20 Kasım 2013 Çarşamba

The Learning Network Blog: Who Is the ‘Mayor’ of Your School or Neighborhood?



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Questions about issues in the information for students 13 and older.




“New York has usually been a city of mayors. Each and every block has one. So do industries, underworlds and canine parks,” commences a new interactive that functions nine New Yorkers nominated by readers for their function in various city communities — like Cheyanne Smith, whom the function calls the “mayor of youngsters.”


If you have been to nominate a person as the “mayor” of your college, neighborhood or neighborhood, whom would you choose? Why?


In “Cheyanne Smith, Mayor of Teenagers,” Emily S. Rueb and Kirk Semple publish:



Cheyanne Smith stood in front of the City Council in August to say that New York City colleges treated college students like prisoners. When she was completed, Christine C. Quinn, the Council speaker, took the microphone and said that possibly Ms. Smith, who was 16 at the time, need to be the 1 running for workplace. Ms. Quinn later pulled her aside to ask if she wished a recommendation for university.


This sort of recognition is not surprising for people who know Ms. Smith, a senior at the Bushwick College for Social Justice in Brooklyn who zigzags around the nation to rallies and conferences advocating laws that prohibit racial profiling and that protect youthful individuals from getting pushed into low-wage perform or the criminal justice method. The giggly teenager is a youth leader at Make the Road New York, a nonprofit organization that operates with reduced-cash flow and immigrant populations. She tends to make pinkie vows with friends who promise to come out for a protest or to attend a single of the spoken word occasions she organizes. If they come, she will walk them to the subway afterward.


In September, Ms. Smith was quoted at length in a Rolling Stone article about restorative justice in colleges. Her principal, Lucas Cooke, emailed it to the personnel, half-joking they need to watch out: Right here comes our subsequent mayor. A single instructor responded: Or our next president.


“But she’s not just a voice,” Mr. Cooke stated. “She does the invigorating work of organizing, but also the administrative tasks and groundwork to flip an notion into action.”


Final 12 months, in among extracurricular pursuits like knitting and urban gardening, Ms. Smith took it on herself to increase pupil government to the underclassmen. There have been numerous nights she stayed on campus long soon after Mr. Cooke had left for the day, creating up mission statements, kinds and charters, sending out emails.


Friends admire Ms. Smith’s Afro (when she has one) and the colorful African dresses with head scarves she sometimes wears. In the hallways, even her ex-boyfriends end to chat. It’s her impulse to make even strangers come to feel welcome, she explained, due to the fact of the way she was accepted when she moved to the United States 6 many years in the past from St. Vincent and the Grenadines.


“I realized a phrase: It will take a village to increase a child,” she stated. “So, my neighborhood or my village is everybody that I interact with, or absolutely everyone that I have an interaction with. My village is massive.”



College students: Read the complete write-up, then inform us …



  • What do you consider of Ms. Smith? Do you know other youngsters like her? Why do you consider Occasions readers nominated her?

  • The Instances obtained far more than 200 nominees for this characteristic, which includes “veterans, financiers, pastors, philanthropists, bloggers and a drag queen parade impresario.” Scroll through the other individuals featured so far. What attributes do they appear to have in frequent?

  • Who is the unofficial mayor of your college? Your neighborhood? Another community to which you belong? Which of individuals men and women would you nominate for a feature like this if you could? Why? How would you describe that person’s influence on the community?

  • How does your school identify college students, teachers and staff members who do notable, excellent or fascinating issues? Whom do you think will get ignored? How could you treatment that?




Students 13 and older are invited to comment under. Please use only your very first identify. For privacy policy causes, we will not publish pupil feedback that incorporate a last name.



The Learning Network Blog: Who Is the ‘Mayor’ of Your School or Neighborhood?

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