Dimitri Syros
Social Studies Teacher
PART I: Meeting with Community Leaders
In order to build upon some of the ideas in our Access activities, I wanted to provide students with tangible exercises that would promote their roles as advocates for themselves and their communities. This manifested itself in first bringing my students face to face with leaders in our community to discuss issues that we deemed as important to us. After conducting research and engaging in discussion groups, students targeted gang violence, drug abuse and standardized testing as areas that could be improved in their lives. With these topics in mind we invited the Mayor of Miami Gardens, our school's principal and members of the Miami Gardens Police Department to our classroom to hold a town hall style meeting with us in which they could answer questions and hear my students opinions. The goal of this event was to move students beyond simple classroom conversations and venting about social issues into actually gathering evidence, incorporating feedback and presenting targeted arguments to people in power who make policy decisions in those areas. By making my students voices heard by people that matter, I sought to show my students that their voices carry weight even though they are only students, and that they are the key to bringing about positive change in the world.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Interview Pre-Work
2. Interview Transcripts and Student Brainstorm
3. Community Leader Feedback
1. Interview Pre-Work
In order to introduce the concept of advocacy to my students, I began by presenting them with a cartoon that narrated a story of student advocacy that I have experienced in my own life. The comic strip on the left describes an advocacy-related story that occurred at a school I used to work at. The comic describes how in the spring of 2015, one of my students was severely injured while walking home because he was struck by a drunk driver. This event had an enormous impact on our school’s students as staff as the injured student was among the most well-liked people on campus. Despite the tragedy, students rose to the occasion by raising money for the student’s medical bills. Their actions did not stop there as took things a step further by conducting research on local drunk driving statistics and then reaching out to local law enforcement officials demanding change. This event cultimated in police officers visiting our school for a town hall discussion and later enactment of a D.A.R.E.-style program.
At my former school it was the direct confrontation with tragedy that motivated my students to find their voices and take action. At my current school site students have been fortunate enough to not have a tragic event catalyze their advocacy. At the same time however it is my duty as their teacher to help them use the power of their collective voice to bring about positive change in the community. I believe that sharing this story of advocacy with my class left a powerful impact on them and show them that anything is possible. For the mini-lesson I broke the comic down into individual slides so that everyone could see each one and present it as if I am telling them a story. This was a productive method to invest students in the concept of being advocates before we broke out into our broader lesson.
2. Interview Transcript and Student Brainstorm
Once students had a firm understanding of the concept of advocacy, the next step in our process was to brainstorm potential issues in our own community that we could inspire change around. It was decided that students would work in small groups to brainstorm four ideas each of community issues that impacted their daily lives. Through this process students would later need to select on issue that they felt was most prominent in the community and that they wanted to change. A blank template of the graphic organizer provided to students to organize their thoughts can be found below:
Additional samples of completed graphic organizers can be found below:
Sample #1:
This student selected the issue of gang violence as the most prominent in out community. This student believes that we need to develop better strategies as a community to dissuade students from joining gangs by providing meaningful alternatives.
Sample #2:
This student viewed the issue of standardized testing as an issue to students in our community and beyond. This student is of the belief that tests alone are not a fair metric to measure student performance because some students have difficulties performing on these high-stakes exams.
Sample #3:
For this sample, the student believed that gun violence is an epidemic in Miami Gardens. This student makes the claim that it is "unacceptable" that innocent bystanders are killed by gun violence everyday and wonders what he can do to change this tragedy.
Sample #4:
For this sample the student believes that homelessness is a massive issue in Miami Gardens. This student believes that this population deserves a second chance and that it is the communities responsibility to help these people to rise up.
At the conclusion of the brainstorming portion of this activity, we decided to take things a step further. Utilizing relationships that I have built in the community as well as my school principal's political connections, we organized a town hall event to take place in the auditorium amongst my Civics and Government classes during 4th period. For this event, a panel was set-up with me and our other Civics teacher serving as the moderators for the mini-event. On the panel were the Mayor of Miami Gardens, two Miami Gardens police officers and our school's principal. We felt that this panel was reflective of the student issues raised through the brainstorming process as they could address social, academic and safety issues in the community. Students were tasked with selecting one issue from their brainstorming sheet and building out potential interview questions that they could ask during the town hall meeting to our community leaders. The goal of this portion of our advocacy unit was to put students face to face with community leaders and show them that their concerns and voices carry weight and can motivate positive change. When many students found out that this event was to take place they make statements such as "Woah, the Mayor is really coming to talk to us!?" and "Why are they going to listen to a group of kids?" I found these exclamations very telling in that our students have been taught that their voices are too small to matter. It inspired me further to reverse this notion through this activity and the activities to come centered around advocacy. I wanted my students to become convinced that they as young people are the true proponents of change in their world because they would be the ones left behind to inherit it.
A transcript of a series of questions posed by students and their respective responses from our community leaders has been included below:
Question #1 (Issue: Homelessness):
Student: (To Mayor) "Often times homeless people are said to have mental problems or be drug addicts. What is the city doing to help these people recover so they can get their live's back together?"
Mayor: "Thank you for your question, that's a great one. Indeed you're right the problem of homelessness is a significant issue in Miami Gardens. Currently my office is working to alleviate the issue by implementing various programs and initiatives. We are spear-heading a job-training program with a local agency that helps people learn essential job and interview skills and set them up with local employers. As far as mental health, many of our shelters are staffed with mental health professionals that are available to help people..."
Question #2 (Issue: Skipping School/Dropping Out)
Student: (To Principal) "Not trying to be rude but school can be very boring sometimes and I'm sure that I'm not the only one who feels that way. It feels like all we get are books, worksheets and tests sometimes. My question is what are you doing as principal to keep students in school and make them actually want to show up?"
Principal: "Well I think the answer to that question starts with me and works its way down to your teachers and ultimately to you. It's my job to bring the right people on board that are going to bring energy and passion into the classroom. I think we have a good example of that in this room right now with Mr. Syros and Ms. W going above and beyond to bring the real-world to you (applause)...okay, your teachers work tirelessly to make the material we are given and make it interesting and relatable. Rather than teaching memorization or "to the test" as they say, we are teaching skills that will help you for the rest of your life like critical thinking and problem solving. Finally, it comes down to you guys. School is a privilege and should not be taken for granted. It can be your ticket to a better life. Education is the answer. You just have to seize it!"
At the conclusion of the 45 minute session, many students left the auditorium feeling empowered about the potential role they could play in inspiring change in the community. "He really cared enough to hear us" some of them said, while others expressed their excitement to proceed forward with our advocacy lesson. This activity was successful in motivating my students and showing them that their voices mattered.
3. Community Leader Feedback
When this town hall meeting was postulated, it was unclear what continuing relationship could take place between the speakers and our students. This activity was initially planned to be a motivating exercise to spring board our advocacy activities elaborated on in Part II of this module. To my surprise however, the police department of Miami Gardens responded strongly to our students calls for change in community and took it about themselves to insert themselves as facilitators of this conversation with our students. Similarly to a D.A.R.E. program that takes place at the elementary school level, officers proposed the idea with our school's administration to bring a G.R.E.A.T. program to our school that would focus on gang resistance education. Within the next few weeks plans were put into motion to organize implementation of this program to our students. Over an eight-week period, school resource officers would teach an eight-part course once a week that tackled issues revolving around gangs in our community. At the end of the program student received a certificate of completion and "graduated" the course further solidifying positive change in our community.
Email Transcript:
"Dear Mr. Syros,
Thank you for having us in your class this semester and for leading the G.R.E.A.T. program here at Norland. We would like to formally invite you to our G.R.E.A.T. program graduation to be held Friday, April 15th in the Norland auditorium at 3:00 pm. We want to thank you for your commitment to your students and our community. It is teachers like you that will inspire the next generation.
Sincerely,
Officer S.F."
Advocacy Part II