Coming to an issue: Part 1

First, I introduced violence in the community. I wanted them to get angry and feel like it was unfair they can't play outside, because their neighborhood isn't safe. I had hoped this would lead to our students working to combat the crime in their community and even working toward having a safe place to hang with their friends and do what they liked, like dance, play sports, etc. I introduced the topic in a group discussion about what they like to do after school. Only one student mentioned going to the park. So I asked them if they are allowed to play outside. Some said yes. Then I added that some students had told me that they aren't allowed to play outside because it is unsafe. All the students were like "WHAT?!?" So we had a little discussion about it. Then I asked them to write about whether they think it is fair or unfair that some students can't play outside because its not safe. These were some of their responses:

This student listed a couple reasons why it was unfair.

This student is the only one who said she was angry.

This student had good points about why they should be able to play outside.

However, a majority of our students weren't angry, and they generally thought it was fair they weren't allowed to play outside, because, really, their parents were being fair, its not safe....many wrote things like, "Yes, its fair, because it's not safe, our parents are trying to protect us,"... so I was a little stuck.

I felt like there was a major problem with me, the white teacher living in Madison, NJ to tell them not all neighborhoods are unsafe, not all children have to stay inside for fear of violence (at this point it didn't matter that I grew up in an elementary school not too different from theirs, but I was years removed from that, having moved away, and eventually gone to college with mostly white upper class hippies). 

So, I decided to take a different route. Since many of my students said they spent their after school time doing a number of activities including video games, I (along with input from my mentors) decided to introduce the topic of violence in video games. So I spent the weekend getting familiar with video games...well not exactly the actual games, but statistics and research on children and video games.