The prison's newspaper hosted a forum for educators earlier this month,
attended by about forty people, fifteen free and twenty-five incarcerated.
The men in blue impressed – sharing their stories of
incarceration, their epiphany moments, the highlights of their rehabilitation
process. Many men shared their genuine
for using their stories and talents to “help the youth.”
Again and again, we reiterated how important it is to build
meaningful relationships with the youth before it’s too late.
And again and again we heard inspiring stories of men
upwards of their thirties coming into their own, recognizing their own
sacredness, their own power.
Why, then, in the face of example after example of
programming empowering an adult to radically change his life – even adults
sentenced to life in prison, adults who have committed horrible crimes – why do
come to conclusion that it’s all about the youth?
I think it’s because we want to prevent. If we “catch them
when they’re young,” the cliché goes
---
The Teachers 4 Social Justice Conference was a couple of
weekends ago. I didn’t go because the
pervasive Bay Area “lefter than thou” attitude intimidates me, then makes me
very tired and lonely.
R went, though, and he told me about a brilliant line
from K's keynote speech, a reminder that kids are living their lives
right now, that adults marginalize children’s realities when they think of them
as mere precursors to the full humanity that comes with aging. Educators can live with kids right now – can
feel their pain right now, can share their love right now – rather than limit
our concerns about them to their futures in “the real world.”
I think that’s also part of why I got so knotted up about
the “catch them while they’re young” thing.
The “by the time they’re in high school it’s too late” thing.
It’s not because kids will one day be adults that they
deserve support, that they deserve empowering community. It’s because they’re human beings right
now. And,
we don’t “age out” (one of my favorite terms from the disability world…) of the
need for support, for community.
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