Written August 28, 2019
Yesterday I found out that Nyla, one of the children I was closest to from aftercare, was murdered over the weekend. Presumably she and her mom were in the way when someone was after her dad. They were shot and killed in their loft apartment.
My therapist said most kids at my workplace are probably de-sensitized to violence and death. Yes. I remember children being desensitized. What to do??
Must give attention to the fundamental root of the problem. Programming, space, representation.
Place-based education can be an opportunity to heal children’s relationships with the places and spaces they occupy. To learn how to feel safe in a place where your family member(s) or friend(s) may have been/will be murdered. To practice having a different relationship to space and place. To be treated as if you belong. To be trusted as a steward of that space.
To relegate place-based/immersive learning experiences to the edges of the curriculum, or as decorations to the substance of the school day, is to ignore the potential that PBE has for healing and regeneration in the midst of trauma. Children cannot learn if they are not eating, or don’t have a home. Children cannot learn if they are being shot in the streets, or if their friends and family are victims of violence. We must get out on the streets, and remake these streets into spaces of healing and regeneration. This is what Black Lives Matter protests were about. I did not know. I did not go. Now, I would go.
Gun violence is an AMERICAN problem. It disproportionately affects Black people. It disproportionately affects Latinos. It disproportionately affects poor people. Now I have a child who was murdered. It helps me understand what these sentences mean.
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