Student Voice In Action at the Mikva Challenge Juvenile Justice Council

Want to see what it looks like when students are working smart and deep on social issues in their city? I visited the Mikva Challenge Juvenile Justice Council last week — 20 students from across Chicago, a fine mix of colors, genders, styles. Regular Chicago high school kids. They’re working through the summer and the coming school year on recommendations to improve conditions for teens in juvenile detention or re-entering the community. They’ve been identifying specific problems, researching them, and preparing to present their ideas to Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle.

Facilitator Jocelyn Broitman started the morning check-in by asking the young people to rate their day so far (finger snaps for anything over a seven), and responding to the question, “Would you rather live in a utopia or a dystopia?” Plenty of interesting answers — a utopia could be boring, after all.

Students then got to work in small groups of three or four on the recommendations they were drafting. They’d been researching for weeks, and were now writing up their presentations for next week. I hung out with several groups. One was working on developing restorative justice practices for Chicago detention centers and for kids in re-entry. Another wanted to promote more restorative justice in schools (which would, in turn, reduce the number ending up in jail). Still another was looking into possibilities of expanding the physical area of permitted movement for teens under house arrest.

Since I work one day per week on restorative justice in a Chicago high school, I couldn’t remain the objective observer, but pitched in with several groups. The RJ in schools group was looking for data to back up their argument, so I steered them to the website of the International Institute for Restorative Practices. Another was having trouble finding examples of RJ in prisons, but we quickly found a great article at http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/restorative_justice_help_prisoners_heal. (And if you don’t know much about restorative justice, it’s about strategies to repair the harm when someone has disrupted the community in some way, and helping that person to find more constructive ways to interact, in place of punishment . Here’s an outstanding short TEDx talk on the topic by Chicago educator Jean Klasovsky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqktOiYG5NM )

But I digress.

Mikva Challenge facilitators know that play is important, along with work — for all of us, but especially for teenagers. So the morning ended with a raucous game called “This is a what?” Participants pass small objects — a ball, a small stuffed animal, a cup, etc. — around the circle, with the giver stating, “This is a ____.” The receiver says “A What?” Giver and receiver repeat. After a few times the receiver names the object, takes it and begins the process with the next person. Meanwhile, the leader starts quickly feeding more objects into the pipeline. The din mounts. Everyone is laughing. And finally it ends. Sounds crazy, but it breaks the tension of a morning’s hard work. Time for lunch.

So there it is — web research, argument, writing, preparing to present and have their voice heard by a significant official, fun, and students developing leadership by being leaders.

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

For more help: From Inquiry to Action: Civic Engagement with Project-Based Learning in All Content Areas.