“Organizing makes the impossible possible.” -Pecolia Manigo If you truly want to serve the people in a culturally competent way, it helps to have an interpreter and child care. Dinner doesn’t hurt either. All three are offered at the weekly School District Budget trainings that were held in January and February by the Bay Area …Read more…
Undeterred by the ‘Hella Storm’ 200 Oakland Students Walk out for Michael Brown
Oakland (December 15th, 2014)—Undeterred by the ‘Hella-Storm’, roughly 200 students, hailing from eight Oakland high schools staged a ‘die-in’ outside the Fruitvale BART station, disrupting business as usual for 4 minutes and 28 seconds. The demonstration briefly shut down the Fruitvale station. Students chanted and rallied one another as they protested the onslaught of police …Read more…
A Day in the Life of Lam Vo
By Debora Gordon Lam ended a recent letter with “Write me when you find the time. I certainly have all the time in the world to wait.” This prompted me to ask him what it is really like to be living in prison and what typical days are like. He sent me a detailed account. …Read more…
Looking at Lam & What Needs to Be Done
By Debora Gordon Lam was, and perhaps still is, a young man with a lot of potential.?He could have gone on to lead a life of commonplace trials and triumphs; ?having a family, a job or a career, exploring his personal interests in art and body-building. Maybe he would have been one of the exceptional …Read more…
Oakland Teacher Alison Ball Breathes Life into Math & Science
? By Debora Gordon After early teaching stints in far flung locales from Ecuador and China to New York and Sunnyvale, 4th year middle school teacher Alison Ball, 29, came to Urban Promise Academy (UPA), where she is having a blast teaching seventh grade. Aside from computation and life science, Alison is excited about Crew, …Read more…
A Call to Lam’s Mother
By Debora Gordon Many, perhaps most, parts of this story have been hard to tell. I often imagine someone who might be personally affected by a particular part of the story looking over my shoulder. As I write this section, I feel the phantom presence of Qui Lam, Lam Vo’s mother, although I had only …Read more…
Oakland Art Teacher Thi Bui Urges Students to Draw, Think Outside the Box
By Debora Gordon Thi Bui, an art and digital media teacher at Oakland International High School, described herself as “a little reckless. I break a lot of rules. I’m very comfortable letting go of the reins if there is enthusiasm. To some people, it might be a little freaky when students aren’t all sitting down …Read more…
School-to-Prison Pipeline
By Debora Gordon Every time a student does poorly in school, or drops out, there is likely a great increase in the chances he will wind up in prison. I recall in my discussion with Lt. Jeff Smith at Kern Valley State Prison?that 70% of inmates are high school dropouts. While correlation is not causation, …Read more…
Going to Prison, Part II: Getting In, the Visiting Room, and Lockdown
By Debora Gordon After my visit with Lt. Smith, I had some time to kill that Friday evening in Delano, California. While there may be more than meets the tourist eye, what the casual passer-through will see is mile after mile of strip malls and giant shopping complexes.?The prison appears to the main industry there, …Read more…
Going to Prison, Part I
By Debora Gordon I drove down to visit Lam in the Kern Valley State Prison (KVSP) ?the weekend of December 7ththrough December 10th. I checked in by phone and email with the Public Information Officer, Lt. Jeff Smith, to help plan my visit. I learned what I could bring into the prison with me during …Read more…