The power of naming
Naming a group of people, a condition or a situation is one of the more powerful actions we can take. In 1980 the post traumatic stress disorder was first recognized as a significant disorder. Since then the concept has been recognized as occurring as a result of a variety of traumas. The battered women’s syndrome was introduced in the 1970ies by Lenore Walker. Diagnosing and recognizing a disease such as AIDS was an important step in moving from viewing it as a self-inflicted gay plague to a disease which was transmitted in very specific way and which could be prevented and treated. When Nadia Lopez opened the Mott Hall Bridges Academy in 2010 in the Brownville section of Brooklyn and named the students scholars she was taking the first step in helping young people who some saw as losers, future prison inmates, hopeless, unmotivated hoodlums see themselves as life-long learners.
The title of Nadia Lopez’s Ted Talk is “Why open a school? To close a prison” delivered in November of 2015 is clear, concise and a road map. Ms. Lopez says in this talk:
“When I opened Mott Hall Bridges Academy in 2010, my goal was simple: open a school to close a prison. Now to some, this was an audacious goal, because our school is located in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn -- one of the most underserved and violent neighborhoods in all of New York City. Like many urban schools with high poverty rates, we face numerous challenges, like finding teachers who can empathize with the complexities of a disadvantaged community, lack of funding for technology, low parental involvement and neighborhood gangs that recruit children as early as fourth grade.
We call our students "scholars," because they're lifelong learners. And the skills that they learn today will prepare them for college and career readiness. I chose the royal colors of purple and black, because I want them to be reminded that they are descendants of greatness, and that through education, they are future engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs and even leaders who can and will take over this world. To date, we have had three graduating classes, at a 98 --
At a 98-percent graduation rate. This is nearly 200 children, who are now going to some of the most competitive high schools in New York City.”
She says of the team
“But I have a dynamic group of educators who collaborate as a team to determine what is the best curriculum. They take time beyond their school day, and come in on weekends and even use their own money to often provide resources when we do not have it. And as the principal, I have to inspect what I expect.
So I show up in classes and I conduct observations to give feedback, because I want my teachers to be just as successful as the name Mott Hall Bridges Academy. And I give them access to me every single day, which is why they all have my personal cell number, including my scholars and those who graduated -- which is probably why I get phone calls and text messages at three o'clock in the morning.”
Once we name some person, group, condition or situation we have already determined our relationship with that person, group, condition or situation. Prior to the naming of the Battered women’s syndrome, women (and some men) who were being battered were incompetent wives/partners, dumb, stupid, in need of discipline by the head of the house and mentally ill. Naming the condition and the process by which the person doing the battering created someone with a new condition of learned helplessness insuring that a plan of protection and healing could be designed and implemented.
Naming a juvenile as an offender, a school failure, a hopeless gang member becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
There are many names which Nadia Lopez could have given the school and the students. She chose to call the school an academy and the students scholars. If she had called the school a school for failures, for dropouts or a school for dummies she, the other members of the team and the students themselves would have been set up for failure. But, one might ask, wasn’t she risking failure by calling them scholars? Did this name not put too much pressure to an impossible or unachievable goals? No, because she knew that the goal was to set in motion a way of thinking and an approach to life – an approach to learning which is not something which is necessarily reflected in test scores. It is an approach which indicates that one is in the process of learning to learn; of getting excited about learning. It is also a we process.
I recall very vividly when those infected with HIV switched from people dying with AIDS to people living with AIDS and then people living with HIV infection.
We, as a community, co-create victims by:
98 % of the scholars own their identity as scholars. That means that the team of principal, teachers, aides, janitors, and support staff have to identify themselves as life-long scholars determined to find a way to make that figure 98.5 % and then 98.6 percent.
Women (and some men) who came to shelters for battered women learned that they had a condition which was treatable; they learned that they were winners.
People with HIV infection learned that they were living and not dying.
In the time of political unrest perhaps it is time to consider the power of naming. When people are angry and feel they are not an important part of the community and we call them criminals, discontents, and trouble makers we merely reinforce what they fear. We need to think of them as strong, abled, important scholars. We do not forget they are wounded,but we do not name them “the wounded” as if that label could tell us who they are and what they can achieve.
Folks such a Nadia Lopez, Father Gregory Boyle of the Tattoos on my Heart fame KNOW that we are all winners, that we are all in the process of learning.
When such folds as Father Boyle and Ms. Lopez make themselves available in person, via cell phone, texting and email they become part of a we of success. Interesting that the 12 step program is also based on the we of the RECOVERING ADDICT who is a father, mother,son, daughter scientist, lawyer, clergy person, chef. We are all in the process of becoming. We are all in the process of reclaiming the scholars that we are.
The other day I asked my friend Dr. Johnen for her secret recipe for getting out stains. She gave me a detailed account. Dr. Johnen happens to have a PhD who is a very gifted educator, a homemaker, the aunty-mother of her nephew, a god parent, a wife and that person who assumes various other jobs or roles. No matter what job or role she is occupying at the moment, she is in the process of learning. Ms. Lozep would say, she is a lifetime learner. That is her name and her dance of life.
Whether naming ourselves, someone else, some situation or condition we may want to claim the enormous power of what name we choose.
Written September 27, 2016
Naming a group of people, a condition or a situation is one of the more powerful actions we can take. In 1980 the post traumatic stress disorder was first recognized as a significant disorder. Since then the concept has been recognized as occurring as a result of a variety of traumas. The battered women’s syndrome was introduced in the 1970ies by Lenore Walker. Diagnosing and recognizing a disease such as AIDS was an important step in moving from viewing it as a self-inflicted gay plague to a disease which was transmitted in very specific way and which could be prevented and treated. When Nadia Lopez opened the Mott Hall Bridges Academy in 2010 in the Brownville section of Brooklyn and named the students scholars she was taking the first step in helping young people who some saw as losers, future prison inmates, hopeless, unmotivated hoodlums see themselves as life-long learners.
The title of Nadia Lopez’s Ted Talk is “Why open a school? To close a prison” delivered in November of 2015 is clear, concise and a road map. Ms. Lopez says in this talk:
“When I opened Mott Hall Bridges Academy in 2010, my goal was simple: open a school to close a prison. Now to some, this was an audacious goal, because our school is located in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn -- one of the most underserved and violent neighborhoods in all of New York City. Like many urban schools with high poverty rates, we face numerous challenges, like finding teachers who can empathize with the complexities of a disadvantaged community, lack of funding for technology, low parental involvement and neighborhood gangs that recruit children as early as fourth grade.
We call our students "scholars," because they're lifelong learners. And the skills that they learn today will prepare them for college and career readiness. I chose the royal colors of purple and black, because I want them to be reminded that they are descendants of greatness, and that through education, they are future engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs and even leaders who can and will take over this world. To date, we have had three graduating classes, at a 98 --
At a 98-percent graduation rate. This is nearly 200 children, who are now going to some of the most competitive high schools in New York City.”
She says of the team
“But I have a dynamic group of educators who collaborate as a team to determine what is the best curriculum. They take time beyond their school day, and come in on weekends and even use their own money to often provide resources when we do not have it. And as the principal, I have to inspect what I expect.
So I show up in classes and I conduct observations to give feedback, because I want my teachers to be just as successful as the name Mott Hall Bridges Academy. And I give them access to me every single day, which is why they all have my personal cell number, including my scholars and those who graduated -- which is probably why I get phone calls and text messages at three o'clock in the morning.”
Once we name some person, group, condition or situation we have already determined our relationship with that person, group, condition or situation. Prior to the naming of the Battered women’s syndrome, women (and some men) who were being battered were incompetent wives/partners, dumb, stupid, in need of discipline by the head of the house and mentally ill. Naming the condition and the process by which the person doing the battering created someone with a new condition of learned helplessness insuring that a plan of protection and healing could be designed and implemented.
Naming a juvenile as an offender, a school failure, a hopeless gang member becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
There are many names which Nadia Lopez could have given the school and the students. She chose to call the school an academy and the students scholars. If she had called the school a school for failures, for dropouts or a school for dummies she, the other members of the team and the students themselves would have been set up for failure. But, one might ask, wasn’t she risking failure by calling them scholars? Did this name not put too much pressure to an impossible or unachievable goals? No, because she knew that the goal was to set in motion a way of thinking and an approach to life – an approach to learning which is not something which is necessarily reflected in test scores. It is an approach which indicates that one is in the process of learning to learn; of getting excited about learning. It is also a we process.
I recall very vividly when those infected with HIV switched from people dying with AIDS to people living with AIDS and then people living with HIV infection.
We, as a community, co-create victims by:
- Naming them as addict, losers, helpless, trouble makers, convicts, and people not deserving to be a part of the we.
- Treating them as addicts losers, helpless, trouble makers, convicts, and people not deserving to be part of the we.
- Convincing them to internalize the names of addicts, loser, helpless, troublemakers, convicts and people not deserving to be part of the we.
98 % of the scholars own their identity as scholars. That means that the team of principal, teachers, aides, janitors, and support staff have to identify themselves as life-long scholars determined to find a way to make that figure 98.5 % and then 98.6 percent.
Women (and some men) who came to shelters for battered women learned that they had a condition which was treatable; they learned that they were winners.
People with HIV infection learned that they were living and not dying.
In the time of political unrest perhaps it is time to consider the power of naming. When people are angry and feel they are not an important part of the community and we call them criminals, discontents, and trouble makers we merely reinforce what they fear. We need to think of them as strong, abled, important scholars. We do not forget they are wounded,but we do not name them “the wounded” as if that label could tell us who they are and what they can achieve.
Folks such a Nadia Lopez, Father Gregory Boyle of the Tattoos on my Heart fame KNOW that we are all winners, that we are all in the process of learning.
When such folds as Father Boyle and Ms. Lopez make themselves available in person, via cell phone, texting and email they become part of a we of success. Interesting that the 12 step program is also based on the we of the RECOVERING ADDICT who is a father, mother,son, daughter scientist, lawyer, clergy person, chef. We are all in the process of becoming. We are all in the process of reclaiming the scholars that we are.
The other day I asked my friend Dr. Johnen for her secret recipe for getting out stains. She gave me a detailed account. Dr. Johnen happens to have a PhD who is a very gifted educator, a homemaker, the aunty-mother of her nephew, a god parent, a wife and that person who assumes various other jobs or roles. No matter what job or role she is occupying at the moment, she is in the process of learning. Ms. Lozep would say, she is a lifetime learner. That is her name and her dance of life.
Whether naming ourselves, someone else, some situation or condition we may want to claim the enormous power of what name we choose.
Written September 27, 2016
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