Restorative Justice Initiative interviewed 16 New York City-based restorative justice practitioners and advocates at two events in May 2017. We asked them a series of questions in order to create a better understanding of what restorative justice is and why it’s important.
TweetThe film is meant to extend nationally the student movement to integrate schools. Sarah Camiscoli, a Bronx teacher who helped start IntegrateNYC, worked with the film company to write a comprehensive curriculum to go along with the documentary.
Read more here.
TweetAn article from The Atlantic in September explored the the impact of exchange programs between students of different backgrounds. IntegrateNYC was mentioned in the article, and Sarah Camiscoli offered her own opinions about the benefit or harm of school exchanges.
“When students are systematically isolated, I actually resist the idea that exchanges with students [that are] not actively dismantling [the barriers] are worth the risk,” she said. “When you have them meet, it takes a masterful level of facilitation to make that meeting something of value that doesn’t strip one group of dignity.”
— Sarah Camiscoli, IntegrateNYC
Read the full article HERE
TweetIn her first letter to Jazmine, a 10th-grader at Amundsen High School in Chicago, Vanessa shares her nickname (“Vane”), says she loves animals, and briskly mentions that her father passed away.
“I hope you and I have a lot in common,” she tells her new pen pal. “At first, I didn’t want new friends because I’m scared of talking to people. I hope I get to know you better.”
The correspondence between Jazmine and Vanessa, an eighth-grader at Emiliano Zapata Academy, is one of over 25 exchanges between students at these schools documented in P.S. You Sound Like Someone I Can Trust, a book published this past summer by the nonprofit writing and tutoring center, 826CHI. To create the book, which is dominated by the students’ letters and merely contextualized by the perspectives of adult facilitators, 826CHI and classroom teachers matched pen pals by interest, sparked the letter-writing process with specific prompts, and offered extensive editing assistance.
TweetA filmmaker is naturally excited to have her first movie released. For Sonia Lowman, though, there are more important considerations.
“Teach Us All” hits Netflix worldwide Monday, accompanied by community-based screenings across the country (in L.A., there’s a free public showing at the California African Museum, 600 State Drive in Exposition Park at 7 p.m.). Presented by Ava DuVernay’s San Fernando Valley-based Array Releasing collective, the documentary takes a deep dive into both the history and sorry current state of school desegregation in America.
The story commences with the landmark moment in 1957 – marking its 60th anniversary this week – when President Eisenhower ordered the military to escort the first nine African American students into Little Rock, AK’s Central High School amid a mob of angry racists. Lowman’s movie then details how not just subsequent decades of white flight, but unintended consequences of well-meant efforts to improve schooling for minority youth, has led to separate and unequal education in many, many parts of the country.
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