Chad: Here’s the focus for today, okay? So we are going to dig back into this book that we’re reading.

Arshon: This is our advisory. The facilitator is Mr. Prather. Can’t say enough about him. I just feel like I can talk to him about anything.

Chad: A lot of the issues that we explore are relative towhat’s happening in the community. This semester we’re reading All American Boys. Today, we finished a chapter that concluded with one character kind of giving a thesis or an argument about the role that authority plays in the lives of people like him. In this case, he’s a young African-American male whose brother has just been assaulted by a police officer.

Student: “And guess what saved the day? Football.”

“Ah, football,” Spoony said.

“Another one of America’s favorite pastimes, besides baseball and beating the brains out of…”

Student: “So I turned the TV back on quick.”

Arshon: When I heard that, like, I instantly, it just draws me into it, because it’s just, a lot going on that I can relate to.

Chad: We had a few kids who were willing to share that gut reaction today and applied the elements of the text to things that are happening in the lives directly around them.

Arshon: People abuse their authority when they get it. Like, it’s just… I just go through a lot of that on a day-to-day basis.

Chad: I come from experiences that are wildly different from the experiences that most of my kids have had. Not all of my kids are from the United States. Not all of them are from Nashville. And so, just asking questions, getting to know kids, asking them what their stories are…

Chad: Do you see these things happening? Or is this something that you kind
of know happens, but it’s not part of your experience, or what?

Arshon: It has happened to me, my friends, family. Every—almost everybody I know. People I’m around, like, every day. Like it just, make us so mad, like to the point where we like, we like, don’t even care about authority no more. Like, we don’t want to listen to nobody in authority cause, like, y’all done us so wrong, like, all this time, so why we listen to y’all now?

Chad: You make yourself vulnerable. You make yourself the student. I’m far more
the student than the teacher, in this case.

Student: …put yourself in, like, the situation. What happened in the book, that
still goes on, to me. I feel it’s never gonna go away, but I mean… hey.

Chad: When kids have an opportunity to share their stories and when you really
listen to their stories, everyone seems to have respect for, and trust in, one another.
And a love for one another that says “I’ve got you.”

Arshon: Our advisory is a family. I feel like I could talk about anything I need to in here.