Students Ryan Wright & Essence Blakemore at Solutions in Action event

A frustrated teacher at the helm of an unruly classroom– students shouting, texting and throwing paper airplanes. Although this type of ‘disruptive behavior’ may be a reality for many teachers on a daily basis, this particular scenario was part of a role play exercise performed by students at a recent Solutions Not Suspensions event in North Minneapolis, aimed at getting Minneapolis students involved in school discipline practices.

The goal of this role play was to illustrate how inappropriate behavior might be labeled for students unfamiliar with terms such as ‘insubordination’ and ‘disruptive behavior.’ “It was really shocking for me to see, said Ivy Thomas, a freshman at Harding High School, “because I’ve seen everything that they showed up there, I just didn’t know technical terms. … Most of the terms that they were touching base on I really didn’t know, like ‘insubordination.’ I didn’t know what that was.” The role play included students working in small groups to act out “assault,” “harassment,” “extortion,” “disruptive behavior,” and four other terms used to label inappropriate behavior in the Minneapolis Public Schools Code of Conduct.

Read the full article here.

For a lot of kids, there comes a time in childhood when they just want to run away from home, over something as trivial as sibling rivalry or as serious as domestic violence. Whatever the reason, sometimes the house someone is raised in doesn’t really feel like home.

The quest for home and self-discovery are two central themes in the new documentary, These Birds Walk, which was featured for four screenings at the Intermedia Arts gallery in Minneapolis from February 6-8 and presented in partnership with the American Refugee Committee.

Read the full article here.

Honorable Shukran Gure, one of the first women elected to Parliament in Kenya, has been in Minnesota since January 23rd networking with local non-profits, non-governmental organizations and city governments to create partnerships aimed at improving the lives of the people she represents in Garissa County, Kenya.

Building maternity clinics, creating education and youth empowerment opportunities have been key goals of her foundation, which she created when she was elected to office in March 2013. She quickly realized that the government didn’t have any funds allocated to support programs for women and youth. So she decided to do something about it. “I created my foundation to mobilize resources so that I could help (the) people that I represent, women and youth,” she said.

Read the full article here.

Brian LeCuyer is a Anoka, Minnesota resident who has been working for the American Refugee Committee since December, 2013. Just nine days after he began working for ARC in Juba, South Sudan, he was evacuated to Uganda due to increasing violence. He recently returned to Juba and I spoke with him about the current conditions in the city.

Listen to the interview here.