![\"Deep](\"https:\/\/educatorinnovator.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/deep-center-kids-poster.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThen we watched a recording of gun reform activist and youth leader, Emma Gonzalez, giving her speech days after 17 of her high school peers were murdered. Our group had the usual preoccupation with peeling clementines and jostling for the best seat in the beginning, but as Emma got on a roll, our young people leaned in. Here was someone not much older than them, demanding change. She was forceful. She was a powerful speaker. I wondered, though, if they saw themselves in her. Her skin was a different color. She lived elsewhere. She was a senior in high school; they were sixth graders. Eleven-year-olds. There were few, if any, people of color on the screen. Sensitive Raven looked at the teaching artists over her shoulder, and whispered to her neighbor, asking if Erin was crying.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, she\u2019s crying,\u201d I said. \u201cIt\u2019s okay. It\u2019s alright to cry.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMs Erin, are you okay? Why are you crying?\u201d they asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy babies were too close to gun violence this week,\u201d she answered.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou got kids?\u201d they asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, I mean you. You\u2019re all my babies,\u201d she replied. A few faces registered surprise, then validation\u2013affirmation that they were important, that this adult cared.<\/p>\n
We talked about how Emma was speaking out. About how we wanted to hear what they thought, too. How we were going to focus on the gun violence plaguing their school and neighborhoods and create art together to make their voices powerful like Emma\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Imagine, we said, that anything is possible\u2014advanced technology, magic, superheroes. What could we do to solve the problem of gun violence?<\/p>\n
It became clear that sitting down and writing prose wasn\u2019t working. We spent all our energy trying to control their bodies, not channeling their energy into creation. Youth were worked up, couldn\u2019t settle in, kept picking at each other. Since they liked the physicality of writing on chart paper together, we switched to composing through visual art. On big sheets of paper that allowed a lot of freedom of movement, each youth drew a superhero character of their own design and answered a series of questions to develop the character\u2019s identity. Many of these characters turned out to be autobiographical\u2014a mashup of fantasy, hope, and self.<\/p>\n
In the following weeks, we experimented with improv and ad lib script writing. After we introduced a scenario of a youth bringing a gun to Hubert, we asked the youth to respond to the situation using their superheroes. They were allowed to act out the scene together, to play. And all of a sudden, we adults weren\u2019t trying to police their bodies. When they embodied their superheroes, they acted with purpose. They began to self-regulate. There was running and jumping and superhero somersaults underneath desks. There were freeze-rays and gun-melting fires. There was solidarity between the superhero team as they worked toward a common goal of stopping the alleged shooter.<\/p>\n At first, our superhero team resorted to the same punitive narratives they heard in school and on TV. The villain was thrown in jail for life, no questions asked. Raven even used the confidence she\u2019d newly found in her super alter ego to bully the villain, playing the \u201cbad cop\u201d and listening to nothing but her own bravado.<\/p>\n We let that scene play out and recorded the audio. We listened to the playback together and laughed a lot, but then I pushed.<\/p>\n \u201cHow could this situation be solved in a way that doesn\u2019t meet violence with more violence?\u201d<\/p>\n There was a general grumbling of dissent. I pushed. Ultimately, the young people agreed that responding to a hurt with more hurt doesn\u2019t fix the situation. So we called \u201caction\u201d and watched them work through an alternative solution.<\/p>\n The first difference was in the questions asked of the villain. Instead of the shaming, \u201cBoy, who raised you?!\u201d from the earlier version, J\u2019Sean asked, \u201cHow can we help you? What do you need?\u201d<\/p>\n When the villain admitted to feeling coerced by a gang, the superheroes first ensured his physical safety, then began to visually examine him. One young hero found a power switch on the gunman\u2019s wrist and realized he was part robot, programmed by the gang.<\/p>\n \u201cI know what we can do!\u201d exclaimed Raven. \u201cWe can give him some of our superhero goodness to replace that gang part of his brain.\u201d They performed a selective lobotomy on the gunman-cyborg and added their strength to his. The gang-programmed part of his brain was gone, and he felt better, relieved, healed.<\/p>\n On our final day together, youth invited family members into the space to celebrate their hard work. As cousins, moms, siblings, aunties, and grandmothers looked on, the heroes of Hubert created a new reality. The applause was thunderous as the authors took a final bow together.<\/p>\n The Parkland massacre did not bring gun violence to Savannah. We have plenty of it here already. In fact, the Parkland massacre coincided with several incidences of gun violence locally and sent waves of concern throughout Deep\u2019s community while prompting an intersectional conversation about gun violence, gun reform, race, and youth leadership. And because of the youth leadership moment Parkland created it did bring a different frame of understanding to events that in both Savannah and nationwide are increasingly perceived as \u201cnormal.\u201d<\/p>\n The challenges this teachable moment presented at Hubert forced Deep Center to become yet more intentional about creating spaces across our programs to help youth\u2014especially youth who\u2019ve experienced trauma\u2014to respond to such instances of violence and injustice thoughtfully, creatively, powerfully, and with the potential to heal.<\/p>\n The organizational learning around Hubert rippled throughout all of our programs. I wrote and published this blog post on the site for our Young Author Project curriculum, which acts as the foundational curriculum and pedagogy for all our programs.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nPlanning a Learning Arc That Responds to Reality<\/h4>\n
The Ripple Effect: How Hubert\u2019s Learning Spread across Deep<\/h4>\n