Comments on: School Days: A Personal Performance and Reflective Exercise https://techandsocialchange.mit.edu/2018/10/10/school-days-a-personal-performance-and-reflective-exercise/ MAS.S63 Fall 2018 | Wednesdays 10-1 in E15-341 Wed, 10 Oct 2018 14:42:46 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.1 By: yusufa https://techandsocialchange.mit.edu/2018/10/10/school-days-a-personal-performance-and-reflective-exercise/#comment-2140 Wed, 10 Oct 2018 14:42:46 +0000 http://techandsocialchange2017.wordpress.brownbag.me/?p=1070#comment-2140 A/ What value struck me: the first one – “every voice in this community is valuable” – I like it because for there to be an inclusive and diverse community, where people have different voices – and conflicting ones – respecting and valuing different voices seems like a precondition to building meaningful community. That said, I struggle with valuing voices that are disrespectful, arrogant, or derogatory – might be worth distinguishing the voice from the content? E.g. instead of calling someone a racist, challenging the racist content of their speech? Its a subtle distinction, but one that this value (value everyone’s voice) made me consider

B/ What value would I suggest as an addition: I’ll do something I did for myself when crafting these values – try and find a way to “break them” – i.e. follow the values while breaking from the spirit. I would add something about either (a) working to address/delve into underlying issues (e.g. the structural issues that shape inequity and that underlie racist, etc. views) or (b) Something about actually shifting power in the space (e.g. one can believe in equity and amplify marginal voices, but still retain power)

C/ Convening – A couple questions:
Problem definition: is it worth focusing on the teacher / student interaction? Might there be higher leverage areas to focus? What evidence/research/experience is pushing you to focus on this interaction as a key moment in the school to prison pipeline?

Overall, I like the flow and how it builds from your main goal (building empathy among teachers and students) – and particularly appreciate how you use space, time, and physical objects to help make student emotions visible and more tangible for teachers

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