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Amena Brown Owen - "Be Strong & Courageous" Spoken Word Performance

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Amena Brown Owen - "Be Strong & Courageous" Spoken Word Performance

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This resource is a live spoken word poetry performance by African American artist Amena Brown Owen. The performance focuses on being a strong and courageous individual during hard times. I chose this resource as a diverse resource because spoken word is a unique poetry style that is similar to rap or hip hop music, which students are familiar with. Additionally, the performer represents a unique perspective as an African American woman who has overcome personal challenges. This resource provides students with a different perspective about what courage looks like. I would use this resource with closed captioning to have students then compare this text to a short memoir about similar life experiences. Students could then discuss what courageous behavior looks like and what motivates people to overcome obstacles.

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Amena Brown Owen - “Be Strong & Courageous” Spoken Word

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Choosing Courage: Inspiring Stories of What It Means to be a Hero

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Choosing Courage: Inspiring Stories of What It Means to be a Hero

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This material includes a video presentation of Brian Thacker as he shares personal stories of overcoming challenges. He also reads a chapter from the book Choosing Courage: Inspiring Stories of What It Means to be a Hero. Brian Thacker's presentation to a group of students is chosen as a multicultural resource because he presents the perspective of a Vietnam War veteran who has won the Medal of Honor for his service. Additionally, the chapter he reads from the book is about a teacher who protects her students during a school shooting. Both stories provide unique perspectives of what courage can look like in a variety of settings, such as during war or during school. I would consider only using part of the video since it is an hour long. It would be used to research further into the courage it takes to serve in the military, or, it could be used to research further real life examples of heroes who protected others during a violet time.

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About this Item

Title

Choosing Courage: Inspiring Stories of What It Means to be a Hero

Summary

Brian Thacker met with 30 sixth-grade students to talk about his own war experience, why he was selected to receive the Medal of Honor. He read from "Choosing Courage, Inspiring Stories of What It Means to be a Hero" by Peter Collier, where one chapter describes a middle school teacher who put herself in the line of fire to protect her students from a disturbed teenager wielding a firearm in school and who later was given a Citizen's Medal of Honor.

Event Date

May 26, 2015

Notes

- Brian Thacker received a B.A. from Weber State College, Ogden Utah and was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant from the University of Utah ROTC program. After graduating from the Officers Basic Course in Field Artillery, he was assigned to the 1st Battalion 22nd Artillery stationed in Nurnburg, Germany. He served as a 1st Lt. in Battery A, 1st Battalion, 92nd Artillery in the Republic of Vietnam starting in September 1970 and received the Medal of Honor for his bravery and leadership in the Kontum Province, South Vietnam, in 1971. He served 26 years in the Department of Veterans' Affairs and retired in 2002.

Related Resources

Young Readers Center: http://www.read.gov/yrc/

Running Time

1 hours 2 minutes 44 seconds

Online Format

video

image

online text

Rights & Access

While the Library of Congress created most of the videos in this collection, they include copyrighted materials that the Library has permission from rightsholders to present. Rights assessment is your responsibility. The written permission of the copyright owners in materials not in the public domain is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions. There may also be content that is protected under the copyright or neighboring-rights laws of other nations. Permissions may additionally be required from holders of other rights (such as publicity and/or privacy rights). Whenever possible, we provide information that we have about copyright owners and related matters in the catalog records, finding aids and other texts that accompany collections. However, the information we have may not be accurate or complete.

More about Copyright and other Restrictions

For guidance about compiling full citations consult Citing Primary Sources.

Credit Line: Library of Congress

Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Choosing Courage: Inspiring Stories of What It Means to be a Hero. 2015. Video. https://www.loc.gov/item/webcast-7653/.

APA citation style:

(2015) Choosing Courage: Inspiring Stories of What It Means to be a Hero. [Video] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/webcast-7653/.

MLA citation style:

Choosing Courage: Inspiring Stories of What It Means to be a Hero. 2015. Video. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/webcast-7653/>.

More Films, Videos like this

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Choosing Courage: Inspiring Stories of What It Means to be a Hero

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Brian Thacker met with 30 sixth-grade students to talk about his own war experience, why he was selected to receive the Medal of Honor.

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The Help is a memoir about a young journalist nicknamed Skeeter who interviews African American women with experiences serving as maids and nurses for rich white families. The stories reveal the deep racism in Mississippi during the 1960's and how minimum wage workers, especially African Americans, were abused by white employers at the time. This story has been chosen as a multicultural text because it takes on multiple perspectives. It has a white, liberal perspective from the journalist and her own stories of experiencing discrimination for being a woman. It also has perspectives from the marginalized African American women who spent their lives raising white children. I would use only a select number of stories in the book itself to analyze discrimination and the Jim Crow South. Students would then create either a poster or Google Slides to share at least two quotes from the text that demonstrate courage.

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Read 89.4k reviews from the world's largest community for readers. Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step. Twenty-two-year-old Skee...

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From the resource Facing History, this is a brief interview of an anonymous student who shares the mistreatment Jewish students faced for wearing a yarmulke or kippah to school. The student explains the cultural significance of these pieces of clothing for the Jewish community and why individuals choose to wear them. The interview also describes how students sometimes physically remove the clothing as a form of bullying. I chose this story as a multicultural text because it addresses anti-Semitism today, which is a form of discrimination. Since students are aware of the Holocaust from reading Night during 8th grade, this text would be used to assess how religious expression can also be a form of courage. This resource would be used more for teaching annotations and for reflective writing on discrimination faced by students today.

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A student reflects on why it takes courage to wear a yarmulke or kippah:

When I was in high school one of my friends was wearing a yarmulke, and he was in the gym locker room and someone just grabbed it off his head and ran. In high school, teenagers are immature, ignorant, whatever.

I admire people who wear yarmulkes publicly. It's a courageous thing to do. Wearing it is a way for someone to say, "I'm a Jew." It's the biggest symbol. People who wear yarmulkes are generally more observant. For some kids who grow up in observant households, since day one they wear a kippah. But for a small minority out there, it's something they do as a way of showing Jewish pride. I have friends who used to not wear them, and in their teenage years they said, "This is something I want to do." It's tough for someone to make that jump.

I have a friend who used to go around wearing a baseball cap. You can wear a baseball cap-that counts as a yarmulke. Then he said, "You know what? I'm Jewish. I'm proud to be Jewish." So now he wears a kippah.

Especially if you're in a public forum, wearing a kippah requires a lot of courage, and you have to have a lot of pride in your religion. Some people in the business or professional worlds won't wear a kippah, because, unfortunately, a bit of anti-Semitism and prejudice exist there. . . . For some people in the professional world, it changes the way that people think of them, and perceptions are important.
Every once in a while, I think, "Maybe I should do it." I think I've ultimately never had the courage. The reason it's difficult, at least for myself in a tolerant community like this one, is that there's the fear-you don't want to stick out. But also, I'm satisfied with the level of my observance right now. Wearing a kippah is not the only way of making a statement of Jewish pride.

1. Why does the speaker regard the decision to wear a kippah as "courageous"?

2. Why is he reluctant to make that decision?

3. Do you ever worry about walking down the street and being recognizably Jewish?

4. What particular challenges does an American with a strong Jewish identity face?

5. What struggles do you have with being an American with a Jewish identity in the context of antisemitic events such as happened this weekend?

6. As an American Jew, what can you do to fight this type of hatred and bigotry?

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A student reflects on why it takes courage to wear a yarmulke or kippah: When I was in high school one of my friends was wearing a yarmulke, and he was in the gym locker room and someone just grabbed it off his head and ran. In high school, teenagers are immature, ignorant, whatever.

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After Eric Garner: One School's Courageous Conversation

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After Eric Garner: One School's Courageous Conversation

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This is an article written by Facing History staff member Dr. Steven Becton. He is reflecting on his own experience following the trial of Eric Garner, another example of police brutality against an African American man in the United States. The article provides the duality that Dr. Becton faces. As a scholar he focuses on teaching students to assess the facts objectively and to find patterns in history. As an African American man, he shares his opinion as to why the trial is a reflection of systemic racism. Given that several students at my school participated in the Black Lives Matter protests of 2019-2020, this article is selected as a diverse text because it addresses racism and the criminal justice system in the United States, something that students may relate to or be familiar with. It also gives a scholarly view of what courage is, which is continuing to search for the truth in difficult situations. This resource could be used for a research project on social injustices today.

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As I prepared to write this post, I had to confront the most difficult, yet most important, person that I would be in conversation with: myself.

I am an African American male with a 21-year-old son. I have always prided myself on staying "above the fray" in conversations about race. I try to find a place of mutual understanding, to give others the benefit of the doubt, and to attempt to see an experience from the other's perspective. As a Facing History and Ourselves staff member for the past 13 years, and its Associate Program Director for Urban Education for the past four, I regularly facilitate conversations of this nature with students, educators, parents, and community leaders around the world.

After a New York grand jury decided not to bring an indictment in the killing of Eric Garner, I went back and again watched the video footage of Garner's final few moments during an attempted arrest in the Tompkinsville neighborhood of Staten Island for selling loose cigarettes. I watched Garner breathe his last breath as several officers wrestled him to the ground, one with a chokehold that later proved lethal.

As Garner took his last breath, I nearly lost mine. I just could not make sense of it. I could not find that middle ground, that higher ground. For some reason, this particular incident was a trigger for me. It triggered anger, fear for my son, and outrage toward law enforcement. I started looking for simple answers, knowing that there aren't any. I started looking for someone to blame, knowing no one person is at fault.

As I watched the video, I could not have a rational debate regarding whether the police actions were justified or legal. I saw a human being die a senseless death. It was breathtaking to watch. I felt something that I deemed worse than anger. I felt hopelessness.
But I knew that I could not stay there.
As a Facing History staff member, I needed to do what I ask our students to do. When confronting difficult historical moments or current events, I ask students to resist generalizations, to judge responsibly, to consider reliable sources, and to make conclusions without prejudice. I ask them to avoid retreating from uncomfortable conversations, to participate in them actively and thoughtfully instead. I could not resign myself to believe that black lives have less value than any other life. I could not live with the conclusion that all white police are racists. I did not want to assume that even the particular police in this specific event are racist. I do not know them. All of those conclusions were too simplistic. I knew that if I were to fall into the troubling pattern of seeing these experiences only from my own perspective, it would lead to drawing simplistic and divisive conclusions.
I needed to be in conversation with others.
I turned to my colleagues, my family, my friends, and to social media. I found a range of responses to the Garner verdict. Some people did not even know about the incident. Some were apathetic, more occupied with last-minute holiday shopping. Some expressed outrage for what they considered a murderous act at the hands of the police. Others sympathized with the very hard job that police have, and concluded that those involved in Garner's death were only doing their job that day. Still others thought that Garner should have been more compliant.

What was most revealing was that these opinions cut across racial lines. That was actually refreshing. In spite of news coverage suggesting something different, there is no monolithic response from the white or black community. The most common sentiment was that the death of Garner was sad and tragic. My personal hopelessness began to lift as I listened to others, and as we shared a common struggle to understand these events, and how to prevent them.

As I engaged in conversations with others, I was reminded of the privilege and responsibility of living in a democracy, even an imperfect one. I have the privilege of civil discourse that can lead to necessary change. I have the responsibility to listen to others without judging and labeling. We all need to be in conversations where we feel safe sharing our most vulnerable emotions, raising our most troubling questions, and listening to others' perspectives, and are encouraged to act responsibly.

My colleague Karen Scher, a program associate in New York, brought me into such a conversation that she had the privilege of witnessing. The conversation took place last week in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, at the New York City Lab School for Collaborative Studies. The high school, which has about 580 students, regularly engages young people in difficult, critical discussions throughout the year.

On Thursday, December 4th, as tensions ran high in New York City and protesters filled the streets following the decision in the Garner case, about 80 Lab School students and 15 teachers and administrators met for what they called a "Courageous Conversation." In contrast to the tone outside of the high school, the conversation inside was open and honest, as members of the Lab School community addressed their fears, hopes, and concerns for their high school, as well as their world.

The conversation began with the administrators and teachers setting some ground rules: Students and staff were invited to speak, one at a time, when they received a "talking piece." The school community was encouraged to share what was on their minds and in their hearts in the days and weeks since the verdicts in both the Garner case and the decision not to indict a police officer in the death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown. And Assistant Principal Mark Berkowitz reminded students to stay engaged, speak their truth, and, perhaps most difficult, to try to expect and accept non-closure. With ground rules for the conversation in place, students began to share their most honest thoughts.

The group that day, just like the school itself, was diverse-Asian, white, black, and Latino students, from a variety of cultural and economic backgrounds. So was the range of responses. Some students expressed fear, powerlessness, and anger; others expressed their disdain for what they saw as deeply rooted institutional racism playing out in their country. They shared their stories; they walked in each other's shoes. One student explained that her family was afraid that, as a person of color, she was no longer safe. A white student shared how she struggled with the role that privilege plays, and how it made her feel a greater sense of responsibility. Others placed the incidents in historical context and raised questions about power relationships, as well as the role institutions can play in perpetuating racism.

This space was safe for those who were ready to move on from the national dialogue, as well as for those who sympathized with the police. There was a range of valid responses. Fortunately for the students at the Lab School, the administration has created a climate that's conducive for courageous conversations like these.

"This is a school that has fostered community in its various spaces," Karen told me. "Students have the tools to listen to one another, students respect one another even if they disagree, and there is value in all of the voices in the room."

The Lab School, along with other schools in which Facing History works deeply, has made it a priority to create the kind of school climate that allows for a healthy response to difficult conversations. These schools embrace rigor while allowing room for a variety of emotional responses. The Lab School and others like it practice the habit of raising ethical questions that often do not have simple solutions. For example, the entire staff has engaged in a study of the text "Courageous Conversations about Race" by Glenn Singleton and Curtis Linton, and many members of the faculty are trained in restorative justice circles and anti-racist practices, all of which informed the dialogue that took place on December 4th.

The conversation that Karen witnessed did not happen by chance. The school and teachers place a priority on building trust between students, creating safe spaces for young people to have difficult conversations, developing student's voices, and preparing them to navigate difficult current events. At the Lab School and other Facing History schools, students take deep dives into historical case studies, which provide context while avoiding facile parallels between historical and today. This rigorous examination of history provides the critical thinking skills and nuance necessary for thoughtful engagement around current events.

Still, some may ask, To what end? What comes out of these conversations? Do they really help? Ask the faculty that attended the Lab School discussion. In the Courageous Conversation, some expressed feelings of anger and disillusionment. Yet, following the dialogue, many expressed feelings of hope. They saw possibilities for change in the students' dialogue. They found hope after seeing their students challenge stereotypes. The community committed to continue the dialogue weekly, to not let it go away once the media moves on.

And I can breathe again. I can hope again, not because I am any less troubled by the tragic loss of life. I find hope in knowing that there are many people who are trying their hardest to walk in someone else's shoes. Many are trying to resist dehumanizing or making villains of those who have a different perspective. Many are trying to create safe, reflective classrooms and community space for civil discourse.

The philosopher Hannah Arendt has said that the essence of being human is participating in moral discourse with others:

"The things of the world become human for us only when we can discuss them with our fellows. We humanize what is going on in the world and in ourselves only by speaking of it, and in the course of speaking of it we learn to be human."

Here are a few takeaways for classroom teachers:

In addition to teaching about complex decision-making and difficult topics, educators must model appropriate behavior for civil dialogue. Students need to see the adults in their lives face troubling events with honesty, listen to one another, overcome differences, and refrain from the kind of polarizing conversations that tend to dominate national discourse.

Start with creating safe and reflective classrooms, so you are better prepared to have civil discourse when troubling things happen in the world. Here is a teaching strategy that can help you contract to have safe conversations in class.

Use pedagogical strategies that foster active listening.

Use primary source documents and a variety of other sources to help students clear the F.O.G. (separating Facts, from Opinions, from Generalizations).

Promote a climate of respect, create space for diverse viewpoints, model a culture of questioning, deepen reflection through journaling, and honor different learning.

Teach this way daily, not just when something newsworthy happens. The classroom is a place to practice democracy. Here are 60 student-centered teaching strategies that engage young people of all learning styles.

Check out some of our helpful resources:

How do you help young people create safe space to discuss difficult issues? Comment below.

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After Eric Garner: One School's Courageous Conversation

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As I prepared to write this post, I had to confront the most difficult, yet most important, person that I would be in conversation with: myself. I am an African American male with a 21-year-old son. I have always prided myself on staying "above the fray" in conversations about race.

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Half-mile walk to school? How about half-mile climb down a rickety ladder?

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Half-mile walk to school? How about half-mile climb down a rickety ladder?

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This is a journal article about a village in China which has a steep cliff. In order for students to get to school they must climb up and down the cliff daily. I think this is a valuable article with an international perspective of rural living. Students at my school may not have an understanding of how some places in the world are still significantly underdeveloped, as this article describes. Since this article is also about school, I am considering having students make a comparison of courage in a school setting through using multiple texts read or listened to as a class.

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Newsela - Half-mile walk to school? How about half-mile climb down a rickety ladder?

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This is an EdTed video directed towards children. it explains what confidence and courage are and how to build confidence as an individual. The video provides several examples for when to have courage or how to demonstrate courage. One example includes joining a sports team or working to become better at a sport. This resource provides a unique perspective of how a person cannot have courage unless they believe in themselves. I consider this a diverse text because it provides several examples of what courage can look like in a child's life.

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3 tips to boost your confidence - TED-Ed

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Given that this resource is from ReadWorks, which can only be accessed by creating an account, the document has been saved to my Google Drive for access. This is a three-page fairy tale that is a condensed version of Little Red Riding Hood. This resource is ideal for identifying theme and courageous acts through character analysis. This resource is considered multicultural in that it is a German story based on the 1300s and focuses on the strength of a young girl. It may also be challenging because there is the use of an animal as a speaking, human-like character.

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Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive.

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Given that this is a text from ReadWorks and can only be accessed by making an account, the text has been saved to my account to be accessed. This is a memoir by Derek Redmond, an award-winning African American Olympian. This text focuses on how he worked to become physically able to compete in the races and to achieve his dreams as an athlete. I chose this as a diverse text because it provides a contemporary perspective of an African American male athlete. Additionally, the setting is different than most of the texts for this unit, which tend to focus on school and children. This text will be used for practicing summarizing. Students will read the text and then summarize three events that happened in the text.

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Given that this is a text from ReadWorks and can only be accessed by making an account, the text has been saved to my account to be accessed. This short memoir by Junot Diaz shares the author's experiences with being bullied for his race, his class, and his family dynamic. As an award-winning Dominican American writer, Diaz eloquently paints a picture of what it was like growing un in a lower income urban area. I chose this as a multicultural text because the perspective is of a Latino teenager who struggled between fitting in and standing up for himself. This will be the focus text of the mini unit's summative that is on theme and summarizing a text.