Be patient with the background information. This diary really is about MLK and the impact his message has on children.
One of my first jobs as a teacher was in a school for children classified as SED (socially and emotionally disturbed). The school was a private residential day treatment program. Many of the children were placed at the school through court order, some because of their acting out behaviors, some because of extreme abuse and neglect in their home environments. My class of 10 students was made up of eight and nine year olds. About half were part of the residential program (mostly inner city kids from Philadelphia PA.) The others came to school each day from the local community.
Children who come from homes of neglect and abuse have a difficult time forming and maintaining friendships with peers or trusting that the adults in their lives will be there for them when they need them most. One of my goals in the classroom was to create a safe haven so that the kids knew that no matter what, the adults would step in and control the situation if a classmate began acting out in a way that threatened bodily harm to themselves or a classmate.
Another goal was to help the kids learn to take responsibility for being part of a group. This was the more difficult task. Without going into great detail, a shared secret, (a santa's workshop), to make gifts for the younger children in the school and for the other teachers and the principal, helped the kids learn to work cooperatively with a shared purpose. Even when it was time to hand out the gifts it was done in secrecy. The kids snuck around the building and left the presents by doors. Their reward was not recognition and thanks from the people who recived the gifts it was the satisfaction of being part of a group that could accomplish something that would have been impossible if not for the group effort and cooperation.
In early January I taught several lessons about the civil rights movement and Dr. Martin Luther King. I stressed the message of collective action and non-violent civil disobedience. We talked about the courage it took for people to stand up for what was right against others whose anger and fear often led them to react violently. My class had never been as excited about a subject as they were about Martin Luther King. They asked, with all sincerety, if our class could march on Washington. They weren't sure what it was they wanted their message to be or how marching on Washington would help, but I thought that it was the idea of impowerment that excited them. Not wanting to discourage them in their desire to act upon an idea that excited them as a group, I suggested that perhaps there was something closer to home that we might try to find a solution to.
After some brainstorming we came up with a problem at the school that affected all of the students and teachers in the building.
The administration at the school encouraged the use of positive, tangible rewards as an incentive program and discouraged punishment as a means of changing or controlling acting out behavior. Teachers were encouraged to use some sort of a point or token system to reward desired behavior. Toward that end there was a centalized school store where the children were allowed to exchange their points for small items of their choice. When the school store was stocked the reward system was an effective tool. The children worked hard to earn their points each week. Unfortunately as the school year progressed there were weeks at a time when the school store shelves remained almost empty. My teaching assistant and I had started giving up our lunches and our planning periods to play basketball or do special projects or teach some of the kids chords on the guitar in exchange for their points.
Teachers in the building had been complaining, but the man in charge of the money in the office downtown was not getting the message. Could we as a class say something that would make a difference? We spent a couple of days thinking of all of the ways that this problem effected all of the different groups of people in our school and then we started a letter. We talked about the tone of our letter, how It wouldn't be productive to sound angry and self rightious. We needed to give the man, whose job it was to keep the school store filled, the opportunity to make the right decision because he understood the importance of his actions to the children at the school. The children came up with a beautiful letter which I then took to my principal before sending it to the downtown administrator in charge of budgets. I also wrote a seperate letter explaining how a lesson about Martin Luther King had inspired the children and how I hoped that he would personally respond to their concerns as it would reinforce the idea that they were not powerless and that when they worked together in a reasonable and respectful way they could make a difference.
In the end the administator showed up at the school (by now it was the beginning March)in his three piece suit and stood in front of the class.
"So I hear you learned an exciting lesson about Martin Luther King a few weeks ago", he said, "who can tell me something about what you learned?"
The kids were somewhat intimidated but one little boy raised his hand and gave it a shot. When he said something about MLK being a king I cringed (quietly) but he then went on to explain what he thought the lesson was about. Mr. three piece suit praised their letter and said that they were right. The School store should always be available to the children at the school and he would personally make sure that it would be.
The school store did remain stocked for the rest of the school year and I took every appropriate opportunity to remind my kids that it was their actions that had made the difference, not only for our class but for all of the classes in the school.
I am probably more proud of what I was able to accomplish with those students that year than anything else I have done as a teacher. Those students would now be about twentyfive years old. I have no idea what has become of them. I don't know if the lessons that year made any lasting impact on how they viewed themselves or the world they live in. At the time, for a time, they basked in the pride of accomplishment, not just individually but collectively.