About PEN OR PENCIL™

 

 

PEN is short for penitentiary and PENCIL represents education. Founded in 2005 by the National Alliance of Faith and Justice (NAFJ), PEN OR PENCIL™ involves an intergenerational, interactive, and relationship support process which encourages bonding, trust, resilience in the face of life trials like generations who persevered before them.

 

While the harsh realities of the young who faced enslavement and later the inequalities of Jim Crow have changed, the psychology of the these challenges are recreated in the context of day to day life experiences of millions of young who are now subject to academic challenges, delinquency, and violent confrontations.

PEN OR PENCIL™  blends history, social studies, civic education, economic, and service learning standards into an experiential learning framework to inspire critical thinking, skills development, and activism by youth to choose the road away from prison and jail and towards a quality education. Through PEN OR PENCIL™, social action strategies evolve from the stories, courage, and examples of little and well known participants of the Underground Railroad and the modern day Civil Rights movements into a modern movement of youth engaged as planners, leaders, and decision makers for equitable education and issues of juvenile justice, delinquency and violence prevention.
 

As a result participants will:

  •  Analyze and engage in service learning, which seeks to reduce dropout rates, understand and challenge contributing factors, and implement student-led reduction strategies for disproportionate minority contact, truancy, and violence.
  • Learn that individual rights exceed Miranda Rights and those rights and freedoms are balanced by responsibilities.
  • Develop social, advocacy, and analytical skills.
  • Increase student voice and direct action as a strategy to improve behaviors.
  • Work cooperative with others regardless of race, age, gender, or other divides.
  • Develop crucial partnerships and recruit mentors.
  • Learn about the principles of nonviolence and the difference made by youth during the Civil Right Movement.
  • Indentify and apply science, technology, and math to history.
  • Increase reading and economic literacy skills.

 

By design where implemented, PEN OR PENCIL™ provides an opportunity to ensure that participants of different ages, races, sexes, ethnic groups, disabilities and economic backgrounds have opportunities to serve together. PEN OR PENCIL™ promotes service learning in areas of greatest need, including low performing schools, youth detention facilities, and distressed communities. The initiative involves direct and indirect service activities in which youth participants lend their voice and talents to improve learning environments and their communities at-large as they meet K-12 Standards and Indicators for Quality Service Learning practice listed below:

 

  • Diversity
  • Reflection
  • Progress Monitoring
  • Duration and Intensity
  • Link to Curriculum
  • Partnerships
     

2009 and Beyond Program Design and Strategy

PEN OR PENCIL™ Student No Violence Coordinating Corporations

 

"SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was founded in April 1960. Fifty Years Later . . . On April 16, 2010, the Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention convened their Quarterly Meeting to hear, discuss, and report national focus areas and initiatives of Education and At-Risk Youth, Tribal Youth and Juvenile Justice, Juvenile Reentry    and Transitions to Adulthood, as well as Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Juvenile Justice and Related Systems. Andrea Coleman State Representative, Disproportionate Minority Contact  Team Lead, OJJDP  reports that racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system are connected with inequities in socio-economic status and youth-serving systems (including child welfare and education). Within the same meeting, Kevin Jennings, Asst. Deputy Secretary of  Education, Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, observed that the most important way of keeping young people out of trouble is to keep them in school."

 

The 50th anniversary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) celebrated history and renewed America’s promise. In anticipation, PEN OR PENCIL™ launched its PEN OR PENCIL Student No Violence Coordinating Corporation (SNCC) program theme and strategy to honor student-led movements for social change.

The PEN OR PENCIL SNCC™ program theme and strategy is meticulously designed to meet the President's national focus areas and the 50th anniversary of SNCC.

The PEN OR PENCIL SNCC™ concept revives the passion of youth around service learning with a focus on youth leadership in challenging the expense and consequences of school dropouts and adverse behavior. 
 

Targeted Participants   

The initiative is open to participation by all youth aged 8-18 with options for younger youth and older young adults. Through community, faith, and school based affiliates using service learning, PEN OR PENCIL™ has maintained high priority in engaging:

  • High-need students
  • Students at risk of educational failure or otherwise in need of special assistance and support,
  • Students who are living in poverty and/or attending low performing schools,
  • Students who are at risk of not graduating from secondary school with a diploma or on time,
  • Youth who are homeless or in foster care,
  • Youth who have been, are, or have a parent who is incarcerated,
  • Youth with disabilities (with priority for those who might have behavioral/conduct disorders)

 

The PEN OR PENCIL™ approach has been institutionalized through many credible sources. It has been cited as a promising model Tools for Promoting Educational Success and Reducing Delinquency by the National Disabilities Rights Network and the National Association of State Directors of Special Education.

 

It has been endorsed by the National Council for Social Studies and the American Friends Service Committee. It offers a culturally competent experiential learning-mentoring approach for adults and youth. It is recognized in the Transition Toolkit 2.0: Meeting the Educational Needs of Youth Exposed to the Juvenile Justice System by the National Evaluation and Technical Assistance Center for Education of Children/Youth who are Neglected, Delinquent, or At-Risk, a project funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

PEN OR PENCIL as a national mentoring partnership strategy reflects an effort by the National Alliance of Faith and Justice (NAFJ), National Cares Mentoring Movement (NCMM), and the Association of Black Psychologists (ABPSI)  in a national collaborative mentoring initiative which brings targeted recruitment, a national pool of high qualified research professionals and sustained practice. Through a network of affiliates, we share a commitment to think differently and critically about the manner in which mentoring is defined and rendered as we work diligently to ensure an approach which is culturally appropriate, ethnically empowering, and of sound quality.