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Showing posts from August, 2013

Learning To Win: Fighting Institutional Racism in the Schools

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Yesterday, I saw a wonderful play by the Hartbeat Ensemble at the Carrier House Theater in Hartford. The play, Learning to Fail , was written and performed by participants of HartBeat’s Youth Play Institute (YPI). I was invited to the play by a friend, Arlene; her daughter Asia was a member of the cast The Hartbeat Ensemble Youth Play Institute (YPI) is an 8-week professional paid internship in acting, playwriting, theater design or stage management for young adults. All 9 of the actors in the play were between the ages of 16 and 21. Set in a fictional public high school in Hartford, Learning to Fail , is a play about institutional racism in education. The thoughtful, well-writen, and well-acted play was a mixture of humor, biting social commentary, hip-hop music and dance, and spoken word. Specifically, the play looks at the school to prison pipeline, the disturbing national trend in which black and Latino youth are disproportionately funneled out of public schools and in