The Heart of Learning: Mike Pritchard

[EFerrari]

http://www.edutopia.org/php/article.php?id=Art_1277



by Ken Ellis

The guest speaker, dressed in black, paces slowly in front of the Castlemont High School auditorium stage, sizing up the audience. Tough crowd. Young men hunker down under sweatshirt hoods and baseball caps. Young women, overdressed for this sunny spring day, guard against the chilly atmosphere inside. They lean deep into their seats. No one is smiling.

"I'd like to take a moment of silence for all the young people we've lost on the streets," says the guest, a commanding baritone.

Most of these seniors simply stare back at him. And who can blame them? They are in shock. Like many high schools in America, this one in Oakland, California, has been a war zone. The daily weapons of choice are sharp words, dull stares, cutting laughter. If conflict escalates, as it did last year, when two students were gunned down in front of this auditorium in a hail of drive-by-bullets, everyone bears the pain of it.

"Thank you. And I'm sure the parents of those young people thank you," says the big man in black, Michael Pritchard. A friend of the former principal, he has come this day to help these students deal with the pain they live with every day -- whether they want him there or not.



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