Truth, Learning, and Change

The Boston Busing/Desegregation Project seeks to support BPS, city leaders, and especially the people of Boston, to learn how the busing/desegregation crisis of the 1970s and its impact continue to shape Boston public education and the city today. BBDP strives to link our city’s history to its present and future, with a focus on issues of race and class equity, achieving excellence in our urban institutions, and democratic access to power and resources to make equity and excellence happen. We believe that engagement of Boston’s diverse community, including its teachers, students, and parents, is key to producing a high quality public education system for all.

BBDP is creating a special opportunity that will use theater techniques to collect stories from parents, students, and teachers about pubic education in Boston — stories about three things:

• The Boston busing/desegregation crisis and its impact
• Boston public education today 
• Priorities for helping to create high quality public education for all  

The workshop for teachers will take place on Thursday, November 29 from 4-7pm, location to be confirmed.  Click here to register

The workshop for parents will take place on Thursday, November 15 from 6-9:45 pm, East Boston Social Center, 68 Central Square, East Boston – Senior room, 2nd floor. Click here to register

The workshop for students will take place on Thursday, November 8 from 6:00 – 9:45, ACEDON, 18 John Eliot Square in Roxbury. Click here to register

Professor Gail Burton, artist and educator at Emerson College and Roxbury Community College (RCC), will conduct the workshop series. It will be designed to support people to share and learn from each other’s stories, and to build community with each other as well as with others working to build quality public education for all in Boston.

What will be done with the stories — and why are they important to public education and the city?

• A story festival, open to the public, will be held in December to showcase stories from the workshop and catalyze public dialogue about them.
• Workshop participants will be invited to further develop their stories through a workshop series that will be done in collaboration with MassMouth in January 2013, which will result in a public event of storytelling judged by the public.
• Stories from Gail Burton’s workshop series and the MassMouth workshop will be shared on BBDP’s website and the websites of our partners working to improve public education for all.
• These stories will be used to inform public conversation about how to improve Boston public education today.
• These stories will be used to inform community dialogues that BBDP holds in 2013 and 2014 to help build awareness of a more inclusive story about the past and present of public education in Boston, and to shape priorities for its future — to build equity, access, and excellence for all.

If YOU have a story to tell — about equity, access, and excellence in Boston public education (or the lack of it) — that others need to learn from so that Boston understands what’s needed to build high quality public education for all, then we invite you to TELL YOUR STORY on a Thursday in November at one of these workshops. Your experience, your voice, and your priorities for improving public education for all in Boston are vitally needed — to help create new learning, new vision, and new leadership committed to building the world-class public education system for all that this city needs and our children deserve.

Please register today! Click one of the links above or contact BBDP by email or telephone to sign up for this workshop. Let us hear from you today!

Donna Bivens
Project Director
Boston Public Desegregation Project
donnaumnunity@gmail.com
(617) 830-5085

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