Not in Our School Videos
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Adarsha Shivakumar and Apoorva Rangan are siblings that have used the power to TEACH rural Indians how to produce environmentally- and economically-sustainable fuel. After witnessing the devastation of local ecologies, Adarsha and Apoorva spent months in India convincing locals that processing a native fruit and using the byproducts as fuel presents a solution that balances human energy and local ecosystem needs.
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Dr. Joseph Marshall, Jr. is an author, activist, and veteran street soldier. Founder of the anti-violence movement Alive & Free, Marshall draws audiences from across the country to his weekly radio program, Street Soldiers— a name Dr. Marshall uses to describe people working to eliminate violence in their communities. To help keep his own community safer, Dr. Marshall co-founded the Omega Boys Club after years of working as a middle school teacher and seeing too many of his students lost to drugs and violence.
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Florence Jones (1907-2003) was the spiritual leader and chief healer of the Winnemem Wintu tribe of Northern California. The Wintu have called the McCloud River Watershed near Mount Shasta home for more than 1000 years, but were not provided a reservation as gold miners and pioneers drove them away in the name of industry.
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The son of Filipino immigrants, Laurence Tan was studying to be a doctor when the vision of becoming a teacher presented itself in a dream. Now a fifth-grade teacher in Watts, California, Laurence uses the tool of TEACH to inspire and educate students in an area where opportunities are slim.
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After being bullied for his small size and pitch of his voice, DeMonte Smith decided to join Safe School Ambassadors at his middle school to reduce the amount of bullying he saw at his school.
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As a former pro football player, Brian Cox understands the value of teamwork and community in achieving a goal. After retiring from the NFL, Cox came back to his native Los Angeles, witnessing the destruction that gang violence had wrought on his old neighborhood.
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At the anniversary of the American Disabilities Act, a group of disability rights advocates march in solidarity to assert their rights as Americans and human beings. Many are here because of the work of Eliza Riley, a disability rights advocate in Silicon Valley, who has developed a youth leadership program for people with disabilities.
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Kiki Vo is an extraORDINARY Sacramento student who, through her perserverence, strong character, and ability to Forgive, has been able to celebrate life, finding happiness and success. Ten years ago, Kiki and her sisters were badly burned in a house fire in their native Vietnam that took the life of their mother. Raised by her father after securing treatment in the United States, Kiki and her sisters edured taunts and bullying and were separated when their father died of lung cancer a few years later. They have since been reunited.
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Slater Jewell-Kemker is a 17 year old filmmaker and reporter who celebrates the best of humanity, empowering young people to change the world with media and technology.
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Alex Epstein is a college student who, during high school, was compelled to help rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Using the tool of VOLUNTEER, Alex made multiple trips and engaged with the local community.
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After intermediate students share personal experiences, they decide to take action and invent the "Leaving a Positive Footprint" activity, where the pupils paint blue footprints with positive messages "walking" though their campus. Later, they work with first grade buddies to discuss bullying and speaking up, and together they make paper footprint cut-outs and create their own upstander messages to post around the school.
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Gunn High School students transcend the hurt of stereotypes.
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Palo Alto High School students use art to confront intolerance.
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In this student-created video, people share their experiences of being excluded and encourages the acceptance of diversity. Created by high school students from American University's Discover the World of Communication Summer Program held at University of California Berkeley during the Summer of 2011.
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Joe Lobozzo's class at Lakewood High School discuss the trailer of Light in the Darkness.
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Thao, executive director of National Hmong American Farmers, immigrated to Fresno, CA with his family at age 8, after Laotian citizens were granted asylum in the US after the Vietnam war. Many of the first Hmong farmers suffered from discrimination, so Thao left his "cushy" job at the city of Fresno to ORGANIZE his community in a fight against injustice.
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Inspiring voices from the Not In Our Town Movement and why they care
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San Francisco students find a creative response to hate.
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Each year, Facing History teacher Jane Wooster asks the students in her classes to take on a "social action" project of their own choosing. This year, several of the students have chosen to conduct a lunch-time demonstration to draw attention to the use of the word "illegal" to describe undocumented immigrants, and start a school-wide conversation about the way immigrants are perceived in their community.
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The students of Newcomers High School in Long Island City, which specializes in teaching recent immigrants, and those of St. Luke's, a private middle school in Manhattan, have come together to dialogue about difference and combat bias. The Building Bridges project was created through a collaboration between Newcomers teacher Julie Mann, and St. Luke's teacher Kim Allen, who met ten years ago through a Facing History workshop. Ms. Mann's class of English-learners exchanged letters with their St.Luke's "buddies", and in the first of several meet-ups this year, received help editing their personal immigration stories. In return, St.Luke's students are preparing research papers on immigration informed by the interviews they conducted with their Newcomers buddies.
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Out in the Silence captures the remarkable chain of events that unfold when the announcement of filmmaker Joe Wilson's wedding to another man ignites a firestorm of controversy in his small Pennsylvania hometown. Drawn back by a plea for help from the mother of a young gay teen who is being brutally abused at school, Wilson's journey dramatically illustrates the universal challenges of being an outsider in a conservative environment and the transformation that is possible when those who have long been constrained by a traditional code of silence summon the courage to break it. The film portrays the ongoing struggle for justice and equality in communities across the country and depicts the change that is possible when people search for what they have in common rather than what that set them apart. Not In Our School features an excerpt from this inspiring film about CJ, a 16-year-old boy and his mother, who challenge the community and school board in their small town to create an environment where all students feel safe and included. For more information visit http://wpsu.org/outinthesilence. You may also download a discussion guide to Out in the Silence here.
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When teacher Janet Miller learned that transgender youth in her district were the most at risk of attempting suicide, she wanted to make sure that her students felt safe. After sharing the alarming statistics with the school community, teachers and students worked together to create a Gay Straight Alliance at Hoover Middle School in the San Francisco Unified School District. The GSA brings students together to talk about differences and acceptance.
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Dr. Joseph Marshall, Jr. is an author, activist, and veteran street soldier. Founder of the anti-violence movement Alive & Free, Marshall draws audiences from across the country to his weekly radio program, Street Soldiers— a name Dr. Marshall uses to describe people working to eliminate violence in their communities. To help keep his own community safer, Dr. Marshall co-founded the Omega Boys Club after years of working as a middle school teacher and seeing too many of his students lost to drugs and violence.
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One only has to turn on the television to view a plethora of stereotypes about people based on gender, race, religion, physical appearance, intelligence—the list goes on. Claude Steele, Dean for the School of Education at Stanford University, and his colleagues discovered that even when stereotypes are not uttered aloud, the phenomenon of stereotype threat, or the fear of confirming a negative stereotype, can be a stigma that affects attitudes and behaviors. These ideas are very important to Not In Our School because our core principles focus on creating safe, inclusive and accepting environments, free from stereotypes, bullying, and intolerance. In this interview Dr. Steele explains the concept of stereotype threat and its antidote "identity safety."
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Patchogue, NY after the murder of Ecuadorian immigrant Marcelo Lucero
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In the heart of the South, students at the University of Mississippi question whether traditions tied to the Confederacy and segregation continue to belong on their campus. When a chant and football fight song surface old racial tensions and divide the Ole Miss community, student leaders, supported by their chancellor, bring people together. This is the first segment in the PBS special, "Not In Our Town: Class Actions," which premiered nationally in Feb. 2012. For more information, visit http://www.niot.org/classactions.
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Janet Miller, a teacher at Hoover Middle School, was blown away by district-wide statistics that revealed the risk of violence that transgendered youth experience. Moved by the statistics, Miller stated to her colleagues that it was their responsibility to create a safe learning environment for ALL students and that any type of discrimination should not be tolerated.
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"Identity safe classrooms are those in which teachers strive to ensure students that their social identities are an asset rather than a barrier to success in the classroom. Acknowledging students' identities, rather than trying to be colorblind, can build the foundation for strong positive relationships. This, coupled with challenging opportunities to learn, can help all students begin to feel they are welcomed, supported, and valued as members of the learning community." —Dr. Dorothy Steele Learn more about identity safety in this interview of Dr. Dorothy Steele, co-author with Dr. Becki Cohn-Vargas of the new book for elementary educators, "Identity Safe Classrooms: Places to Belong and Learn."
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In Our Family, children share stories about all kinds of families. Today's children come from families living in one home or two, some are being raised by one mom or one dad, or they might have two parents/caregivers or live with grandparents or other family members. Others have parents/caregivers of different ethnic backgrounds, or who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. And some children are adopted or live in blended families. This short film is a collaboration between Our Family Coalition and Not In Our Town to encourage conversation about the many diverse family constellations, to give children the opportunity to see and appreciate their own families, and to be open and respectful to those who are different from them.