MLK's Letter from a Birmingham Jail and Suicide Watch

We began today with an all-staff suicide watch training. Apparently a bit ago there were a couple of suicide attempts made by a some of the kids here that were not handled quite as they should have been. I'm familiar with some of the warning signs, such as not enjoying any more things a kid used to love. But I have to say, learning that suicide was the 2nd cause of teen deaths was shocking, although perhaps not as shocking as learning that it's 2nd to the leading cause--which is homicide! I ask again: why is there not peace and conflict resolution education, explicitly and unapologetically, in every single school?

When classes did start after the training, we continued reading the amazing and inspirational letter by MLK, written during his time in jail in Birmingham: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." The kids were actively discussing, ideas like slavery, just and unjust laws, and civil disobedience. This was especially rewarding since discussion was a bit more like pulling teeth yesterday. I especially loved the observation by one student that hate is really about fear of the unknown.

Addressing Stereotypes

I was rather horrified the other day to hear a news story on CNN about protests against a public school in NYC teaching about Isalm and teaching the Arabic language. Naturally, the rhetoric against it is peppered with use of the words, "madrassa", "terrorist" and "immigrant". (The linking of those two itself could be the subject of a dissertation!) I showed the kids the video clip of the story and printed out copies for each student to read. As I'd hoped, this lead to discussion of racial stereotyping and fear of the unknown. For example, I was pleased that my students, in the writing activity I designed to prepare for discussion, wondered whether a public Arabic school would be a problem for people at all before 9/11.