Update 8/24: After posting the update of 8/22, I e-mailed Ms. Walters, Goodwill of Central Virginia’s Director of Marketing & Communications:

"As promised, I amended my blog post to reflect the information you shared with me. If for some reason there are inaccuracies in my latest update, please let me know so I can correct them immediately."

An e-mail I received from Ms. Walters this morning explained that there are some remaining inaccuracies and that Goodwill would appreciate that they be corrected. These changes mostly concern what the alleged eyewitness told me. It’s important to note that there is a discrepancy between what this individual, who claimed to have been on-site at the time, and Goodwill states — namely that, based on the surveillance video, only the former employee and the private investigator were on-site at the time, thus putting into question the accuracy of what this "eyewitness" allegedly saw and heard. 

As Goodwill is most likely aware, it is common practice, in support of the blogosphere’s spirit of transparency, to correct factual inaccuracies — especially when they are substantive in nature — in such a way that readers can follow both the original "error" and the correction. Furthermore, due to earlier versions of a post being captured electronically, "overwriting" entire posts is not recommended.

Therefore, I’ve attempted to reconfigure the text of the original post to reflect the facts as presented by Ms. Walters via the written edits she submitted to me, in conjunction with the changes made on 8/22. However, I also attempted to stay as true as possible to the story shared with me by the alleged eyewitness in order to accurately report what I was told, keeping in mind that the eyewitness statements are simply one person’s interpretation of what actually occurred.      

First a bit of background. Over the past decade I’ve donated many items to various non-profit organizations, and in the past year to Goodwill of Central Virginia. Most of the time when I stopped at the local donation site a man I’ll call "Joe" helped me. "Joe" had been employed by Goodwill for several years and was well-known in the shopping center where the donation site was located. But yesterday "Joe" wasn’t there.

Here’s what I was told by an eyewitness someone who claimed to be an eyewitness:

A woman came to the donation site with a sob story of how she had just moved into a new place, had little money, and no furniture to put in it. She saw gently used baby equipment at the site and wanted to know if maybe — please — she could take it, even though this wasn’t really allowed.

Now, "Joe" no doubt knew that he should ignore this plea. But after taking pity on the woman, "Joe" relented.    

Shortly thereafter, "Joe" was fired from his position.

So here are the questions, assuming the incident as outlined above is true and accurate:

• Should "Joe" have allowed the woman to have the baby equipment? No, as it wasn’t his to give away.
• But would he have been inclined on his own to give someone these items, without being induced?
• And weren’t "Joe’s" actions in line — in spirit, at least — with Goodwill’s mandate of helping people in need? Goodwill’s position is that "the resale of donated items funds critical education, training, and career services to help people in need. Donations are the lifeblood of our organization. Fewer donations = less dollars for programs = less people served"
• Did he, through his actions, violate the organization’s Code of Ethical Conduct?
• Did he personally profit from this action, and should this have factored into Goodwill’s decision to terminate him?
• Was the punishment excessive, and would an option instead have been to give him a reprimand and unpaid time off from work?

Goodwill of Central Virginia’s leadership is comprised of several attorneys. Perhaps they were consulted, or helped establish policies, that govern situations as the one mentioned here.

————————————————————————————————————

ORIGINAL POST OF 8/19:

It doesn’t take much to question the reputation of an organization — even an unconfirmed story such as the one outlined below.

First a bit of background. Over the past decade I’ve donated many items to various non-profit organizations, and in the past year to Goodwill of Central Virginia. Most of the time when I stopped at the local donation site a man I’ll call "Joe" helped me. "Joe" had been employed by Goodwill for several years and was well-known in the shopping center where the donation site was located. But yesterday "Joe" wasn’t there, apparently the victim of a sting.

Here’s what I was told by an eyewitness someone who claimed to be an eyewitness:

A woman came to the donation site with a sob story of how she had just moved into a new place, had little money, and no furniture to put in it. She saw some old pieces at the site and wanted to know if maybe — please — she could take it, even though this wasn’t really allowed.

Now, "Joe" no doubt knew that he should ignore this plea, regardless of how desperate the woman appeared (and according to the eyewitnesI spoke with, person who claimed to be an eyewitness, she layed it on pretty thick). But after taking pity on the woman, and apparently given the old condition of the furniture, which the eyewitness told me would likely have been disposed of anyhow, "Joe" relented.    

A few moments later, the conversation having been secretly recorded, "Joe" was fired from his position by the very women, actually an employee of Goodwill, who entrapped him (strictly speaking, entrapment is a legal term that involves a law enforcement officer or his agent inducing or persuading someone to commit a crime that he had no previous intent to commit; here the women was neither a part of law enforcement or an agent thereof).   

So here are the questions, assuming the incident as outlined above is true and accurate:

• Should "Joe" have allowed the woman to have the furniture? No, as it wasn’t his to give away.
• But would he have been inclined on his own to give someone these items, without being induced?
• And weren’t "Joe’s" actions in line — in spirit, at least — with Goodwill’s mandate of helping people in need?
• Did he, through his actions, violate the organization’s Code of Ethical Conduct?
• Did he personally profit from this action, and should this have factored into Goodwill’s decision to terminate him?
• Was the punishment excessive, and would an option instead have been to give him a reprimand and unpaid time off from work?

Goodwill of Central Virginia’s leadership is comprised of several attorneys. Perhaps they were consulted, or helped establish policies, that govern situations as the one mentioned here.

Update 8/21:

I spoke with the supervisor for the donation site, Henry White, and told him that I’ve been a regular donor to Goodwill and wondered why "Joe" was no longer employed there. Mr. White commented that "[Joe] went on to better things." When I mentioned to him the story I’ve been hearing, he said "that’s not what happened" and referred me to Human Resources.

I called HR Supervisor Michelle Danner and explained to her what I had heard and wondered whether she would comment on the situation, but she referred me on to Missy Murdock, Vice President, HR.

After telling Ms. Murdock that I’m a regular donor to the organization and that I’m concerned about what I’d heard, she stated that she couldn’t speak about this. I also mentioned that I work in PR and that, by not commenting, the impression that "Joe" had been somehow set-up was the only one left with the public. Ms. Murdock repeated that she could not comment and thanked me for the call.

——————————–

From a public relations perspective, is the negative word-of-mouth surrounding the circumstances of Joe’s termination — which, by the way, is apparently being was characterized as a voluntary quitting by the alleged witness –  worth Goodwill maintaining a "we will not comment under any circumstances" policy? 

While I appreciate Goodwill of Central Virginia’s general policy of not commenting on confidential employee matters, the refusal to make a statement explaining its side of this story, even in very broad terms — and instead leaving the impression that a former employee was terminated under questionable circumstances — probably isn’t an entirely productive approach.       

Additional note:

I’ve edited this post several times as I’ve received more information and tried to address the points made in the comments.

Update 8/22:

Aimée P. Walters, Goodwill of Central Virginia’s Director of Marketing & Communications, contacted me via e-mail today, and we had a phone conversation about Goodwill’s mission, policies and procedures, codes of conduct, employee training, and, of course, the incident discussed above, without divulging any confidences she is obligated to keep either by law or policy. She also mentioned that tomorrow she intends to leave a comment on this post, in order to explain, in the organization’s own words, what transpired. And, just to note, Ms. Walters consented to our conversation being "on record."

According to Ms. Walters, Goodwill has a very strict policy governing donated items and loss prevention that is communicated to its employees. Furthermore, it lets its employees know that donation sites are canvassed at random — which is what Ms. Walters said took place here:

– A licensed, female private investigator (who is a former undercover police officer), was canvassing several of the donation sites on the day in question. She approached "Joe" and had a 16-second conversation with him, which was recorded on a surveillance video w/o audio, as permissible by law.

– Based on the communication between the investigator and "Joe," which was transcribed by the investigator (the specifics of which were not shared with me), a policy violation took place that was grounds for termination.

– The incident did not involve furniture, but instead baby items.

– The surveillance video did not indicate that any other person besides "Joe" and the investigator were present.    

Not directly related to the facts of this situation, but nevertheless interesting, was that Ms. Walters said she first learned about this post from someone outside Virginia (I believe she said California and Arizona, and maybe she’ll confirm that in her upcoming comment) who filled out Goodwill’s online form, perhaps this one, and provided a link to the post itself. Only later did she find out, when speaking with Ms. Murdock, that I had contacted Goodwill directly — it had apparently been Ms. Murdock’s understanding that I was simply a concerned donor, which is why my inquiry was not passed on to Ms. Walters. Mentioning that I work in PR did not trigger me being put in touch with Ms. Walters, who deals with media-related matters.

What does this mean in practical terms? Through an improved transportation management system, health services workers in Ghana alone, for example, can cover 70% more kilometres at less cost and give approximately 90,000 extra children a year vaccinations. It also means that basic goods will become more affordable for the local population and that markets will open up for local producers (here’s a sobering fact: up to 40% of her turnover and up to 8 hours a day are spent by a female market trader in Ghana in getting her goods to market).    

As part of its awareness-raising efforts, Transaid earlier this month launched the Transaid Challenge, an online game intended to showcase — in a fun and interactive way — the transportation challenges faced by health workers. Created by fishinabottle and sponsored by Barclays Transport and Logistics division, players take on the role of  "an African health services worker, delivering services and supplies from health centres to villages that need them." The game ends when, apparently as in real life, the vehicle’s gas runs out or it is damaged and breaks down.

I’ve played the game three times now and it’s fun. But fortunately people in need aren’t relying on my ability to get supplies or services to them… each time I managed to drive my vehicle into a boulder and several bushes, slam into a hut or two, and then run out of gas.

Interested in the thoughts behind the Transaid Challenge and how it fit it into Transaid’s overall public relations and marketing stretegy, I contacted Caroline Beaumont, Transaid’s Head of Marketing, who graciously agreed to an e-mail interview:

Andrea Weckerle: How did you initially come up with the idea for the computer game?

Caroline Beaumont: Last year, with 2 days notice, we found out that we had a stand at Live8. We wanted to do something more than a few leaflets on a stand so set Mario, our intern, to work with some toilet rolls, paint and toy farmyard animals and trucks to create a track for a remote controlled driving game that demonstrated some of the difficulties of driving in Africa. Although it was pretty rudimentary it really helped us to explain our work to a completely cold audience and we got thinking about translating it to a computer game.

None of us are big games players, so we enlisted the help of a volunteer who is also a keen gamer, and he helped us to put together the brief and source our design agency, fishinabottle.  We are a really small charity with a correspondingly small budget so then we had to find a sponsor to make it happen.  Barclays Bank have a Transport & Logistics division and wanted to do something unusual with us, that also targeted their audience, so they came on board.

Andrea Weckerle: What has the feedback to the game been to date?

Caroline Beaumont: Since launch, on July 12th, it has been picked up all over the world. Feedback has generally being really good and it is appearing on lots of blogs and discussion boards. It is extremely popular in Slovakia, for some reason! Take up of the messages is harder to evaluate, but we will try and do some evaluation of this towards the end of the 2 month campaign period.

Andrea Weckerle: How many times has the game been played in total? And by how many individual players?

Caroline Beaumont: In the first week of launch the game, which is hosted on our site, was played 22,500 times. 2,691 click throughs had been made from the Challenge to the homepage.  Before the Challenge launched our web traffic over the same period our entire number of visits would have been about 350.  We have a small email list of warm supporters of about 350, and circulated the Challenge to them at launch. Approx 4,500 click throughs from email links have been achieved, indicating that the viral effect has been strong.

Andrea Weckerle: How does this game tie into Transaid’s overall PR and marketing efforts?

Caroline Beaumont: Transaid works to build transport management skills in Africa, predominantly among health service workers.  A lot of healthcare in Africa is delivered by outreach, because of the huge distances between communities and health facilities, and our basic premise is that it’s not always a lack of vehicles that prevents health workers from delivering services to people in remote areas, it’s how they are driven and maintained and how their routes are planned. It’s common sense stuff, but it is hard to communicate in an interesting and engaging way as it’s something quite intangible – you can’t see skills building in the same way you can see a vehicle!  We wanted people to understand that it’s not the 4×4, it’s what you do with it that counts.

We have a very strong core supporter base made up of companies from the UK transport & logistics industry but we wanted to challenge the perception, both internally and externally, that you need to work in the industry to understand the value of what we do, by demonstrating the issues in an interactive way. 

We have a really good profile among our supporters at senior management level but we were not reaching operational staff, or a younger audience – a valuable constituency who can fundraise and advocate on our behalf. The launch of the Challenge coincided with our new website, and we we used it to add value to the site, drive people to the homepage and collect e-newsletter opt-ins.

Andrea Weckerle: Is there anything else about the campaign or Transaid that you’d like to share?

Caroline Beaumont: We had to think very carefully about how what the gameplay said about our work and fishinabottle, our agency, really tuned into what we were trying to demonstrate. They kept us involved at every stage of development and, as they do a lot of charity and public information work they were brilliant at interpreting our brief into something playable, but on-message.  For example, we wanted the game to have a time element, but an over-emphasis on speed would have completely gone against a safe driving message, so the time is actually represented by a fuel guage that runs down – when you’re out of fuel, the game’s over.  It’s also much harder to avoid the obstacles if you drive carelessly so you are more likely to end the game by irreperably damaging your vehicle.  The route planning aspect is represented by the dilemma of whether to take the faster but more indirect, tarmac road or the more direct but much slower off-road route.

We had to strike a balance between the game being fun to play and the serious message that we wanted to convey and we’ve ended up with something that is quite simplistic, but is a good entry point for those that are new to use to find out more about us.

The expectation was for our core audience, the transport industry, to remain the primary audience but actually it has had far greater appeal and attracted players from all over the world. It is the first serious piece of e-marketing that we’ve done and it has really brought home to me that, once something takes off on the web, you have to think completely internationally about your communications. For example, the e-newsletter that we drafted to send to our sign-ups had a lot of content about UK fundraising, but about 75% signed up so far are from outside the UK, so we are changing the content and emphasis to suit.

To monitor the Challenge’s growing web presence we’ve been using Google Alerts and also technorati.com to find out who is blogging about it, and posting responses if relevant.

Fortunately, there are tools available to help adults manage the logistics of two or more households and schedules.

The KidsNCommon site (fee-based, free for 30 days), for example, helps parents establish a "community" within which an invited person — the other parent, a relative, a friend, or even the child — gets access to customized information. This information can include the Parenting Plan (a good resource on parenting plans is ParentingPlan.net), the Documents page, the Bills page (with tabs for Shared Expenses, Child Support, Spousal Support, Bank Accounts and Service Vendors), and the all-important Calendar page. The Calendar allows invited community members to see upcoming events organized according to categories such as Payment Reminder, Work, School Event, Extra Curricular, Recreation, Travel, Vacation, Holiday, Co-Parenting Meeting and Legal — with optional email reminders sent out as well.   

KidsNCommon offers other services and benefits as well. For example, community members get their own email address, such as suzysmith@kidsncommon.com, that helps everyone stay in touch and receive schedule reminders. The site also offers information on topics such as child health, dealing with the psychology of divorce, and balancing families, careers and other relationships.   

ShareKids.com (fee-based) is another site that offers an easy online location to share information and manage schedules, keep track of shared expenses, create photo galleries, and even create private chat rooms.

Sharekid.com also links to other valuable resources such as the Family Mediation Inc.’s downloadable (and, at under $20, affordable) Child Custody Parenting Plans book with forms, and the international non-profit Bonus Families that coined the beautiful term "bonus" to describe "a stepfamily or a single parent living with their children and another adult partner" (I highly recommend this site).

In addition to the importance of streamlining communication and schedules for the sake of the children, maintaining and fostering strong parent-child bonds is crucial to helping kids adjust to their new family status, particularly in cases where physical or legal custody is awarded to only one parent.

Virtual visitation can be an important part of helping the non-custodial parent maintain close ties with his or her children, whether the parent lives nearby and can’t see the child every day, or lives further away, precluding frequent in-person time together.

InternetVisitation.org describes virtual visitation as "using tools such as personal video conferencing, a webcam, email, instant messaging (IM) and other wired or wireless technologies over the Internet or other communication media to supplement in-person visits and telephone contacts between two people."

The site offers practical how-to information on what’s needed to set up a call and a related forum discussing such things as VoIP, Skype, Vonage, video calls and video call accessories. Internet Visitation also lists the latest legislative developments; to date Utah, Wisconsin and Missouri have passed virtual visitation laws, with fifteen other states showing activity.      

Finally, there’s also a must-read blog, Virtual Families and Friends.com, written by "virtual dad" Jim Buie and co-authored by his son, Matthew Buie-Nervik. An absolute gold mine of information.

(Image of artwork from Kids’ Turn)

In the abridged version of its World Citizens Guide, BDA offers these suggestions (see the PDF for elaborations on the suggestions) for making a favorable impression when traveling abroad:

1. Look. Listen. Learn.
2. Smile. Genuinely.
3. Think big. Act Small. be Humble.
4. Live, eat and play local.
5. Be patient.
6. Celebrate our diversity.
7. Become a student again.
8. Try the language.
9. Refrain from lecturing.
10. Dialog instead of monologue.
11. Use your hands. Watch your feet.
12. Leave the cliches at home.
13. Be proud, not arrogant.
14. Keep religion private.
15. Be quiet.
16. Check the atlas.
17. Agree to disagree respectfully.
18. Talk about something besides politics.
19. Be safety conscious, not fearful.
20. Dress for respect.
21. Know some global sports trivia.
22. Keep your word.
23. Show your best side.
24. Be a traveler, not a tourist.

Paul offers his own suggestion as well:

"Personally, though, the best way to connect with overseas audiences is to explain that you didn’t vote for the current U.S. administration and that you agree that it current policies are, to be as diplomatic as possible about it, misguided."

Meanwhile, Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm and the new A Death in Belmont, gives these impressions in the article Welcome Stranger in this month’s National Geographic Adventure (print edition):

"An old friend of mine once observed that the arrival of a stranger in a rough town often presents locals with two options: Feed him or kill him. He was referring to some ancient time when the dilemma was literally that stark, but his larger point was that all societies must choose whom they let in and whom they keep out, and letting someone in entails more than just opening the city gates. Once you do that you become to some degree responsible for the stranger’s welfare. Travel, then, at its crudest, is the art of convincing people to take care of you rather than spurn you — or worse. It’s a knife-edge that makes a life spent at home feel not fully lived….

You had to be wary when you traveled, I realized, but you also had to be open. You had to protect yourself, but you couldn’t be so suspicious that you’d lie to avoid giving food to a stranger. These were lessons from the harsher parts of the world, but I started to think that maybe they were applicable anywhere. The starting point was respect; if you didn’t lead with that, even with street-corner thugs, nothing was going to turn out well. So you start with respect and see where that goes; if it doesn’t work, you switch to something else…. things pretty much come down to how you treat one another. There’s a certain liberty in that; there’s a certain justice."

Earlier this year the Animal Legal Defense Fund released a 3-page report ranking all fifty U.S. states and the District of Columbia based on the strength and comprehensiveness of their state anti-cruelty laws.

Although ALDF makes it clear that all the states’ laws need to be strengthened, the states that ranked best were California, Illinois, Maine, Michigan and Oregon, while those that ranked worst were Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, North Dakota and Utah.

The latter five states fell into the worst category because, among other things, they either did not have any felony anti-cruelty provisions or because, in the case of Kentucky, felony provisions applied only to select situations.

ALDF also provides a list of Jurisdictions with Felony Animal Abuse Provisions and the year of enactment.

By way of quick definition, a felony is "a crime sufficiently serious to be punishable by death or a term in state or federal prison… [or] a crime carrying a minimum term of one year or more in state prison," [note: given the legal status of animals, whether wild or designated as "property," the death penalty has never been, not is unlikely ever to be, imposed in any animal cruelty case], while a  misdemeanor is "a lesser crime punishable by a fine and/or county jail time for up to one year… [and]are tried in the lowest local court such as municipal, police or justice courts."

For anyone who wants to learn more about the death penalty and how it is administered in the U.S., go to Pro-death penalty.com and the Death Penalty Information Center.

Here are some quick links of interest:

• Crimes punishable by the death penalty (DPIC)
• Methods of execution (DPIC) and methods of execution (Pro-death penalty.com)
• Scheduled executions (Pro-death penalty.com)
• State-by-state death penalty information (DCIP)
• State executions scheduled for 2006 (DCIP)
• The federal death penalty (DCIP)
• Federal death row prisoners (DCIP)

And to test your knowledge about the death penalty, follow this link to DPIC’s 10-question Death Penalty Quiz.

Keeping in mind that this was pre 9/11 and citizens still believed that their compliance might result in a safe release, we tried not to antagonize the gunman. We hoped for the best as he negotiated with the police and just prayed that he wouldn’t loose his cool — no one wants to be shot or killed, even in a simulation. When the officers finally stormed the bus and handcuffed us before dragging us outside onto the pavement, it felt all too real. (Quick note: the officers, not certain who among us was the gunman and who might have developed some loyalty to him, took the precautionary step of handcuffing us all.)

This little exercise reinforced my belief that law enforcement work isn’t easy. Between risking lives for modest pay to dealing with a distrust of police officers among certain segments of the population due to an abuse of the uniform by some, law enforcement work is frequently under-appreciated or even unappreciated.

Now the Washington Post reports that "more than 80 percent of the nation’s 17,000 law enforcement agencies, big and small, have vacancies that many can’t fill, police officials estimate." With reasons ranging from service-minded people choosing to join the military, to an increase in baby-boomer retirement and a more educated population pursuing other career paths, the police shortage is being felt across the country. 

According to the Washington Post, some counties, in an effort to attract viable candidates, are offering a variety of incentives such as signing bonuses (Prince William County, Virginia, for example, offers a $3,000 signing bonus), bounties for referrals and pay increases. Prince George’s County, Maryland even began a $1 million dollar advertising campaign last summer.

Police departments have taken other steps as well:

"Departments have dropped their zero-tolerance policy on drug use and past gang association, eased restrictions on applicants with bad credit ratings, and tweaked physical requirements to make room for more female candidates or smaller male candidates, police officials said. Departments also offer crash courses in reading and remedial English for the written parts of the entrance exam, and provide strength and agility coaches for the physical part — all of which have raised concerns about how qualified some of the new personnel will be."

Unfortunately such actions aren’t without risk:

" ‘That [hiring less-qualified people] is clearly a concern, and police chiefs are very uneasy about that possibility,’ said Hubert Williams, president of the Police Foundation, a law enforcement advocacy group. ‘The question is, do we keep our radio cars empty or hire people who a few years ago we wouldn’t have hired? It is very problematic.’ "

This sentiment is echoed by others:

"There are concerns, said Elaine Deck, a researcher at the International Association of Chiefs of Police, that staffing changes and shortages could affect public safety and the well-being of law enforcement officers. The LAPD, for example, is too short-staffed to investigate complaints against its officers, so that many complaints from 2005 may not result in punishment until this year."

(Photo from FreeFoto.com)

"[The students] acknowledge that with the exception of one lecture they sat in on this month, most of what they know about the course has come from friends and acquaintances who have taken the class. But, they said, those discussions, coupled with research they have done on [Coleman] McCarthy’s background, have convinced them that their school should not continue to offer Peace Studies unless significant changes are made. This is not an ideological debate, they said. Rather, what bothers them the most is that McCarthy offers students only one perspective." 

Despite the furor, the school’s administration intends to keep teaching the course. As Principal Sean Bulson stated: 

"Peace Studies is one of the things that makes B-CC unique…It’s been an institution here, and kids from all across the spectrum have taken it. It’s not about indoctrination. It’s about debate and dialogue."

McCarthy doesn’t hide the fact that he is a strong opponent of violence of any kind. However, he was puzzled by the students’ opposition:

"He said that although the two sat in on a recent class, they have not talked to him in depth about their concerns.

‘I’ve never said my views are right and theirs are wrong,’ he said about the students who take his course. ‘In fact, I cherish conservative dissenters. I wish we could get more of them in.’

But McCarthy’s unwavering belief in the importance of his work is summed up by his statement that "unless we teach them peace, someone else will teach them violence."

The Peace Studies course is currently taught at seven other Montgomery County, Maryland high schools. Back in the 1990s, when I had the pleasure of teaching this semester-long course at Wilson High School in Washington DC as part of my graduate school training, it was called "Alternatives to Violence."

While teaching this popular elective emphasizing nonviolent conflict resolution in interpersonal, community, national and international situations, my goal was to expose the students to ideas and topics they had never been confronted with before. And just as the Washington Post article stated, I remember many lively debates between myself and the students and amongst the students themselves.

We talked about such subjects as the civil rights movement, the death penalty, environmental activism, and political peace movements, among other things. Never was there any attempt to sugar-coat the facts. In talking about the death penalty, for example, of which about half of the students were in favor of and half opposed, we discussed the number of people who were executed and later found innocent of the particular crime for which they were imprisoned.

Rarely did any of the students not have a strong opinion one way or another. They were open-minded but not easily swayed if their own personal experiences didn’t comport with something in the curriculum. I remember one boy who was frustrated by my obviously idealistic insistence that talking through a problem was a way to resolve most disagreements.

He looked at me and said something along the lines of "Ms. Weckerle, you’ve obviously never been to my neighborhood. There we hit first and talk later."   

I learned a lot from those kids.