Americans Who Tell the Truth

 

The majority of sixth through twelfth grade students said they would learn more at school if they felt safer.* Bullies, guns and gangs make schools a violent place.  We can do something about it.  

* National Association of School Psychologists

 

Children exposed to gun violence have a greater tendency to commit violence.* Violence begets violence.  Isn t it time we do something about it?

 

* The Future of Children

 

Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it;

while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.   

Eugene V. Debs

 

Emotion drives attention and attention drives learning and memory, problem solving, and just about everything else.  

 (Dr. Robert Sylvester  

  A Celebration of Neurons: An Educator s Guide to the Human Brain 

 

We are learning that emotions are the RULES of the multiple brain and body systems that are distributed over the whole person. We cannot separate emotion from cognition or cognition from the body. 

Dr. John Ratey

 User s Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention, and the Four Theaters of the Brain 

 

Absence of threat does not mean absence of challenge or lack of consequences for misbehavior or bad choices. It DOES mean lack of real and perceived threat to physical and emotional safety.  

 

Susan Kovalik

 

 

Elephant- good resource for high school students- takes the viewer through a day of violence in a high school 

 

Bowling for Columbine:

Michael Moore s film that examines the incident at Columbine High school related to violence in schools

 

The Freedom  Writers

 

A film about the true story of a nave teacher who confronts the realities of the lives of her students both in and out of the classroom using a story from the Holocaust; book by the same title is also very good and useful for the classroom.

 

Exceeding Expectations

Susan Kovalik

A resource book for educators and folks working with youth that helps us see the direct impact that emotional safety has on learning. It also includes a list of character qualities that should be worked with throughout the learning experience, a thematic approach to understanding citizenship and an in depth approach that is practical in terms of looking at the realities of the lives of students. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED APPROACH!

 

 

The Traitor. Yep, Laurence. New York :                              Facing History and Ourselves

 

The organization, Facing History and Ourselves has demonstrated great strides in addressing the underlying needs and causes of hate/community violence , as it exists in schools. This is a sample article about one success. Please visit facinghistory.org in order to learn about this very useful way of working with school violence issues in a more permanent and comprehensive fashion.

 

Publish Date:04/24/2006

(For Immediate Release  (April 24, 2006

Contact: Marti Tippens Murphy, (626) 744-1177, ext 25

 

Santa Monica, California -- Facing History and Ourselves, an international non-profit organization dedicated to providing resources and professional development to teachers worldwide so students can explore choices and recognize the decisions in history that have led to group hatred and violence, recently joined forces with Santa Monica High School in response to incidents of inter-group conflict that took place at the school last spring. Facing History and Ourselves is a required, year-long course for the school s approximately 850 ninth grade students.

 

We turned to Facing History not only because of its reputation as a program of personal connection, relevance, and rigor, but also because several of our teachers knew firsthand the power of the approach,  said Tristan Komlos,  M  House teacher at Santa Monica High School.  Facing History transforms teachers, and by doing so, transforms students.

 

The faculty, led by teachers Michael Felix, Mary Hendra, La Sonya Roberts and Daniel Braunfeld, re-drafted the school s languishing and disconnected Freshman Seminar and replaced it with a newly developed course that uses lessons from history to help students make more responsible, positive and inclusive decisions in their daily lives. The course examines themes of identity, membership, choices, and participation and uses the organization s classroom resources including Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior, Race and Membership in American History: The Eugenics Movement, and Twilight: Los Angeles.

 

The impact of the partnership with Facing History became clear when the school community had to grapple with a blatant, public display of hate speech on the high school campus earlier this year. Graffiti littered the walls of campus, igniting fears of tension, violence, and retaliation. Instead of a replay of last year s violence, the incident opened a dialogue among the students.

 

We never imagined that after only five months, the experience of Facing History would have enabled students to express such a depth of understanding, empowered teachers to inspire change, and created the beginnings of a new kind of community,  adds Komlos.  I m hopeful that four years from now, by continuing to partner with Facing History, our school will be one in which all students will share a common language to speak up for and act upon our collective values of respect.

 

This partnership was made possible by a grant from Lloyd Cotsen, president of Cotsen Management Corp and former chairman and CEO of Neutrogena Corp., given through the Ahmanson Foundation to fund the training last summer of the 15 educators teaching the course. While the Ahmanson Foundation continues to provide ongoing support and training, Facing History is currently seeking additional funding to expand the program to the tenth grade next year and to meet the long-term goal of having every member of the student body experience Facing History as a required ninth grade course.

 

Facing History and Ourselves is not an intervention program it s about preventing violence and prejudice, said Dan Alba, Regional Director of Facing History and Ourselves. Working with the faculty at Santa Monica High School has allowed us to show students how to confront history in order to better understand their responsibility to each other and the larger community, and learn to act more ethically and compassionately.

 

Facing History s community program, sponsored by the Allstate Foundation, enhances the program s effectiveness. Former Sudanese slave and now human rights activist Francis Bok will speak to program participants on May 19 at a ninth-grade assembly about his incredible journey from victim to upstander, and the empathy and awareness required to make such a remarkable transformation.

 

About Santa Monica High School (Founded in 1891, Santa Monica High School serves over 3,300 students from diverse ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. The student body s demographics are: White (non-Hispanic) 50.4%, Hispanic or Latino 30.8%, African American 11%, Asian 6.8%, Filipino 0.3%, Pacific Islander 0.2%, American Indian or Alaska Native 0.2%, and Other 0.2%.