Charter Schools

Thanks for coming to class on Thursday for those who were able to make it. I first want to say, To Professor Waterston we all wish you a speedy recovery. On to the lesson, we saw that charter schools can be seen both as benefit as well as a burden to the community.  When charter schools are placed in affluent neighborhoods, the limited resources that are given to those public schools would then be directed into the charter school. In a good neighborhood that is seen as a burden because it is taking money away from the good schools. However if a charter school is placed in a poor neighborhood it may be seen as a benefit because it is seen as an experiment which can possibly lead to success. In either area the stakes are considered to be high considering that children’s education is on the line.

                Another issue that was given attention to was the funding methods, in the “Scholarly Investments article”, private investors was investing into the charter school’s network.  Sally made the comment that it reminded her of the social impact bonds.  I look backed on the social impact bond's discussion. I agree as well that it does pertains to our conversation. The question if “the potential benefits outweigh the potential risk, as people in the status quo need help now” still exists just through a different framework, charter schools.   

The exercise that was given to the class was to decide which school out of the two which share the same building would stay open one being a charter school and the other being a public school. The differences from the outset should have been easy to make a decision considering that the charter school was given an A and the public school was given a C. However one of the comments that Professor Stein mentioned repeatedly was be skeptical of the sources. The main obvious was being that the DOE's measures of what was considered to be an A school.  Some of the differences that was discussed during classes was one being the population for the public school was quite larger that the charter school. Another being that one has the larger amount of resources which can contribute to the education inequality. An important factor that was mentioned was through Sally comment which was whether the schools had an effective Parent Association.  At the end of the exercise the majority chose to allow the public school to stay open (including myself). The biggest problem which was not discussed in depth in class is why is closing a school even an option. Since the beginning of Bloomberg’s administration, 140 schools have been closed with even more slated to be closed this year.

Question what is a benefit and a disadvantage of closing schools? What does closing  schools mean on an individual level, as well as for society? And to make this more relatable, how have we been affected by a school closing directly or indirectly.

Visit to Esperanza

Thanks for coming to Esperanza Thursday. And for those of you who were not able to make it, you were greatly missed. You were given a task to create criteria for potential youth clients to join our organization and participate in the program. Then you had to unanimously choose 8 out of the 12 youths who fit those same criteria. Our goal for that exercise was to give you an insider’s perspective of what is like to hold a person’s future in your grasp and the pressures that come along with the decisions. Looking at the group’s function, some wanted to save everyone, whereas others were willing to make compromises. In reality, individuals like Jon and Omar couldn't always be saved. The decision for the two will ultimately have ramifications for the other who wasn't chosen.

 My question for the class is why did having a support system (family, guardian etc.) play a role in choosing whether or not you accept the individual into Esperanza and who would you consider to be part of your support system(family, guardian)?

The Prisoner's Lens

As soon as I walked into the Eastern State Penitentiary, I felt strange chills. I've been to the Otisville Correctional Facility before, but walking into Eastern Penitentiary was something completely different. It was a much spookier vibe. The whole environment, the strange air, the 30 feet walls, the metal doors, the feeling of actually being a "prisoner," it was very depressing. We were just visiting and I felt those feelings. I can only imagine how the prisoners must've felt. I feel the most powerful part of the tour was when we actually stood inside a cell block. I felt trapped and secluded. After we were all inside the cell block, Kevin closed the door and I felt more chills. At that very moment, I felt like a prisoner and I got a sense of how isolated the prisoners must've felt.

As soon as we finished the tour and we walked out of the penitentiary, I felt so much better... Even though we were outside most of the time, actually walking out of the penitentiary gave me such a breath of fresh air and freedom. My first question to you is, what were your reactions/ feelings upon entering the penitentiary compared to leaving? My second question is, what did you feel was the most powerful part of the tour?

Identification & Misinterpretation

Everyone,

Thank you for such a fun and engaging seminar. The energy was great, the comments were insightful, and it was great (and very entertaining) to moderate the fierce debate. I hope that it was a learning experience to see, even on a small fictitious scale, how the worlds of non-profits and alternative to incarcerations function, especially when it comes to funding.

So to recap, we saw that when pitted against each other, to programs that have similar goals (reducing or combatting violence) and want to essentially help people can get hostile very quickly. The way philanthropy has been set up has created a world where organizations, advocates, and non-profits have to fight for limited resources, most of the time in a very formal respectful manner but nonetheless as competitors. However, as we saw today (and not to say that how class was run is how funding is determined), groups can be quick to antagonize other groups, come up with negative press, or fight tooth and nail for money. The stakes are high, with the lives of the community, the victim, the offender, and let us not forget the donors of the funds and the politicians, up in the air. In our class, we saw how even collaboration may be difficult, especially after the critiques of each project.

Something that was brought up during the debates by Minerva and Sylvie, which was not discussed in length during the debate, was the concept of misinterpretation. Both ceasefire and common justice have components that tried to respect and work with identification. For Ceasefire, it was by respecting masculinity and gang culture. In Common Justice, it was about addressing how offenders, or the responsible party, may also be victims of violence and starting a conversation about context. Both try to respect the interpretation of identity, be it masculinity, or what it means to be a victim, which is integral to the success of each program. However, this also leads room for misinterpretation. Imagine someone coming in and telling you how you should identify yourself, or using what they believe your identity to be as a way to interact with you. Who is to say that the interpretation is correct? And what if it isn't correct? Can it be harmful?

Imagine for a moment if there was a program founded on the premise that it wanted to help Grendel, simply because he was a monster and he needed help fitting in. As we have discussed in class, Grendel was not necessarily a monster. He had a mother, experienced fear, and was very human at times, more human that the humans themselves (which is up for debate). So, isn't the program that is trying to help Grendel doing some harm in already labeling him with an identity that he himself did not agree to? Furthermore, who has the authority to give him an identity anyways?

The question is - how can using what we think we know about masculinity or victims harm the people that both Ceasefire and Common Justice are trying to help? What does this mean on an individual level, on a organizational level, and also for society? And to make this more relatable, how have we been effected by instances where the use of our identification has harmed us. For example, me being a Latino may sometimes bring with it assumptions that may hurt me - such as me being an undocumented immigrant, poor, having already fathered a child, etc. The list of stereotypes can go on. The same goes for the implication of calling someone masculine or a victim. What if they don't identify as such, or disagree? Thought on how these labels and identifications can harm instead of help.

Again, thanks for a great class! It was valid and epic.

Ask Thomas

Many thanks to Professor Giovanni for a riveting, irreverent, depressing, inspiring two hours.  If I were in charge of this blog, I would just feature the steady stream of quotable quotes, such as "what you don't condemn, you condone," or "we want it done more than we want it done right" or "we mistake certainty for leadership" or, my favorite, "we hide from our humanity because we have a role to play."  I will just say there are real life lessons there and leave it at that since I want to open the blog up to your questions for Thomas.  Your professors, delighted at being students again, asked a lot of questions this morning -- perhaps you didn't get to ask yours?  Or you want to push back on something concerning you?  Ask away.  Not only can Thomas respond, but you should feel free to engage one another's comments as well as you would during a regular week. Engage!

YOUR AGENCY NEEDS YOU!

Thank you everyone for participating in our class discussion and making everything run better than I expected it too! This class definitely expanded my ideas about the influence that our psyche has on our actions. Particularly, our actions in relation to others in a group environment. For that reason I turn to the article titled Circles outside the circle: Expanding the group frame through dance/movement therapy and art therapy by Jean Davis and Joan Wittig, The authors pay specific focus to psychology of students participating in group activities and attempt to portray within the literature what art therapy’s role is in the process. This article stresses three key components for influence the greatest amount of persons to the best of ones ability; leadership, trust and following others examples. When these three are not present within an individual, or the individual does not strive to acquire the three, successful group work becomes nearly impossible to obtain. 

Take the group arts and crafts activity that these authors discussed. Students participating in a group arts and craft activity tended to find a common enemy in particular students acting out in the class. One student spilled a glue substance all over the floor and the smell agitated and angered the other surrounding participants. This is important because the authors feel that true leadership comes in forms of both verbal and non-verbal communication so they allowed the student to act out, which leads into the third tier of this study. The authors moved on to another group in a similar situation but these students have been together longer and were in a more sophisticated developmental stage. The authors saw that students here were more willing to follow one person’s behavior of acting out rather than to feel anger towards them. 

It would seem that in order to build community and find people to help tackle social justice issues, we must be willing to build report and share our stories with one another. This has been particularly true at my agency Housing and Services Inc. I have found ways to relate with my mentors and "higher ups" at the agency but our relationship is only as strong as I allow it to be. In other words, I built the strongest relationship with my direct mentor simply because I have been sharing the most personal experience with her and even in that pursuit I withhold the entirety of my story to keep the distance between our professional and personal relationship. As we briefly discussed, three feelings must be present to inspire us to act. We must be confortable acting in the group, the opportunity must not be coercive meaning we volunteer to act, and our actions are guided by something that matter. Before I tell more of my personal anecdote as to how these three relate to me at my agency, I would like to open this blog to discussion. What have your experiences been thus far at your agencies? Do you see potential to move your agency a little bit closer to their social justice goal? I would appreciate hearing your personal stories thus far at your agencies!

P.S: Please feel free to bring up the other two articles or any theme we discussed that was particularly interesting to you. 

Separating Crime and Mental Illness—A Dual Dialogue

First, thank you all again for sharing your stories and taking part in the discussion. A topic as complex as mental health and our justice system is difficult to fully explore in such a short period of time, but I am glad we were able to brush over a couple of different areas. I don’t have so much a couple of specific questions here as I do a general idea and theme, so freely respond with how you feel, and to whatever most jumps out at you.       

For this blog I wanted to extend our discussion to current events, the media, and communication of a cause. Mental health cuts (as shown by the Huff Post article) have been on the rise for decades. In recent news—and as a result of recent gun violence—there have been cries for increased mental health support and services. It almost seems as if criminal behavior and mental illness have become so enmeshed that the discussion has to begin there. But, it raises important questions…

Don’t get me wrong: It is great to talk about mental health and advocate for more treatment and services. With that said, the framework on which we argue for such services is of equal importance (my view). As we’ve seen in class, the “criminalization of mental illness” is a multifaceted issue. How do we assess the independent pieces of the puzzle? How does government balance public fears and research and facts in creating new policies? Does the way we portray a cause (i.e. “criminalization of mental illness”) evoke emotional responses?  Given the narrative we’ve built—and the multiple perspectives we have explored in class—what do you make of these recent calls for more treatment and the general societal stance? 

Further, how do we attempt to alleviate the vexing problems of our times without compromising the main goals? Then again, what even are the “main goals” here? Is there some give and take that we just have to deal with? Can you ever advocate in favor of something… but for the wrong reason?

This small debate presented on the NY Times may be helpful in guiding the discussion. Listed as one of the experts is my mentor from the Vera Institute— Jim Parsons. Also provided is an interesting perspective from Dr. E. Fuller Torrey again, author of our deinstitutionalization article for class.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/01/17/can-mental-health-care-reduce-gun-violence

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*Additionally, feel free to share your “close reading” passage here if you feel very strongly about or can link it to the current events I mentioned. Sorry we couldn’t get to it in class!