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The Empowerment of Children

15/4/2018

 
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What happens when you take a group of minority kids after school and give them the resources to tell a story through video and their own music (hip-hop) about a problem that they and children and teenagers live with everyday, everywhere? This is the question Ray Thomas Jr. and his Xposure Foundation have been working on for the past nine years.  Unfettered by test prep, standards, and curriculum goals, Xposure's  programs give kids a voice and the tools to address issues that impact  them the most.   One of their latest products is a 51 minute film "Dear Bully: The Tables Have Been Turned," which was premiered at a local Multiplex yesterday here in the town of Greenburgh, NY, where I live. Note, Xposure has received 5 NY Emmy nominations for earlier films. 

It is not without irony that I viewed this insightful film by and about children and teens addressing this problem while the oval office is currently occupied by a bully, whose bully pulpit is Twitter and television; reality media that expose his total lack of empathy.   

"Dear Bully" works on many levels.  First there is humor.  A music video of "Big Bad Butch the Bully Johnson" is a cartoon depicting a hulking monster with an evil eye who is so bad "that when he looks in the mirror he scares himself."  
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"JUST HOW BAD IS BUTCH THE BULLY JOHNSON?" is the question asked and answered in this over-the-top poke-in-the-eye catchy rap.
Live action shows the many deeds bullies do: tripping, shoving, knocking books out of their  victims' hands, helping themselves to lunch money.  The camera focuses on the victims while the audience sees the backs of the bullies, their faces obscured for the most part, slightly dehumanizing them.  The hero of the story, "Ace" is so authentically played by Malcolm Small, now in high school, that they have footage of him when he actually was in grade school in a flashback showing his apprehension as he entered his new school (at the urging of his mother) anticipating an unwelcoming response from his classmates as the "NEW KID, " a common target of bullies.  

Ace is a leader and he organizes other victims to figure out how to fight bullies. He encourages   the others to give vent to their anger and their natural desire to hit them back harder.  But Ace tells them that "violence begets violence" so they must find another way. Since Ace is a good student, he is bullied into revealing his test paper for the bullies to copy.  His vengeance is sweet and satisfying (no spoiler from me!)

In his dreams, Ace becomes president of the US and is about to sign an anti-bullying bill, having grasped the concept that when it comes to bullies vs. victims "we have the numbers."  I couldn't help but think of the post I wrote last week, Putting Citizenship Back into the Curriculum where Dr. David Liu spoke of the enormous surge of civic engagement as a reaction to our Bully-in-Chief. Xposure kids are manifestly in the spirit of the times.  

The live action is interspersed with fully-rendered music videos that are at times poignant, at times joyously uninhibited, and always full of youthful energy.  Ray Thomas's fingerprints are all over every part of this production so it has the personal integrity that connects with humanity at large.  The film's anti-bullying law requires that victims write their bullies a letter, which bullies are required to read before they enter mandatory "empathy training for bullies."  Here's a sample of the verse:
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My take-away of "Dear Bully" is pure empowerment: "If they don't like you for being yourself, be yourself even more," so say the students of BeYou High. This is must-see for kids everywhere; it is a non-polemic, non-didactic, non-preachy communication that is guaranteed to transmit its potent message to a rapt audience.

Putting Citizenship Back in the Curriculum

8/4/2018

 
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Eric Liu, founder of Citizen University and Executive Director of the Aspen Institute’s Citizenship and American identity program. Photo by Vicki Cobb
On April 7, 2018, I returned to Teachers College, Columbia University for their Academic Festival, a celebration of the mission of this premiere graduate school founded on the principles of John Dewey as stated on the wall over the  TC reception desk: 
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photo by Vicki Cobb
The title of the keynote address by Eric Liu was "Teaching Civic Power." It was a rousing reminder that, as Dr. Liu quoted Sandra Day O'Conner: " 'Compulsory public education was instituted in the country in the first place to create citizens,' not wage workers, not customers, not capitalists, but citizens capable of governing themselves and their country." He believes that all teachers, no matter what subject, are also teaching civics through their own behavior.  He also recollected that in 1814, 25 years after the founding of the United States, John Adams said, "There never has been a democracy yet that has not committed suicide." 

On the up side, Liu said,
 "The United States today is not quite suicidal but it is definitely in a state  of self-inflicted fragility."  This is not a recent phenomenon but has been growing over the last forty years  "of erosion of common purpose of the leaders of both parties and .....of devaluation of public education in general and civic education in particular." 

We the people have ceded our collective power (the capacity to make people do what you would have them do)  over the years to special interests, to those who have wealth and to corruptive influences.  According to Liu, "Power doesn't so much corrupt as it reveals character."  The good news is that Eric Liu is optimistic about the future:  

 "Despite the sickness of the body politic right now, let me tell you why I am so hopeful.   In part, to be honest, it is because of the man who currently occupies the White House. After all, he alone, as he likes to say, he alone has sparked the greatest surge of civic  engagement this country has ever seen. Millions of Americans are stepping off the  sidelines and participating. .... People are swarming like antibodies to a virus … the immune system of the body politic is now kicking in.  The goal now has to be civic renewal—we need a new network of mutual aid, civic, social and moral character."  


How this can be done is by returning to the principles of John Dewey who believed that learning comes, not just from books, but by doing.  Eric Liu embodies these principles and he is speaking to wake us up. Thus the teacher, the writer, and the citizen of a democracy are all  practicing acts of faith, where learning and the thriving of a democracy become true through our best practices.
It will come, according to Dr. Liu, with the "savvy realization that we're all better off when we're all better off."

 
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I'm expressing my gratitude to the inimitable John Dewey.

     Vicki Cobb

    *Award-winning author of more than 90 nonfiction books for children, mostly in science.
    *Former Contributor to the Huffington Post
    *Founder/President of iNK Think Tank, Inc.
    *Passionate advocate for the joy of learning for every child and teacher.

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