Pen or pencil slides

National Alliance of Faith and Justice


The National Alliance of Faith and Justice (NAFJ) is pleased to introduce an exciting program, which among other powerful implications, is rooted in the humanities. . .Humanities are the stories that help us make sense of our lives and introduce us to people we have never met, places we have never visited, and ideas that may have never crossed our minds.


• NAFJ has introduced PEN OR PENCIL to help youth and adults learn history while addressing juvenile justice problems.

• Through this demonstration, NAFJ will implement a Pre-entry strategy to reduce reentry and recidivism which encourages partnership building and a unique method of service delivery.


• The philosophy behind PEN OR PENCIL involves several key points:– Life and any journey involves choices.– Freedom costs; Education empowers;

Crime doesn’t pay.– While a school bus, a prison bus, and a

transit bus each furnish transportation, only two out of these three ultimately lead to independence.


Pen or Pencil: Freedom of Choice explores how tragedy can

impact youth today.

• T (Truancy)• R (Race and retaliation)• A (Attitudes)• G (Guns)• E (Expectations)• D (Drop Out (school) &

DMC)

• Y (Yesterday)


To make choices involve more than options.Through PEN OR PENCIL: FREEDOM OF CHOICE

• Participants are taught to deflect unnecessary risks to themselves, their family, and to public safety.

• Participants will be able to establish a sense of competence by doing something well.

• Participants will gain a sense of usefulness by having something to contribute.

• Participants will establish a relationship with caring adults.

• Participants will gain a sense of power in learning how to control their own destiny.


Eight Thematic Strands


Highlighting the work of civil rights icons, Dr. & Mrs. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mrs. Rosa Parks, and as main characters, the acts of a lesser-known, but courageous family, the Carters, the PEN OR PENCIL curriculum provides a learning experience which can be used within or outside of the classroom to help youth more clearly dissect/analyze choices and influences and help them be accountable for their own outcome.


• On September 3, 1965, Mae Bertha and Matthew Carter, sharecroppers, lined up seven of their children to wait for the school bus that would take them, despite scare tactics and threats, to desegregate the public schools in Sunflower County, Mississippi.


•The Carters, a family who lived and worked on a plantation, had 13 children. •Day after day, while picking cotton in the fields, the Carter children watched bright yellow buses transport other children to nice schools •Their school, prior to desegregation, was an ill-equipped room, maybe a church or barn, where students of all ages were taught by teachers with limited education themselves.


Forced into compliance, in order to remain eligible for much needed federal funding after passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, many southern school districts, to include Sunflower County, devised a freedom of choice plan offering families the chance to select the schools their children would attend, to include those previously segregated.


• The Carter family made choices which resulted in years of retaliation and reprisals to reach a destination well worth their trials;

• They were willing to withstand an intolerable burden to obtain a quality education.

• In this story, the parents had a dream for their family to leave the cotton fields.

• They knew of only one way to empower their children - Education.


The story of the Carters, in text, is published in Silver Rights, and as a film documentary in The Intolerable Burden. These works allow us to use social studies through historic accounts to explore vivid parallels and help students ponder the meaning of freedom, choices, consequences, influences then and now, and the role education plays in minimizing the cradle to jailhouse peril.


How does disproportionate minority contact apply?

• Contact is defined as initial encounter with law enforcement (i.e. arrest), ongoing juvenile justice contacts (e.g., referral, hold in detention, transfer to adult court, etc.)


Community Need

• Numerous investigations have documented the link between school suspensions and subsequent entry into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. (e.g. Mendez, 2003; Wald & Loren, 2003)

• According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, at one point, minority youth represented 62% of the juvenile population in prisons but only 34% of the juvenile population in the entire U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics


• The current status of many public policies concerning youth have had a negative impact upon young men of color.

• The implications of issues such as increasing high school dropout rates breed declining enrollment in post-secondary education and increasing rates of incarceration.

Community Need


Community Need


Challenges

• Youth who enter prison at an early age (before they have formed the ability and expectation to control their life choices, require less time to become “prisonalized”;

• There is a lack of engaging, culturally appropriate academic activities.


Challenges

• Extra curricular activities that may discourage problem behaviors when youth are most vulnerable, such as when they are unsupervised after school, are often inaccessible to youth who do not meet school eligibility to participate


InputsPen or Pencil: Freedom of Choice

DMC Service-Learning Initiative

• Will use multidisciplinary agency support and community involvement to proactively reduce disproportionate minority contact with law enforcement

• Will target public school partners in areas where students are at greatest risk.


• CHOICE , for the Carters and for youth today, is defined as the power, right, or liberty to choose.

• Freedom of choice promotes personal responsibility for changing behavior and is applicable regardless of race or other distinctions;

• Encounters with law enforcement can be reduced by making more appropriate choices.


• Pen(itentiary) . . . If the schoolhouse to jailhouse journey continues at its rapid pace, the fallout will be more prisons.

• Educational (pencil) failure leads to un(der) employment, and if this is at all a factor in law-violating behavior, then these patterns within specific groups may help to explain patterns of delinquent behavior.


• Uses history as a template to promote responsibility for changing behavior and to improve decision-making;

• Uses creativity and innovation to engage students, particularly those at greatest risk, in cognitive thinking and service-learning;

• Is aligned with the National Standards for the Social Studies and Civic Education Standards


• 2+ hour enrichment presentations (Pen or Pencil: Freedom of Choice)

• Extended course series (Pen or Pencil: Freedom of Choice)• One-To-Another Academic Mentoring• ‘Til Death Do Us Part• The B.U.S. Boycott


Two (2) + Hour Enrichment Presentations

• View segments of The Intolerable Burden (First Run/Icarus Films) and CHOICES (Developed by Indiana Dept. of Education, Indiana Department of Juvenile Justice, and U.S. Attorney’s Office).

• Interactive discussion to follow• Opportunity to implement service

learning intervention project, The B.U.S. Boycott


Ten (10) -Week Extended Course Series

• Workshops uniquely designed for alternative/character education and intervention programs

• Appropriate to offer as a specialized multi-week summer program which can be offered by community or faith-based groups

• Appropriate for juvenile detention courses


One-to-Another Academic Mentoring

• Must be at least 18 years of age;• Must possess valid drivers license and

auto insurance;• Must commit to one year of service as a

mentor of a youth, aged 5-17;• Must participate in 52-week reading

assignment and enrichment activities;• Must complete application, be willing to

undergo background screening and meet criteria;

• Must participate in one-day training program;


• Research has shown that prevention/intervention programs are the most effective methods of addressing youth violence and creating a productive work environment.

• Youth diversion programs such as PEN OR PENCIL provide an alternative to suspension or channeling youth through the juvenile justice system.

Intermediate Outcomes


Service Learning . . .

• PEN OR PENCIL offers a unique opportunity for students of all ages to become involved with their communities in a tangible way by integrating the B.U.S. Boycott into classroom and after-school learning.


Service-Learning

• Participants not only learn about democracy, citizenship, and public policy, they become actively contributing citizens and community members by engaging in the B.U.S. Boycott.



• The service-learning segment of PEN OR PENCIL tests the knowledge, skills, and behavioral improvement gained by student participation in the course.



• Students use the history of the Montgomery Bus Boycott as a template to implement strategies to learn about history, learn public policy, and reduce contact with law enforcement or threat of suspension for educational growth and civic participation.


Pen or Pencil Facilitators

• Are adults or may be classroom educators, aged 18 years or older;

• Must undergo a minimum of six hours of specialized training

• Are accomplished or possess experience in public speaking

• May be certified educators willing to undergo PEN OR PENCIL training for introduction into their classroom setting.


Pen or Pencil Facilitators

• Can be those willing to volunteer their time

• May represent faith and community based groups in partnership with the National Alliance of Faith and Justice

• Must narrate each presentation and facilitate dialogue and training with targeted audiences


Pen or Pencil: Freedom of Choice

• Is endorsed by the American Friends Service Committee

• Is endorsed by the National Council for the Social Studies

• Under development and consideration for court referral placements


Available for Purchase to organizations who desire to implement PEN OR PENCIL: FREEDOM OF CHOICE

• Student Activity Books• Facilitator’s Guides• Curriculum Guides• Silver Rights• The Intolerable Burden• If interested in becoming

a facilitator, contact NAFJ . . .


www.nafj-nabcj.org P.O. Box 77075

Washington, DC 20013(703) 765-4459

http://www.nafj-nabcj.org/

Pen or pencil slides

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