Imagine If World Leaders Grew Up In A "Zone"

Have you heard of the Zone? Positive Contagion?

There's one in New York, Miami, San Francisco, the UK and
Israel so far--a zone for positive peer pressure.

When I read about it I was so excited I wanted to nblast it across the Internet. Here is what the Miami Herald ncolumnist Leonard Pitts, Jr. wrote that brought tears to my neyes:

"HARLEM--The late day sky was spitting snow. Inside the nclassroom, tiny black children, younger than kindergarten, nsat in a circle, legs folded 'criss-cross apple sauce' nbeneath them. Soon they would begin their French lesson, but nfirst there was a ritual chant.

"'There is a girl in our class and her name is Khadija,' nthey began, voices rising in little kid enthusiasm, hands nclapping in time. Khadija got up, moved to the center of nthe circle and began jumping with all her heart.

"'Jump. jump, Khadija,' they sang. 'We're glad you're nhere today.' Around the room they went until each child had nhad a turn in the center of the circle."

In the rest of his colum
Pitts explained that he had ngone to Harlem to tour the Harlem's Children Zone, a
97-square block network of schools, social services and teen noutreach programs.

The Harlem Zone is "the brainchild of of Geoffrey Canada, a
55-year old New Yorker who believes you cannot effectively neducate a child when his world is falling down around him, nwhen he is hungry, sick, fatherless, homeless and hopeless.
Canada's solution: Fix it all. Simultaneously."

Start at birth and continue through college.

Canada asks what good is it to save one child and than send nhim into a neighborhood where every other child is failing.
He recognizes the power of peer pressure and calls it in nthis case, "negative contagion."

Instead of saving one child, save all of them and establish
"positive contagion."

The Harlem Children's Zone serves 9000 kids. Students have nsmaller classes and, a longer school day and a longer nschool year than students elsewhere. Their teachers are npaid more and given more classroom freedom. They are also nheld more accountable. After school the kids take creative nclasses, Yoga, karate, etc.

There is counseling in the zone for families in crisis, nhealth care for the sick, emergency care, and affordable nfarm fresh produce.

Of course all this service costs 50 million a year.
Two-thirds of that comes from private donations. Canada nsays, "The state spends about $60,000 a year to jail one ninmate. Someone yells at me because I'm spending $3500 a nyear on Alfred. Alfred is 8. OK, Alfred turns 18. No one nthinks anything about locking him up for 10 years at $60,000 na year."

It's the concept of "positive contagion" that jumped out at nme. Imagine a world where leaders had spent their formative nyears chanting to others, "Jump, jump, Fidel, we're glad nyou're here today."

I used to teach in a wealthy white high school. Even there nwe had a few students in deep trouble. When Richard nentered my class he was fifteen and I had just seen him tear napart a chain link fence with his bare hands. I rescued him nfrom his abusive family, physically. His social studies teacher nthen took him home to live at his house. He came to trust us, nbut his trust of the world was short-lived for he graduated back ninto the environment that created the anger that eventually sent him nto prison.

I dream of a positive zone where all kids have time to ncreate and are shown that they can feel safe year afte
year. I dream of world leaders who do not have to negotiatenwith and through fear.

I dream of schools where all students have time to breatheninto alpha brain wave states once a day and feel relaxednand safe all day.nnnnnnnnnnnnn