Filed under: Miscellaneous, article, event, organizaion, research, teenagers, violence | Tags: career, fair, malcolm x college, poetry, slam, spoken word, tap roots, violence
Courtesy of MySpace
I wanted to share with readers the spoken word poetry of Tap Roots, Inc. They are a West Side group who performs for students, offering an uplifting, positive message that they hope will spark the minds of at least one child in the audience. Recently, they performed for public school students at the 10th annual Citywide Health Careers Fair. The following piece was dedicated to the parents of young victims of violence and the victims themselves.
Filed under: article, chicago, event, legislation & initiatives, organizaion, research, schools, teenagers, violence | Tags: article, chicago, communities, daley, gangs, ny times, school, violence
The paper of record brought its attention to the second city with a recent article on the deaths of Chicago students and the steps being taken to prevent more deaths from happening. It offers a very detailed overview for those who might not be familiar with the story, but ultimately stakes out familiar territory. We get the impassioned quotes from schools CEO Arne Duncan and Mayor Daley, balance from an expert and community resident, and, last but not least, a student. In the end, the article asks nothing or challenges the reader or those being interviewed. I felt led on by the beginning of the article because I thought the focus of the article would stay with the community groups who are escorting Crane Technical High School students to school, but by paragraph four it had already moved on. Left out again is the fact that many of these shooters and gang members are as young as the victims or/and drop outs. Left out again is the mention of students trying to organize and lead in their communities, rather standing idle as politicians and other leaders do the talking. Left out again are more community groups and churches who are marching and leaving their doors open late to save those on both sides of the gun. Not given enough depth is the issue of poverty and outside factors that are at the root of this violence.
Props to CLTV and Alexander Russo for shining a different light.
Filed under: article, organizaion, research, violence | Tags: ceasefire, chicago tribune, disease, grant, public health, schools, uic, violence
The Chicago Tribune posted a very good story over the weekend looking at violence and its effects on children from a public health standpoint. The article is part of an ongoing series about chronic diseases and their effects on urban communities. The categorization of violence as a public health issue has been gaining steam with researchers over the years, similar to the belief that drug addiction should be treated as a disease instead of through immediate incarceration. One researcher who holds this belief is University of Illinois at Chicago professor Gary Slutkin, who also serves as executive director of the Chicago Project for Violence Prevention, at UIC’s school of public health, which oversees the group CeaseFire. The Chicago Project for Violence Prevention is a past winner of a four-year $1.2 million dollar grant from the MacArthur Foundation
Filed under: blogs, research, schools, violence | Tags: blogs, chicago, research, schools, violence
Courtesy of eduwonkette
The blog eduwonkette recently posted an interesting piece that looks in depth at violence in Chicago schools. The article goes beyond gun violence and uses research to study overall violent incidents at school and students’ attitudes toward violence.
I’m happy to see it separate the recent gun violence and the violence that happens within many schools. Many media outlets — including this one– have all too easily tied the problem of students getting killed as one tied directly to the schools, but out of the more than 20 students killed by guns this school year, only two were on school grounds. Many have tried to use this fact to take away the blame for the schools and put it strictly in the hands of parents and law enforcement. On the flip side, a teacher recently told me in an interview that the Chicago Public Schools isn’t running away from these deaths but cynically embracing it in order to push for stricter gun-control laws.
What is the best first step forward? Maybe just talking about it and getting people to pay attention. The schools are part of these communities where these kids are being killed –just like a church, a mom-and-pop shop and other local institutions. Schools can’t think of themselves as not having a stake in this, since it is their job to educate these children, one of the most valuable jobs to have in a community. All too easily many (and even some churches) fail to see that point.
An excerpt from eduwonkette:
What long-term effects can we expect from this wave of violence in Chicago? This Science paper, “Firearm Violence Exposure and Serious Violent Behavior,” provides some insight. The authors analyzed data from Chicago, and argued that there is a causal relationship between exposure to firearm violence and subsequent perpetration of serious violence. The effects were quite large – “exposure to firearm violence approximately doubles the probability that an adolescent will perpetrate serious violence over the subsequent 2 years.”
Education bloggers (present company included) spill a lot of ink over the smallest details of accountability plans, but it’s important to remember that this is the context in which our schools are working. Community problems inevitably seep into schools, and the interventions that we spend the most time talking about do little to help kids manage the emotional toll of these events.
