A Writer's Power

A major theme throughout my language arts class is the power of telling your story. Maria, Sharoud and the other Freedom Writers did exactly that. As we finish Anne Frank, we're discovering that she did the exact same thing. I've asked questions to prompt this observation, such as asking who it is that has the power in the Secret Annex where the Franks and the Van Danns hid. Some of their answers included Anne's parents or Hitler, all valid suggestions, but I went on to suggest that the most powerful person in that hidden attic is Anne herself. This is because it's her voice that, generations later, we still hear.

At one point, Anne says that she is determined to "go on living" after she has died. I asked my students if this was really possible. The strong opinion was that yes, it is possible, and that this is exactly what Anne accomplished through her writing. She is immortal now.

Relating to Anne Frank

So we're heading towards the middle of Anne Frank's Diary now. I'm impressed by how much many of my students know about WWII--though at the same time, it's also important to say that I've had students how hadn't heard of the Holocaust. Seeing them respond to The Freedom Writer's Diary was rewarding, but I'm even more impressed to see some of the connections they are making to Anne. The connections to this young German/Dutch girl from the 1940s hiding for her life in a little attic in Amsterdam are not as obvious as some of the themes of gang violence, addition and broken families in the Freedom Writers. But they are making those connections.

When one student asked why the Freedom Writers had loved this book so much, other students jumped in to answer before I could. "She's locked up." "She's hated for her race." The fear Anne and her family faced is the same fear of a kid who hears bullets outside his or her window at night. Some students are also related to the frustrations Anne writes about with her family, whom she doesn't think are really capable of understanding her. (Is there a fourteen year old alive who feels differently?) As with any book worth the time, its themes are universal. I can't wait for the local Holocaust survivor who is coming to visit; what a powerful experience that will be to hear her experiences first hand!

On a bit of a more humorous note, referring the the Franks' constant efforts to be silent so they won't be caught, one student said, "Imagine being on quiet time for three years!"

Unlearning

I find myself often emphasizing ideas that I want my students to unlearn.

In my Language Arts classroom, one of the things I want students to immediately begin unlearning that the crazy idea that writing must be perfect on the first try. There simply is no such thing. Revision does not make you a bad writer; it makes you a good one. Nor do we expect this perfection on the first try outside the classroom. No coach only puts her players on the field during game time. There are drills, scrimmages, and practice. There must be a "safe" space to practice writing, make mistakes, fix them, and try again without penalty. Freewriting, for me, is that space. It's also a wonder way to let kids tell their own story, which to me is the most meaningful kind of writing possible. I know kids are "learning" that it must be perfect from somewhere. They constantly want dictionaries for spelling and exhibit a focus on, for example, handwriting. I tell them those things are important, but not yet. Eventually, most of them relax and simply begin writing.

Does it count as "data" that some of my students have asked to take their journals with them when they left the Detention Center? I think so.

This is why I philosophically stand behind the practice of "freewriting", though some argue that it is too unstructured and informal to "do any good". In freewriting, the topic is wide open, and the only rule is you must keep your pen moving. If you get stuck, write that. As I say to my kids nearly every day, it's not that you get an idea and then start writing. You start writing and then get an idea. This is the second misconception that I want kids to "unlearn"--that you must know exactly what you're going to say before you put pencil to paper. Writing is a process of discovery of one's self and the world. There's no way possible to know where you may end up once you start.

The Lottery

Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" is one of my very favorite short stories for the whallop it packs at the end, when the villagers set upon poor Mrs. Hutchinson, who drew the paper with the fatal X, with stones. If kids are are going to become peace makers (in their own lives, in the community, in the world), or at least be brought to consider deeply need for peace, we must also talk about the causes of violence. I think "The Lottery" is an amazing little tale of how many times violence just simply becomes ritual or habit. It's tradition, and no one really questions why.

When we'd finished reading, I asked the students to give examples of "real life" Lotteries--ritual violence that a society seems to believe will keep it successful, healthy, fed, safe or redeemed. They mentioned the Aztecs and the Gladiators, which I thought were great examples, as well as various methods of the death penalty and gang initiation. Some kids disagreed with this one, as the DP is, at least in theory, applied to someone guilty of a crime, unlike the Villagers in story. One student even mentioned tattoes, which I would not have thought of. I am not sure I agree, and some other students disagreed as well, but there certainly is a ritual side to many tatooes.

Today, we're going to take a look at my example of a "real-life Lottery", which is the woman in Saudi Arabi who was recently sentenced (and then pardoned) to 200 lashes for having been raped!

The Ladder of Love

Sometimes the kids take control.

"Ms. D, if there's a Ladder of Hate, why is there no Ladder of Love?" (The Ladder of Hate is a graphic and discussion starter I use to illustrate how humanity too often has started at the bottom rung of stereotypes, on to prejudice, to discrimination, to scapegoating and finally to genocide itself.

So why is there no Ladder of Love? A fine question. So I put it back on them. I put "love/peace" at the top of the whiteboard and asked them what specific qualities and steps were needed to get us all there. There answers, honestly, were profound.

Risk. Tolerance. Acceptance. Forgiveness. Communication. Integrity. Honor. Knowledge. When I asked them to order them (after all, the idea here is a progression), the discussion became even more nuanced, with the kids asking themselves and each other questions like, "Shouldn't knowledge be at the beginning?" Others felt that risk should be, since communication won't start until someone takes the plunge. There was also debate about whether integrity or communication should be at the beginning. On one hand, you won't wish to communicate with someone who has no integrity; on the other hand, if you haven't communicated, how do you know if the other person has integrity or not?

My favorite, however, was one student who asked to draw his own graphic on the board. He drew "U" (which means "you" for those of us not as down with hip hop) and "enemy" connected by an arrow forming a circle, explaining that if you forgive an enemy, then that enemy will forgive an enemy of theirs, and so on, until the circle connects back to you.

The Ladder of Hate

So as previous posts suggest, I center my classroom here in the Juvenile Detention Center--the discussions, writing and literature--on the themes of peace and tolerance. With a little (actually, a lot) of inspiration from the Anti-Defamation League, I designed a discussion lesson on what I've come to call the Ladder of Hate. It helps kids to think about some of the major themes of important literature, yes, but it's also a too-prevalent theme in their lives. Finally, it helps get them thinking about the concrete connections between stereotypes and actual genocide! I want them to understand how something as "little" as racial cartoons not only can but have led to mass murder.

The Ladder of Hate starts with Stereotypes. From there we escalate to prejudice, and on to discrimination (ACTING on prejudice). I lead us in a discussion of what each of these terms are and the kids never have trouble with examples. (That said, yes I have had kids who had not heard of the Holocaust!). From discrimination, we move up to scapegoating, the blaming of one group for a whole society's problems (paging Lou Dobbs!). Finally, at the top of the ladder, is genocide. I brought in pictures of Nazi doctors measuring noses and ears to determine if the "patient" was Aryan enough. I pass around a copy of the Diary of Anne Frank, as well as The Freedom Writer's Diary, which includes a copy of a ugly racial cartoon drawn by one of the students in that class. I make sure to note that "simple" stereotypes not only can but HAVE led to genocide. Some of the students literally have a hard time imagining, for example, live human crematorioms or "medical experiments" that involved removing the arm of one patient and sewing it on to the arm of another. Since we can't go to the Holocaust Museum, I am planning for it to come to us, in the form of a local Holocaust survivor. I am hoping that will bring to life the Diary of Anne Frank when we begin reading it.

On Relevance

Relevance, as you also may have observed, dear reader, can be a dangerous thing. In preparation for reading a poem from the perspective of an Hispanic immigrant yesterday, I brought in an article on immigration policy in Arlington (only 10 minutes from where our school is located). Many of the kids even knew some of the Vietnamese or El Salvadoran restaurants mentioned in the article, as they were eager to mention in class.

One of the central and vital goals of peace education, of course, is addressing and combating racism. It is ugly, and can come from anyone, even (and perhaps most likely) those who experience racism themselves. As I suspected I might, I encountered some of the stereotypes people can hold against "immigrants" in my classroom today as we discussed the article.

"They take our jobs". This was immediately challenged (by kids clearly of Latina/o background) to note that there is often no choice due to economic or political circumstances in the home country. Other students pointed out that we're a nation of immigrants and unless you're for example Mohawk or Navajo, there is probably immigration--voluntary or otherwise--there somewhere. One student, usually one of my best and most appreciative young men, said he felt that "immigrants are perverts". When pressed on this point, he described some behavior his sister and mother had experienced at the hands of people they assumed to be immigrants (they may well have been right). We've talked endlessly about the danger of stereotypes--the false belief that if one person in a certain identity group holds a certain quality, everyone in that group does. We've talked about how stereotypes have been the seeds that sowed genocide (I call it the "Ladder of Hate", of which more later).

Because I will not tolerate intolerance, I spoke with this student at length after class, along with my principal, who shares my educational goals of character and peace education. He stated to the student that conversations like that are what education is really about, and I couldn't agree more. But I'm aware that it is also quite counter-culture in a nation that can vilify immigrants, that self-segregates and that sees violence as a way to solve problems. We've raised offending others "because it's my right" to an art form and defined it as American. That, however, doesn't mean that peace education is doomed to failure or should end because it can be hard or messy or raise difficult issues. That's all the more reason for it to exist in every classroom!