Exploring Social Justice Issues in the Middle School Kindness and Justice The values and norms at the center of our learning community may be easy to speak and write about in abstract terms, but they are much harder to live by in our daily lives. In schools, where these ideas often exist as expectations, our attention and energy are often drawn to those instances where the norms are not being met. As a result, we sometimes forget to recognize those individuals who on a daily basis meet and even surpass our expectations for what it means to be a member of a community. Two key values that guide much of our work at LREI are kindness and justice. In advisory groups today, we talked about the meaning of these two values and committed to a challenge to thank the members of our community who manifest these values in their actions. In our discussions, we acknowledged that acts of kindness and justice can happen anywhere, at anytime, and between any two people, even if they do not see each other as friends. These acts may be small, but they are contagious, they spread to others and each act celebrates the ideas of our greatest social movement leaders. So for the next week, we have committed ourselves to be more aware of these simple actions and to bring them to each other’s attention. When we observe an act of kindness or justice, we will let that person know and we will inscribe the act on the Kindness and Justice Wall that will reside outside of my office. As Martin Luther King III said:
So we will try to do a better job living and affirming these shared community values, which are certainly worthy of our attention especially with our annual MLK assembly just around the corner. This week in our MLK Assembly, after a communal singing of "Lift Every Voice and Sing," we looked to Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" for inspiration. Student representatives read selections from the essay against a backdrop of images that chronicled the events that took place in Birmingham during the spring and summer of 1963. As they read, we reflected on the power of words and the role that they play in supporting social justice movements. Building on this idea, we also watched a short film called "One Million Postcards" that told the story of the efforts of two young girls to support a social justice action. We ended the assembly portion of our activities with a rousing singing of Stevie Wonder's "Happy Birthday." As a continuation of the ideas and issues explored in the assembly, students met in their advisory groups to discuss issues of importance on which they wanted to take a stand. Each advisory then agreed on an issue of shared interest; we are now in the process of drafting letters on these issues. Advisory groups will also research who should receive these letters. This may include local city council representatives, members of Congress, or the President. The discussions in advisory groups were heartfelt and passionate. So as we reflect on the life and work of Martin Luter King, we understand that it is our obligation to continue to raise our voices against injustice and in support of our common humanity. Resistance, Revolution, and Redemption This week at Middle School Meeting we had our annual Black History Month Assembly. The assembly was kicked off by Victor’s Seventh Grade class who led us in a rousing rendition complete with musical accompaniment of "Harriet Tubman/Steal Away" by Walter Robinson. We then listened to an excerpt from an essay by Tavis Smiley’s entitled "Years to Remember: Resistance, Revolution, and Redemption." The highlight of the assembly was a shared reading given by members of each class of a timeline of key events and people in Black History. We concluded the assembly by watching a brief video of Harry Belafonte reflecting on the theme of "Progress for African Americans." We then reflected on how the assembly — one particular moment of learning and celebration — connected more broadly to issues and themes that we confront in the curriculum every day. We acknowledged that the true measure of our commitment to the diverse heritages that define what it means to be an American is revealed not only in the knowledge we have of others’ experiences, but in how that knowledge informs our words and actions. As Harry Belafonte offers in an interview entitled "Freedom Sings:" Each time we arrive at a new level in extricating ourselves from economic, social, spiritual domination, we have a moment when we dance in the world of these new experiences, only to find that the music soon stops, the dance ends, and we’re struggling once again to save ourselves from being thrown back into those conditions. I don’t know what America has really learned. We are too quick to do what’s expedient on behalf of our culture of greed and hedonism. We’re quite prepared to go to conditions of tyranny in order to sustain that culture, and we do it in the name of democracy, when nothing could be more undemocratic. We do it in the name of saving the values of our society, when the way we behave corrupts those values. [At the same time,] the human spirit is resilient and truth—no matter how long you abuse it and how long you try to crush it—will, as Dr. King would say, rise up again, and in the final analysis will prevail. From the point of view of the poor, the hungry, the disenfranchised, the wretched of the Earth … there will never be peace until their condition has been alleviated and until their humanity is in full bloom. Not since the early days of the civil rights movement has America been given an opportunity as great as the opportunity we have now. It’s one thing for us to avenge our pain, our anger, and our rage by targeting bin Laden and a handful of men who have wrought this villainy. But one should be wise enough to ask, What fueled all this? What continues to sustain the possibility that this will not go away? Dr. King once said that when we reach this kind of crisis, this kind of terror experience, that we should stop long enough to look at ourselves through the eyes of our detractors and find what wisdom we can glean from understanding how we have directly contributed to that tyranny. What have we done to humanity that brings us to this place of inhumanity? Terrorism is in many, many ways the final utterance of voices unheard. We have the opportunity now to look at the two billion people in the world who suffer from the most abject poverty, hunger, disease, and devastation. Add to that another two billion people who are just plain poor. If you look into the world of those caught in economic oppression, illiteracy, disease, and sexism, then you’ll understand more clearly what we have to do. Even with all the difficulties and the frustrations that we feel—those of us who have been consistent in this journey—what makes it so remarkably attractive and encouraging are the men and women you meet on the way. I have met some glorious human beings: Eleanor Roosevelt, Fanny Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, and Dr. King, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela and Che Guevarra, and Cesar Chavez and others not quite so famous—they are the ones who really make the journey rewarding. [It is] the courageous things that simple, wonderful human beings do for each other. In the face of all the inhumanity, it is their humanity that feeds the capacity to endure and continue to pursue honorable solutions to our pain. And so it is that we understand that one of our purposes as an educational institution is to help students to pursue these "honorable solutions." |
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