November 7, 2012
Kristen Farr
Rashidi Omari is a performance artist, writer and educator at Destiny Arts Center, a violence prevention and arts education organization in Oakland. Growing up, hip-hop was an outlet that helped Rashidi deal with life’s challenges, and he works to provide today’s Bay Area youth with the same creative opportunities. We stopped by his dance studio to learn more about this dynamic Oakland artist, and find what hip-hop means to him and his students.
November 1, 2012
By Katy Murphy
This week, a group of boisterous teenagers marched down to a ballot box a few blocks from their school. The first-time voter contingent and their sign-holding supporters whooped and chanted all the way to the Alameda County Courthouse, eliciting friendly toots from passing cars.
“I feel like I’m always complaining about what’s wrong with the world,” said Di’Jahnay Stewart, a Dewey Academy student who turned 18 on May 23 and registered to vote shortly thereafter. “I feel like if I vote, at least it’ll mean something.”
Many young Americans aren’t as quick to exercise their new electoral power. Although they voted in larger numbers in 2004 and 2008 than they had in decades, their turnout was still the lowest of any age group. For all the buzz surrounding the 2008 presidential race, for all the YouTube videos and the plugs on MTV, just 41 percent of 18- to 20-year-olds and 47 percent of 21- to 24-year-olds reported voting in that election. By contrast, 58 percent of all age groups and 68 percent of those 65 and older went to the polls that year, according to a survey of noninstitutionalized adults by the U.S. Census Bureau.
“I’m finding a shocking number of young people who just won’t vote,” said Deanita Lewis, a parent leader who has long been involved in Oakland’s public schools. The reasons she most often hears? “‘My vote doesn’t count. It doesn’t matter. Nothing’s going to change.'”
To read more.
October 22, 2012
Posted by Matthew William
Last week’s Do Now asked students to consider the arguments around Affirmative Action and respond to the question — should universities be allowed to make race-based admissions decisions that give preference to minority applicants in an attempt to have a more diverse student body? Read their responses here.
October 6, 2012
By Pelesani Sua, youth representative of the Institute for Sustainable Economic, Educational and Environmental Design (I-SEEED)
It only took one person to stop me from believing that I could go to college.
When your teacher passes you up for a school funded college tour because she says she knows you’re not going to make it to college, let alone graduate high school it falls right into the category of oppression. Although this would be a great learning opportunity you won’t even have the chance to experience it because your teacher has already decided your future. Or when your teacher doesn’t believe that you could’ve gotten everything correct on a test and accuses you of cheating, because of your race. I’ve been in situations like this one many times.
I now know that some people don’t believe in encouraging others that don’t belong in the same racial background as them. So from that day on I told myself that I wasn’t going to diminish someone else’s education just because I wasn’t good enough myself. I would just pick myself up and keep trying to prove that I could be the best. It didn’t matter to me whether or not that teacher believed in me because the years afterwards I met better teachers who believed in and encouraged me to become the intelligent young lady I am today. In a way I would like to thank that one teacher, because the racism and institutionalized oppression she showed to me in middle school actually gave a me an extra push to do better as I got older. But not every student responds the way that I did, and they shouldn’t have to.
It’s a dream of mine to see a world of equality not only in education but in government and the communities around me. People need to not just know how to unite with their own, but with all people. I would love to wake up to a world where people know their neighbors, school officials, and people in office. When a person knows when the next election is, not the next football game. Where people don’t settle for satisfactory, but they push the limit. When people get together not only to support themselves, but also the elderly and disabled. It would be wonderful to be able to walk around my neighborhood and know I’m safe and think “which park will I go to?” and not “which fast food restaurant is the closest?”. These are the issues close to my heart and I hope I will be one of the many people to unite to fight against these detrimental issues at hand.
I would like to end by saying that it starts here with me. I will someday lead an army of people who believe in the same issues as me and want to unite against it all to protect our future generations from falling to the hands that the government has given us.
Written By Yo Ann Martinez
KQED is excited to partner with the Step to College Program at Fremont High School in Oakland, California as they prepare to present Build Your Own School (BYOS) project at the American Educational Research Association Conference (AERA) in Vancouver, Canada.
Sydnee will be blogging about their presentation, his classmates and thoughts on traveling to Canada. He will also share a video highlight reel of the trip. We look forward to it!
Here is Sydnee in his own words:
“Hello everybody, my name is Sydnee Logan. I’m a 17-year-old native of Oakland, California. I am currently a junior at the John C. Fremont High School in Oakland, attending a smaller school named Mandela Law and Public Service Academy. In my free time I play sports, hang out with my friends, and have participated with the Step to College Program since my 9th Grade year.”
Stay tuned for his first submission.