The Violence Project

From thousands of miles away, here is a blog post on a group of Palestinian kindergartners who struggle learning to just be kids and have a little bit of fun, because of the ongoing problems in the Gaza Strip.  It’s interesting how different (and similar) their situation is to the children the Chicago Sun-Times surveyed about violence in Chicago.

Action Now is launching a West Side anti-violence campaign at a town hall meeting of community members and government officials tonight at the Christian Valley Church on Chicago’s West Side. The town hall is aimed at opening a dialogue between residents and local officials on strategies to stem the growing tide of violence in west side Chicago neighborhoods.

Action Now plans to call upon officials to support the creation of a 100-block community saftey zone, and the implentation of strategies to get youth off the street and help re-intergrate the formerly incarcerated. Initiatives include:

• Creating more after-school programs
• Launching a summer jobs program for youth
• Improving police presence on the street with foot and bicycle patrols
• Establishing ex-offender re-entry program

Scheduled guests include 28th Ward Alderman Ed Smith, 24th Ward Alderman Sharon Denise Dixon and Cook County Commissioner Robert Steele.

When: 7:00 p.m., April 29, 2008

Where Christian Valley Church, 1237 S. Homan Ave., Chicago, IL

Courtesy of eduwonkette

The blog eduwonkette recently posted an interesting piece that looks in depth at violence in Chicago schools. The article goes beyond gun violence and uses research to study overall violent incidents at school and students’ attitudes toward violence.

I’m happy to see it separate the recent gun violence and the violence that happens within many schools. Many media outlets — including this one– have all too easily tied the problem of students getting killed as one tied directly to the schools, but out of the more than 20 students killed by guns this school year, only two were on school grounds. Many have tried to use this fact to take away the blame for the schools and put it strictly in the hands of parents and law enforcement. On the flip side, a teacher recently told me in an interview that the Chicago Public Schools isn’t running away from these deaths but cynically embracing it in order to push for stricter gun-control laws.

What is the best first step forward? Maybe just talking about it and getting people to pay attention. The schools are part of these communities where these kids are being killed –just like a church, a mom-and-pop shop and other local institutions. Schools can’t think of themselves as not having a stake in this, since it is their job to educate these children, one of the most valuable jobs to have in a community. All too easily many (and even some churches) fail to see that point.

An excerpt from eduwonkette:

What long-term effects can we expect from this wave of violence in Chicago? This Science paper, “Firearm Violence Exposure and Serious Violent Behavior,” provides some insight. The authors analyzed data from Chicago, and argued that there is a causal relationship between exposure to firearm violence and subsequent perpetration of serious violence. The effects were quite large - “exposure to firearm violence approximately doubles the probability that an adolescent will perpetrate serious violence over the subsequent 2 years.”

Education bloggers (present company included) spill a lot of ink over the smallest details of accountability plans, but it’s important to remember that this is the context in which our schools are working. Community problems inevitably seep into schools, and the interventions that we spend the most time talking about do little to help kids manage the emotional toll of these events.

I wanted to share a comment from the previous incarnation of this blog. It is from the sister of Keith Stephens, one of the subjects in the book Class Dismissed. Stephens was shot and killed in February 2006.

Latisha // April 23, 2008 at 5:14 am (edit)

I happen to be the sister of Keith Stephens and I’m definitely up for the challenge…….There’s been countless murder’s in the Bay Area since Keith passed away and I’ve just became so numb Your eyes are never truly open to this problem unless homicide touches you life…..I was guilty of that before I lost my brother and you think this would never happen in your family but yes it can It happen to us. Keith was a good kid he had his troubles here and there just like any other kid but not in a million years I would have ever though someone would take Keith Stephens life…………..If you read the book you would know Keith was one of the most likeably guys you would ever come across. We should all dig a little deeper rather than saying “Oh that another dead Black Man”. Dig deeper you never know what an amazing person he could have been. My father’s worst nightmare came about when we lost Keith, he never wanted either of his sons’s to become a statistic and to some that’s all my brother simply is…………………