Storytelling helps to protect our integrity, validate our existence, and create empathy.
By Jonathan Santos
In my eighth grade English class, everyone kept a journal—even our teacher Mrs. Griffin. Every day, she allotted 10 minutes for her students to write. She always told us, “write to express, not to impress.” There were no prompts. No boundaries. The only rule was to write for the entire 10 minutes without stopping. You stop, you fail. Endure the hand cramps and the writer’s block. Just keep moving your pencil.
At the end of each writing session, we would share what we had written but only if we wanted to. Some entries were funny. Some were ridden with hurt. But they were always raw, honest, and uninhibited. We never gave feedback to what others had written. We didn’t have to. We honored each other’s stories by simply listening. We expressed solidarity through silence.
Blog
July 7, 2015 - 10:14am
In the last 36 years, the sexual diversity movement in Mexico has achieved significant advances that have made it possible for gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans (LGBT) citizens to gain access to some of the rights that historically had been denied to them.
July 2, 2015 - 3:43pm
The flag may be a proud sign of heritage to some. But when that heritage is built on hatred and oppression, there is no way to wipe clean the blood and bondage it represents.
July 2, 2015 - 10:10am
School Resource Officers (SRO) have been criticized in some reports for being responsible for increases in arrests in schools. Associations have been made between the presence of school-based law enforcement and increased student arrests and referrals to juvenile court for school discipline issues—often for public order offenses, such as willful defiance, disorderly conduct, or disrupting the educational process. While there have been some instances of increased arrests in schools in the United States, other school-community partnerships are seeing opposite results—SROs helping to divert students from involvement with the justice system.
July 1, 2015 - 1:45pm
Is there a symbol of racism in your town? Probably. And if not, maybe there should be.
It’s encouraging that a long overdue shift in displaying the confederate flag is now underway. But especially for those outside the South, it’s too easy to sit on the sidelines, smugly say it’s about time and then resume our normal lives.