“Organizing makes the impossible possible.” -Pecolia Manigo If you truly want to serve the people in a culturally competent way, it helps to have an interpreter and child care. Dinner doesn’t hurt either. All three[Read more]
Oakland (December 15th, 2014)—Undeterred by the ‘Hella-Storm’, roughly 200 students, hailing from eight Oakland high schools staged a ‘die-in’ outside the Fruitvale BART station, disrupting business as usual for 4 minutes and 28 seconds. The[Read more]
By Debora Gordon Lam ended a recent letter with “Write me when you find the time. I certainly have all the time in the world to wait.” This prompted me to ask him what it[Read more]
By Debora Gordon Lam was, and perhaps still is, a young man with a lot of potential. He could have gone on to lead a life of commonplace trials and triumphs; having a family, a job[Read more]
By Debora Gordon After early teaching stints in far flung locales from Ecuador and China to New York and Sunnyvale, 4th year middle school teacher Alison Ball, 29, came to Urban Promise Academy (UPA),[Read more]
By Debora Gordon Many, perhaps most, parts of this story have been hard to tell. I often imagine someone who might be personally affected by a particular part of the story looking over my shoulder.[Read more]
By Debora Gordon Thi Bui, an art and digital media teacher at Oakland International High School, described herself as “a little reckless. I break a lot of rules. I’m very comfortable letting go of the[Read more]
By Debora Gordon Every time a student does poorly in school, or drops out, there is likely a great increase in the chances he will wind up in prison. I recall in my discussion with[Read more]
By Debora Gordon After my visit with Lt. Smith, I had some time to kill that Friday evening in Delano, California. While there may be more than meets the tourist eye, what the casual passer-through[Read more]
By Debora Gordon I drove down to visit Lam in the Kern Valley State Prison (KVSP) the weekend of December 7ththrough December 10th. I checked in by phone and email with the Public Information Officer,[Read more]
