Spirituality, Public Service and Confronting Corruption

I was invited to speak at the weekly Rainbow/PUSH meeting on May 21, and took the invitation as an opportunity to discuss the role of spirituality in public service, confronting corruption, and the need for a mass movement for fundamental change in Chicago.  The address is about 15 minutes, with an introduction from Jonathan Jackson.

3 thoughts on “Spirituality, Public Service and Confronting Corruption

    1. Anything positive would help, but the real solution is to save the children when they are young!!
      I’m a City Wide Cadre in Chicago-CPS, and have been a teacher since 1984. I have never seen as many small children who are sad, angry and lonely as I have the past four years!!!! They respond in big ways to even the slightest bit of attention or affection. Until we REDUCE CLASS SIZE AND TRAIN TEACHERS TO GUIDE CHILDREN EMOTIONALLY-life coping skills, i.e. TO DO THEIR OWN SELF CARE AND LEARN TO SURVIVE LONELY,AWFUL SITUATIONS, we will continue to leave these children heartbroken, abandoned and lost!!!
      This is not a new game. Secretary Bennett wrote about it before he resigned from his position as President Clinton’s Secretary of Ed.
      James (or John) Garbarino wrote about it in his epic study our urban youth in”Lost Boys” in the United States.
      Our kids are often in single parent homes and they are frequently fighting with another and not prepared academically as they push through the primary grades. In simple plain English—treat the Primary Grades the way treat and fund PRE-K and at least these kids will be able to read, write and do math.
      Stop all of this expensive, time consuming, education interrupting TESTING! The kids are tested all through April and May between the PARCC test and NWEA Map testing. The homeroom teachers administer the test in the Tech labs, which removes them from the classroom, etc!!! I cold go on and on. Did I mention all of the other tests the kids have to take? ACCESS testing, individual dibble testing, REACH individual testing? Yes, the teacher goes into the hall and tests ONE child at a time while the aide or a sub covers the rest of the class. MONTHS of testing goes on…mix that up w/class size!!! What an academic, emotional mess for the kids!
      No one asks the teachers what the children need!!
      Combine all of the above with what’s going on our brutal, bloody streets where a 79 y.o. lady waits for a bus at12:00 noon on Marine Drive and Addison and takes a beating or hundreds of African-American children are shot to death and innocent adults are killed while driving their cars as they get shot on the expressways…give me a break!!!! What we see NOW is nothing compared to what these young children are going to do 10 or 15 years from now.
      You want to save the children and make this expensive, fear ridden city better? THEN TAKE CARE OF THE FIRST, SECOND AND THIRD GRADE CHILDREN IN CHICAGO–MANY ARE ALREADY ACTING OUT AGGRESSIVELY AND IN SOME CASES EVEN SEXUALLY! LEFT ALONE WITHOUT PARENTS, OR IN THE CARE OF VERY YOUNG, ANGRY PARENTS AND PLAYING THEIR VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES….WHERE AND WHEN WILL THIS STORY END OR CHANGE?
      WHEN WE ALL TAKE CARE OF THE CHILDREN IN DEEP AND PROFOUND WAYS, IT IS THEN AND ONLY THEN THAT THIS CYCLE WILL END!!!! Take away more from them and you abuse the further and things will surely get worse. It’s just stupid to hurt wounded children even more, because they will will hurt us and get even later as we get old!! Psych 101!!
      Let’s not wait to watch them die or be incarcerated or become alcoholics or drug addicts…and let me tell you, when you look at the WHOLE story..white kids in Humboldt Park for Heroin, crimes against women, shootings and stabbings all over the city, unemployment for many….what the hell do you expect to get?!!! But nobody listens to me. I’m just a little substitute teacher in the 16th STEP who can’t find a full time teaching job because it’s easier to hire a new teacher who’s SILENT and cheaper.
      Want to get real about problem solving? Talk to me. I’m an incest survivor/thriver who had to go to special Reading classes, who’s buried a Heroin addict cancer suffering sister and twenty-something cousin addicted to Heroin after losing her beloved father at age 9 and losing a beloved mother to Alzheimer’s and brother to Cancer and heart disease. Do I know about surviving childhood abuse, grief and academic neglect? You bet I do!!
      By the way I’m also and Licensed Practical Nurse and raised a daughter who graduated from Northwestern with a Masters degree in Counseling. Do I know what these kids need? You bet I do! My whole life has been dedicated to healing wounded children…and they are all over the city, whether they are way up Northwest or in the worst neighborhoods.

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