8/3/2019 ENOUGH IS ENOUGH - Steps to take following news about violence, poor schools

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This is what I wrote in the http://www.tutormentor.-blogspot.com blog on Saturday, July 24, 2010,

following the street killing of another Chicago teen.

Once again a horrific act has moved violence to thefront page of Chicago's Sun Times newspaper, withthe headline "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH".

In the article Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis is quotedsaying “So I say, enough is enough. We are coming for you. We will find you, and we will bring you to justice.”

The article also quotes St. Sabina’s pastor, the Rev.Michael Pfleger, who said "it’s not enough to pray, not

enough to lower flags every time an officer is killed."

How many times must we read the sameheadlines? How do we move beyond the prayers,marches and flag-lowering, to the research,planning, brainstorming and action steps that areneeded? 

On Thursday, October 08, 2009, Arne Duncan wasquoted as saying, "This is the time to look in our collective mirror and ask whether we like what we seeor whether we can do better together." 

This is not a new problem. However, it's a problem that

our leaders can't stay focused on every day, becausethere are so many other problems.

That's why I think it's important for another level of leaders to emerge, who are totally focused on buildinga better community understanding, and response, tospecific problems and solutions facing big cities.

I've been issuing thisinvitation for the past 17years, since we formed CabriniConnections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, in the weeksfollowing the shooting of 

Dantrell Davis in Chicago backin October 1992. I keep thefront page of this ChicagoSunTimes story in my office, asa reminder of my responsibility.

'ENOUGH IS ENOUGH'

I've developed my own ac-tions steps, and postedthem on my blog in the past.

Here they are again: 

If we want to stop this vio-lence that we read about onthe front page of local media,we have to act now, and keepacting to solve this problemfor many years. We have tothink spatially, that is, look atthe entire city and suburban problem, not just oneneighborhood. At the same time, we need to act locally,

because none of us has the time, or the resources tohelp each of the kids in the entire Chicago region wholive in neighborhoods where poverty is the root cause of the violence.

Here are some ways to remind yourself. Think of ENOUGH, is ENOUGH

E – educate yourself  – most of us do not live in highpoverty neighborhoods, so we only understand the rootcauses of senseless shootings from what we read innewspapers. We also only read negative news in themedia, so we’re now really well informed on wherethese events are taking place most frequently. Finally,while there is a perception that there are plenty of youth

programs, we really don’t have a good understanding of the distribution of different types of youth programs, todifferent age groups, in different zip codes. The onlyway this will change is if each of us pledges to spendone hour a week reading books, articles and web re-ports, that illustrate the root causes of these shootings,or of poor performance in schools. Through our learningwe can draw ideas that we use in our own actions. Wecan also begin to contribute information that other peo-ple use to support their own decision making.

N – engage your network – find ways to draw otherswho you know into this shared understanding. Recog-nize people who volunteer time and talent, or who helpkids through the programs they operate. If you are abusiness leader, or a church leader, engage your corpo-ration or your congregation. You can use your web site,advertising, point of purchase materials, etc. to point toweb sites that show all of the agencies in the city whodo tutoring/mentoring, such aswww.tutormentorconnection.org. If you do this weekly,year after year, your friends, coworkers and customerswill become involved in solving this problem with you.

O – offer help, don’t wait to be asked. As you build

Going beyond the headlines and editorials following tragic news

Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC—www.tutormentorexchange.net. Merchandise Mart PO Box 3303, Chicago, Il 60654

 Ideas expressed here and on other Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC web sites are my own opinions resulting from 36 years leading avolunteer-based tutor/mentor program in Chicago and 19 years of trying to help similar programs grow in every high povertyneighborhood of the city.

8/3/2019 ENOUGH IS ENOUGH - Steps to take following news about violence, poor schools

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your understanding of where poverty is most concentrated,and what social services are in those areas, choose aneighborhood, and reach out with offers of time, as a vol-

unteer, talent, help build a web site, do the accounting, or offer Public relations services, and dollars, if the web siteof an organization shows they do good work, you don’tneed to ask for a proposal of how they would spend your donation, you need to send them a donation so they cankeep doing that good work

U – build a shared understanding. Form groups of peers to share reading and learning assignments, justas you meet every Sunday to read passages of scrip-ture and build the group’s understanding of the Word of God. Use the many different resources of the T/MC

Links library at http://tinyurl.com/T-MC-Library asthe starting point for your search for wisdom, and un-derstanding.

G – give until it feels good – people who generouslydonate time and dollars to causes they believe in feelgood about their giving. If we’re going surround kidsliving in poverty dominated neighborhoods with extralearning and adult mentoring networks, donors willneed to give more than random contributions of time,dollars and talent. On the Bolder Giving web site ( http://www.boldergiving.org/) donors are inspired togive to their full potential and those giving 50% or moreare given recognition. Can we inspire donors who sup-port youth services to give at this level?

H – form habits of learning, and pass these on toyour kids. Imagine how much more successful teach-ers were if youth came to school every day askingquestions about where to find information, or how tounderstand information they had researched on theInternet the previous day?

We can model that habit if we build it into our ownactivity. Keep a chart, such as the OHATS on theTutor/mentor connection web site ( http://www.tutormentorprogramlocator.net/OHATS/home.aspx), where you can document actions youtake each week to same sure that this timeENOUGH, really means ENOUGH.

If you document actions, you can review whatyou’ve done at the end of each month, and eachyear, and begin to see a growing mountain of ac-tions you have taken to solve this problem. Some of these will be actions that got other people involved,so that the good work you do is multiplying becauseof the good work others are also doing.

Through this process you help build this sharedunderstanding, which will lead to better public

policy. Without this habit of learning, and withoutlearning to use the Internet to find good ideas frompeople in all parts of the world, we won’t be able toproblem solve as well as we need to, and we won’tbe able to teach this habit to our kids.

If we do this, we’ll not only reduce the root causes of youth on youth violence, we’ll also address one of the growing issues facing America in a global econ-omy. We will begin to create a nation of learners,problem solvers, creative thinkers and innovators,who use learning and information as the basis of creating opportunity and keeping America great.

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Read other articles written on this topic in thefew years.http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/search/label/violence

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Enough is Enough—Actions you can take following negative news stories

From Blog story at http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/2010/07/enough-is-enough-suntimes-front-page.html

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