Reflection: How the Arts Breach the 'School to Prison Pipeline'

This isn’t a class in your average school. This is a class at the Juvenile Justice Center in Alameda and these boys are incarcerated. They live in tiny, sparse cells. The walled courtyard isn’t big enough for a real game of catch. These are tough kids who have had tough lives and are currently dealing with really tough circumstances. But when they are dancing, they are just kids, trying to get the moves right. I was privileged to witness that class as part of the Alameda County Office of Education’s bold initiative to address the “School to Prison Pipeline.”

As a partner in Creativity at the Core, a program developed by the California County Superintendent’s Education Services Association’s Arts Initiative with support from the California Arts Council, a collaborative team of teachers, teaching artists and administrators are piloting teaching and learning techniques that are responsive to the complexities of juvenile incarceration. They are embracing the sadness and uncertainty in these kids’ lives while promoting self-understanding, agency, responsibility and hope.

Dancing is way more than just a way to let off steam for these kids, although the power of joy in this situation shouldn’t be underestimated. Lucero is teaching them about their capacity for self-expression and self-control. Some of them are digging into their own cultural heritage, some are finding positive ways to express aggression. Some are feeling a different future in these dance moves.