Parents

For the Love of Justice

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THE INTERRUPTER: Your Write to Education | February 14, 2020

For the Love of Justice,  For the Love of Every Child Whole

“Oh, the injustice that the caterpillar would never become the butterfly.” That quote captures my heart for this Valentine’s Day.  February 14, the middle or the heart of what we refer to as Black History Month.

I love black history. I love the richness it represents, the hiddenness that continues to be unearthed. And what I love as much or more than celebrating black history, is making black history.  I decided to sit down recently and break down the words black and history. Immediately I was challenged with the word black. I have many friends of different African ethnicities and none of them are black. It’s more a myriad of beautiful shades of brown and then again, I have African friends that are more peachy creme, but that is not what this is about just sharing my thought process.  Then, I looked at the word history. History, what is it?  The record of contributions made, legacy left? Maybe the proof that someone was ever here. To me, black history is not only the culmination of a sea of stories past – some happy, some sad, some tragic, some victorious – but representative of a people group, self-identified or otherwise, with a collective human yearning to simply have the right to belong, to exist, to be present in the truth of who they are and who is anyone else to deny it.

After my time of reflection, I sat with the realization of my heaviness and sadness.  Children in high poverty, high minority schools are being denied every day. There are reports from these schools that show single-digit proficiency in reading and math and I ask myself how can this be true, how could this continue to be allowed?  It’s easy to place blame, or point fingers.  I don’t think it is the school‘s fault in totality although they have a huge responsibility, but a systemically-orchestrated coming together of a tragic set of circumstances.

There is a quote that says “things that can’t go on forever, won’t.” I think we are here.  Would you agree?  The tasks before us seems overwhelming and bewildering at best, but we can’t stay bewildered, we have to start somewhere and we have to start now. It seems too often we have allowed ourselves to be lulled into a place of complacency accepting incentivized failure as the norm.

We create and manipulate systems and formulas so that we can continue receiving funding for the “disenfranchised”, when all the disenfranchised want is the freedom to create their own funds.

What message do we think this type of behavior is sending to hundreds of thousands of children? We don’t have to say a word, their spirit hears us loud and clear.  “Your story is not worth being told. You will never make history, black or otherwise.” are a couple of suspicions that come to mind. What would you hear if it were you?  And be clear, I am not saying this is only limited to children of color, but more so than not, at least where I come from.

At Every Child Whole, LLC and our non-profit affiliate, ReThink Learning, Inc. we are on a mission to help Johnny.  Johnny represents children who continue to be pulled into the cyclical undercurrent of learned helplessness, broken systems, and those who leverage that combination. It is past time in education to offer children a solid foundation they can build on.  Help them reduce the fragmentation in their own lives so that can begin to put their pieces together.  It’s not just their path they are paving forward, it’s yours, and it’s mine.

Well, what about you?  Does justice pulse in your veins like it does mine? If so, we would love to hear what you are doing to help Johnny and would love to share some of our ideas with you.  Tell us about it at https://wp.me/P9K3eM-1aK.

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“Oh, the injustice that the caterpillar would never become the butterfly.” Dr. Ivy Bonk

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Author and presenter Dr. Ivy Bonk is Educational Psychologist/Consultant with Every Child Whole, Inc. (formerly IMAGINAL Education Group) and founder of ReThink Learning, Inc.

 

Lessons from Harriet

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Lessons from Harriet

The Interrupter - Your Write to Education - November 11, 2019

What struck me right away in the movie Harriet – don’t worry this is not a spoiler alert – was what we know from recorded history and that is the distance between Dorchester, Maryland, and the Pennsylvania State Line – the distance between slavery and freedom – was a mere 100 miles. What seemed a long distance to Harriet, the expanse between slavery and freedom, today can be obtained in a 1.5 hour car ride.  Others that had the opportunity to go, people that Harriet wanted to take, they chose what they knew, they chose to stay enslaved – same distance, but they wouldn’t go.  What is the lie or limiting belief that causes someone to stay enslaved?

I remember my friend Nashon Walker of Transform Mandate and RISE Sports sharing with me about the red line that separated “the hood” from other communities and neighborhoods – a dividing line, the red line, that said DON’T GO PAST HERE.  He said you knew where it was and if you crossed over it, you could be arrested.  He shared that as a little boy he knew that leaving the sidewalk to cross the street, staying in the line or stepping over the line, could be the difference between slavery and freedom.  Since then, Nashon has stepped over many a red line.  In his lifetime, he will take 100’s of 1000’s of youth across the red line. In some cases, it may be figuratively or it may be across the red dividing line on a basketball court where he supports and highlights students in their pursuit of a collegiate scholarship. He has ­­committed his life to taking other people to freedom.

I think of another friend, Hakeem Subair, Co-Founder of One Million Teachers, for him the distance between slavery and freedom is represented by a technology platform that allows teachers in Sub Saharan Africa to access education and training that before they may not have had access. This education and training giving them entry to a whole new world. The work of his hands, represented by a global interconnected network is currently recognized in over 12 African countries and he and his team are just getting started.  He has committed his life to taking other people to freedom.

Lastly, I think of myself, much lighter skin than Harriet; Nashon, or Hakeem, for that matter, still representing the ability to, with the sound of my voice or the stroke of my pen, to shed a light on and expose the darkness and danger of unaddressed childhood trauma. The inability to share your story and have your pain recognized translates as unworthiness and disregard, all culminating into a life not truly lived, rather a false persona propped up by any means necessary.  I have committed my life to taking other people to freedom.

Harriet’s determination, and faith in God modeled for us begs the question, how can we experience freedom, whatever that looks like for you and I, and then not have the courage to share it with someone else? In Brene’ Brown’s book Daring Greatly she says, “Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage.”  Harriet made herself vulnerable to a myriad of things, not the least was the risking of her life, to ensure she and others experienced freedom. Being something and feeling something are different.  Do you think Harriet was not scared?  Of course, she was, but more than scared she was determined.  She said “I got a ‘made-up’ mind”. What about you? What about me? What is the limiting belief we have or need to overcome? What will we do about it? Who will we take with us?

Dr. Ivy Bonk

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FOR SELF-REFLECTION/JOURNAL WRITING/DISCUSSION

(NOTE:  Teachers can modify and use for a cross-curricular social-emotional learning and writing activity.)

In your journal or notebook, consider the following statements or questions.

What does it mean?

Courage to me means (fill in the blank).

What does it look like?

What might courage look like….

  • when a friend or classmate is being bullied or made to feel less than?
  • when you are in a class or situation and there is something you don’t understand?
  • when you need to have a difficult or uncomfortable conversation with someone?
  • when everybody else wants to do something that you don’t want to do?
  • when you are faced with a new challenge?

How does exercising courage make me feel? (Share specific example.)

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Dr. Ivy Bonk is President (Educational Psychologist/Consultant) of Every Child Whole, LLC.  She is author of The Day Trauma Came to Class, architect of The Lost Child Theory.

Bringing Independence to the Classroom

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THE INTERRUPTER | Your Write to Education | July 2018

Bringing Independence to the Classroom

As we celebrate July 4th, Independence Day, a day typically filled with cookouts, fireworks, parades, and honor of past sacrifices made, my thoughts are drawn to the 1,000’s of classrooms filled with students seeking their own personal independence.  Unfortunately, due to the interruption of trauma in childhood, they have become dependent on the maladaptive responses they have acquired in order to mitigate, compensate, cope and survive the impact of the adversity dealt them.

Dysregulated and on alert, they show up in classrooms attempting to navigate unseen barriers so that they can be present and in a position ready to learn. However, too often times, rather than ensure students are cognitively positioning and possess the regulated state optimal for receiving, our first response is to take an assessment to see if the student’s ability to present certain indicators align with our preset list of standards. Standards many times that serve to hold up a system in need of repair.  We have to be cognizant of the contradiction experienced by our well-funded research and findings and our daily, in-classroom practice.

If you wince at all at the sound of trauma-informed or trauma-sensitive, I would caution you.  I remember one of the participants in our pilot of The Day Trauma Came to Classasking “aren’t the things shared not things we should be doing with all students?”,to which I answered “yes, absolutely”, I have also been challenged with the idea of “this is not what I signed up for”, which for the child’s sake is concerning.  To me, that would be like wanting to be a heart doctor as long as all your patients’ hearts worked fine, but saying “wait, hold up” once they start having heart attacks.  The bottom line is this, we need to learn to care and love each other, our students, through and in spite of the bruises of adversity.  To think that there are any of us who have not been exposed to some degree would be remiss.

So…within the context of the classroom and the instruction therein, what does the road to independence look like?  And, to make sure we are clear and working from the same frame of reference, when I think of independence, I think of a comment made to Steve Harvey by Oprah Winfrey when he was touring her LA office.  She said, “It’s the fact that you rose to the moment, to the highest part of yourself, that’s what I’m really proud of.”  I have to believe, I choose to believe, that if you are called to education, to the nurturing and building up of children, this is what you think of independence as well. We want all of our students to rise to the highest part of themselves.

The Day Trauma Came to Class, available online July 6, will help to provide the blueprint for creating trauma-informed schools.  Building the foundations, empathizing and understanding situations and contexts that enable us to navigate barriers erected from trauma’s impact, all for the purpose of engaging students in the best part of themselves.

If you want to learn more about customizing a blueprint for your trauma-informed school, email support@everychildwhole.com.

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Dr. Ivy Bonk is President (Educational Psychologist/Consultant) of IMAGINAL Education Group.  She is author of The Day Trauma Came to Class, architect of The Lost Child Theory, and Bridge Builder and Collaborator at MyTraumaInformedSchool, IMAGINAL’s resource and training site.

 

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