Hi Paul Carignan ! Hopefully you received your copy. I'm curious to see what you think about it!

I have to admit that this one slipped by me at first but you inspired me to revisit the text and think about what this idea has meant for me during my time in education. The connection I see takes me back to my 3rd grade classroom. Having the clarity of mind and maturity to look past a student's rough day or challenging behavior, and to see them as individuals impacted by circumstances beyond their control, was not always easy to muster. The quote is a challenge to all of us to find that empathy for our students and the world that we're hoping to help them build.

I am thinking a lot more about corruption now too, Hajra. I like to believe that most people's bad behavior is more a product of ignorance or fear or unchallenged beliefs rather than intentional malice. More recently I'm more worried about ill will.

Hi Erik Christensen!! I've been thinking about this one for a while. The Michael Jackson trial was at the courthouse two miles away from the house I lived in at the time. OJ's treatment of repeated domestic issues that were never filed or prosecuted. If you have wealth, you get health (care, vaccine, etc.), along the same lines as justice. Money buys access I feel that health care and legal representation should be considered universal rights. Trying to imagine what kind of world that might look like, but I can't get this darn John Lennon song out of my head!

Just Mercy definitely pushed me to examine more closely my own beliefs about the criminal justice system, however, a personal family connection is the driving force behind my desire, no my passion to CHANGE a broken system even more. I think we need to understand that we work in a system that has been used to create a school to prison pipeline. I think we need to understand that we are the last line of defense to help some students thrive. Education truly IS a change maker in peoples lives. We need to ensure that we teach and use tools that help raise empathy and awareness in our classrooms about the NEED to fix broken systems even when they seem impossible to do so. I think when we know better we are required to do better. 

One thing that really connected to me about Bryan's journey in the system and mine with my family member is the humanity that we seem to forget. We place people in cages to correct bad behavior but we forget they are still human. They have loved ones, parents, children, grandparents, etc who are just as impacted by the system as the person who broke the law. We must never lose our humanity towards even those who are incarcerated because at some point they will be back in society and how do we CHOOSE to invest in their return which is in fact an investment in ALL our success. 

I love this quote as well. Thanks for sharing!

Joe Baginski   Or the misunderstanding that somehow these changes are "too expensive". IF we add up the overall cost of incarceration to our society we by far would be  better served to invest in proactive and restorative measures that throw human beings away. We also have to look at the prison for profit complex that occurs in our country. I think we challenge were WE, as taxpayers want OUR MONEY, invested. Thats a start

Kathy Hays what were some of the strategies that you found most helpful? When I was in college, I did a pre-service student teaching placement in a 7th grade special ed class. The teachers talked a lot about how their student demographics changed when a prison was built in a nearby town; many families moved into the district to be near an incarcerated family member. In hindsight, I wish I would have pressed more to find out about how that changed the school dynamic. 

I recently watched Emily Latham 's Track Talk for the OC for Social Studies titled, "The Power of One Conversation." She shared an experience in which she had a student like Curtis Greeley described (and we have all been there!). He had challenging behaviors in class. As it turned out, one parent abandoned while the other was incarcerated and he didn't feel connected to others. Emily's story is very powerful and reminded me of this thread!

Melanie Bishop your words remind me of one of my favorite quotes from Just Mercy: "Each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done." I think it's easy to fall into the trap of viewing incarcerated people through a lens of generalization when you're seeing the justice system from a distance, but Stevenson's stories go a long way toward humanizing individuals.