar taste in music, share that. If your youth do not trust you, they will be hesitant to allow you in to their lives. 

Week 10- # Black Lives Matter

We need to stand together as a community (parents, school administration, teachers, union officials, students, etc.). We cannot continue to live in fear of retaliation from hateful groups of people. We cannot let ignorance and racism deter us from making Black Lives Matter in our schools.  

The Seattle community chose to band together and continue their movement despite hate groups threatening to bomb an elementary school in Seattle. We need to show people who choose to live in ignorance that we will not be moved.  We will not be pushed back to the days where our voices did not matter. Like Seattle Seahawk Pro Bowl defensive end Michael Bennett said, “Some people believe the change [must] come from the government, but I believe it has to be organic and come from the bottom. The campaign around making Black Lives Matter in Seattle schools did not originate from people in office. It originated from community members who were fed up seeing youth of color being oppressed by an institutional system.  

If we follow Seattle Washington’s lead and acknowledge the systems of privilege that are oppressing our black youth, we can shake up the institutions by instilling the 3-point policy set forth. Which calls for supporting ethnic studies in schools, replacing zero tolerance discipline with restorative justice practices, and de-tracking classes within the schools to undo the racial segregation that is reinforced by tracking. I would like to see this policy proposal within the Providence Public School District.  

Towards the end of the Black Lives Matter article, white liberals in response to the campaign expressed that, “We should be colorblind because all lives matter’. Excuse my language but I see this as being nothing more than bullshit. If all lives mattered, we wouldn’t have so many black youths being killed by police officers. If all lives mattered, we wouldn’t have illegal immigrants being deported or detained in detention camps. If all lives mattered, there would be an equal amount of news coverage for black children who are declared missing by family members. When Natalie Holloway went missing, her story was aired on countless news stations day after day. I guarantee you, there were Black and Hispanic children who were missing around the same time as Natalie Holloway and did not receive the same amount of news coverage as she did. So, when people say all lives matter it really pisses me off. If you want to continue to live in a world of color blindness, that’s your right to ignorance. Just don’t try to rub that ignorance off on everyone else! 

Week 9- Play

While reading the assigned texts/videos/blog posts, I found myself thinking of my after school program and the lack of “play” that is incorporated. I think I should explain the set up of my program before I go any further.

We have outside providers come into the AfterZone site( Roger Williams) to teach our kids: dancing, cooking, life skills, and preforming arts. Our after-school program runs from 3:00pm to 5:15pm. Some providers such as, our cooking instructor choose to hold two hour programs. We only see these kids during dinner and dismissal time. Other than that, they are in their programs. On the other hand, we have some providers that choose to hold programs for only a hour. So, if their program runs from 3pm to 4pm, then they have AfterZone and vice versatile. AfterZone is supposed to be considered free time or free play.

After reading this weeks assignments, I can honestly say my program is missing free play. My current  supervisor believes in having a set schedule of AfterZone activities. But instead of asking our kids what they would like to do for the day, she leaves it in the hands of the staff. I have some kids who would much rather play board games, listen to music, and play games on their phone than play the assigned game for the day. I look down on the schedule because we are not giving our kids a voice. There have been times when my supervisor would tell some of our quieter kids to go to the gym and participate in the AfterZone game of the day. One of my kids came up to me and said, “At DelSesto, the staff let their kids pick what they want to do. I don’t like to play with other kids. I want to be by myself playing on my phone”. If it were up to me, every day of AfterZone would be free play. I would pull out board games in the cafeteria and bring out sports equipment and set that up in the gym. I guarantee that would diminish the amount of kids who choose to sit against the wall and curse out staff members.

Week 8: Whats Care Got To Do With It!

While reading Dr. McKamey's article, Restoring "Caring in Education" I initially found myself confused with the two caring conceptualizations (caring about and caring for).  It wasn't until I came across Lila and Ruby's stories that I was able to comprehend the framework Dr. McKamey was setting forth. [When we are} caring about, we are putting an emphasis on ourselves and the issues we care about or want to see changed not only for our benefit, but for the people we feel are being oppressed.  Lila felt as though her teacher was excluding her and her peers who did not speak Spanish. She felt strongly about the situation and sought out help from another teacher on how she could combat the inequality within the classroom. Her story illustrates the caring about framework.

When it came to the "caring for" conceptualization, I had to place myself in my youth space (Roger Williams Middle School). I had to look back on the times I entered the school and identified times where I witnessed students being cared for by the school administration. Some teachers will seek out students they know are having a bad day but it is not a consistent approach. However, this is a consistent approach among after school program staff. What's ironic about this situation is, these staff members do not see our kids every single day. Some see their kids two maybe three times a week. In spite of this, there is a level of consistency that is en routed. Lila made an analogy that stood out to me. She said, "I consider myself as a pot, because the flowers inside the pot need water, sun, soil, to grow and become healthy. If it doesn't have these things, then it will not grow and die".  In my eyes, our kids need: respect, opportunities for leadership as well as growth, and support.

In reading 'Caution, we have power, I felt an overwhelming sense of systematic oppression put forth on undocumented immigrants. I found myself flash backing to high school. In particular, 10th grade English Literacy. My English teacher was one of my more rigid educators. He strongly believed the only way to learn English was to speak it during school. He had this rule that I will never forget. He would always say, "If you decide to speak Spanish in my classroom, you will be staying after school and write I will not speak Spanish in Mr. Fuller's classroom a hundred times".  Students would go to the principals office to voice their frustrations but the administration did nothing to support their students. In fact, more and more faculty started to adopt Mr. Fuller's rule. The English Language Learners were being oppressed by their educators. The very people who were vocal about English being the only dominant language in their school.

Week 7- Identity

Jamila Lyiscott’s Ted Talk entitled, Why English Class is Silencing Students of Color introduces a framework of liberation literacy and calls for action for a paradigm shift that begins with critical awareness of ones self and the world we live in. While reading one of our assigned text entitled Locating Yourself for your Students, I noticed that the writers, Priya Parma’s and Shirley Steingberg begin their work by echoing one of Lyiscott’s principal paradigms. That paradigm being awareness of ones self. Parma and Steinberg believe, “Identifying [yourself] to students in terms of your personality- that is, naming exactly who you are, has been a way to create a safe space for students to discuss sensitive racial and ethnic matters”(page 282). If Parma had walked into that classroom oblivious to her own privileges as well as oppressions being alienated as a women of color, the kids in that classroom would not have felt comfortable talking to her. Nor would they have had a safe space to talk about own feelings of oppression. 

                      Jamila Lyiscott's final excerpt from, Why English Class is Silencing Students of  Color: If we do not have socially just practices in ourselves, then it is impossible to have social justice in our world. 

Jamila Lyiscott embraces the power of linguistic diversity and language in another Ted Talk entitled, 3 Ways to Speak English. She may speak her native language when she is with her family. Jamila Lyiscott describes herself as “tri-tongued orator”. She challenges people and expresses her definition of the word articulate. To her, articulation is not enunciating her words and pronouncing every sound because English is a complex language with multiple ways to speak the same words. She believes we should be celebrating linguistic diversity as opposed to looking down on people for speaking differently and labeling them as an inarticulate. 

Dr. Natalia Lopez- YDEV Retreat

Saturday's retreat was an empowering experience for me. I feel more connected to my YDEV peers. From being vulnerable with one another, we became more of a family. All I can say is, I wish I  could turn back time and relieve the whole experience. 

People may hear the word Race and think they can easily define it. But it's a complex word that has a complex definition. When we were working in groups last Saturday, I found it difficult to come up with what I think Race is. 

Dr. Natalia Lopez’s explanation about the origin of the History of Race in US starting in 1779 was information that was new to me. I am making a commitment to learn more about the five I's of Racism as well as the School to Prison Pipeline.