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National Alliance of Faith and Justice

The National Alliance of Faith and
Justice (NAFJ) is pleased to introduce
an exciting program, which among
other powerful implications, is rooted in
the humanities. . .Humanities are the
stories that help us make sense of our
lives and introduce us to people we
have never met, places we have never
visited, and ideas that may have never
crossed our minds.

• NAFJ has introduced PEN OR PENCIL
to help youth and adults learn history
while addressing juvenile justice
problems.
• Through this demonstration, NAFJ will
implement a Pre-entry strategy to
reduce reentry and recidivism which
encourages partnership building and
a unique method of service delivery.

• The philosophy behind PEN OR PENCIL
involves several key points:
– Life and any journey involves choices.
– Freedom costs; Education empowers;
Crime doesn’t pay.
– While a school bus, a prison bus, and a
transit bus each furnish transportation,
only two out of these three ultimately
lead to independence.

Pen or Pencil: Freedom of Choice
explores how tragedy can
impact youth today.
• T (Truancy)
• R (Race and retaliation)
• A (Attitudes)
• G (Guns)
• E (Expectations)
• D (Drop Out (school) &
DMC)
• Y (Yesterday)

To make choices involve more than options.
Through PEN OR PENCIL: FREEDOM OF CHOICE
• Participants are taught to deflect unnecessary
risks to themselves, their family, and to public
safety.
• Participants will be able to establish a sense of
competence by doing something well.
• Participants will gain a sense of usefulness by
having something to contribute.
• Participants will establish a relationship with
caring adults.
• Participants will gain a sense of power in learning
how to control their own destiny.

Eight Thematic Strands

Highlighting the work of civil rights icons, Dr.
& Mrs. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mrs. Rosa Parks,
and as main characters, the acts of a lesser-
known, but courageous family, the Carters,
the PEN OR PENCIL curriculum provides a
learning experience which can be used
within or outside of the classroom to
help youth more clearly
dissect/analyze choices
and influences and help
them be accountable
for their own outcome.

• On September 3, 1965,
Mae Bertha and
Matthew Carter,
sharecroppers, lined up
seven of their children
to wait for the school
bus that would take
them, despite scare
tactics and threats, to
desegregate the public
schools in Sunflower
County, Mississippi.

•The Carters, a family who lived
and worked on a plantation, had
13 children.
•Day after day, while picking
cotton in the fields, the Carter
children watched bright yellow
buses transport other children to
nice schools
•Their school, prior to
desegregation, was an ill-
equipped room, maybe a church
or barn, where students of all ages
were taught by teachers with
limited education themselves.

Forced into compliance, in order to
remain eligible for much needed
federal funding after passage of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, many southern
school districts, to include Sunflower
County, devised a freedom of choice
plan offering families the
chance to select the schools
their children would attend,
to include those previously
segregated.

• The Carter family made
choices which resulted in
years of retaliation and
reprisals to reach a destination
well worth their trials;
• They were willing to withstand
an intolerable burden to
obtain a quality education.
• In this story, the parents had a
dream for their family to leave
the cotton fields.
• They knew of only one way to
empower their children -
Education.

The story of the Carters, in
text, is published in Silver
Rights, and as a film
documentary in The
Intolerable Burden.
These works allow us to use
social studies through historic
accounts to explore vivid
parallels and help students
ponder the meaning of
freedom, choices,
consequences, influences
then and now, and the role
education plays in minimizing
the cradle to jailhouse peril.

How does disproportionate minority
contact apply?
• Contact is defined as initial
encounter with law
enforcement (i.e. arrest),
ongoing juvenile justice
contacts (e.g., referral, hold in
detention, transfer to adult
court, etc.)

Community Need
• Numerous investigations have documented
the link between school suspensions and
subsequent entry into the juvenile and
criminal justice systems. (e.g. Mendez, 2003; Wald & Loren, 2003)
• According to the Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention, at one point,
minority youth represented 62% of the
juvenile population in prisons but only 34% of
the juvenile population in the entire U.S.
Bureau of Justice Statistics

• The current status of many public
policies concerning youth have had
a negative impact upon young men
of color.
• The implications of issues such as
increasing high school dropout
rates breed declining enrollment in
post-secondary education and
increasing rates of incarceration.
Community Need

Community Need

Challenges
• Youth who enter prison at an early
age (before they have formed the
ability and expectation to control
their life choices, require less time
to become “prisonalized”;
• There is a lack of engaging,
culturally appropriate academic
activities.

Challenges
• Extra curricular activities that may
discourage problem behaviors
when youth are most vulnerable,
such as when they are
unsupervised after school, are
often inaccessible to youth who
do not meet school eligibility to
participate

Inputs
DMC Service-Learning Initiative
• Will use multidisciplinary
agency support and
community involvement to
proactively reduce
disproportionate minority
contact with law enforcement
• Will target public school
partners in areas where
students are at greatest risk.

• CHOICE , for the Carters and
for youth today, is defined as
the power, right, or liberty to
choose.
• Freedom of choice promotes
personal responsibility for
changing behavior and is
applicable regardless of race
or other distinctions;
• Encounters with law
enforcement can be
reduced by making more
appropriate choices.

• Pen(itentiary) . . . If the schoolhouse
to jailhouse journey continues at its
rapid pace, the fallout will be more
prisons.
• Educational (pencil) failure leads to
un(der) employment, and if this is at
all a factor in law-violating behavior,
then these patterns within specific
groups may help to explain patterns
of delinquent behavior.

• Uses history as a template to
promote responsibility for
changing behavior and to
improve decision-making;
• Uses creativity and innovation
to engage students,
particularly those at greatest
risk, in cognitive thinking and
service-learning;
• Is aligned with the National
Standards for the Social
Studies and Civic Education
Standards

• 2+ hour enrichment presentations (Pen or Pencil: Freedom of
Choice)
• Extended course series (Pen or Pencil: Freedom of Choice)
• One-To-Another Academic Mentoring
• ‘Til Death Do Us Part
• The B.U.S. Boycott

Two (2) + Hour Enrichment Presentations
• View segments of The Intolerable
Burden (First Run/Icarus Films) and
CHOICES (Developed by Indiana
Dept. of Education, Indiana
Department of Juvenile Justice,
and U.S. Attorney’s Office).
• Interactive discussion to follow
• Opportunity to implement service
learning intervention project, The
B.U.S. Boycott

Ten (10) -Week Extended Course Series
• Workshops uniquely designed for
alternative/character education
and intervention programs
• Appropriate to offer as a
specialized multi-week summer
program which can be offered
by community or faith-based
groups
• Appropriate for juvenile
detention courses

One-to-Another Academic Mentoring
• Must be at least 18 years of age;
• Must possess valid drivers license and
auto insurance;
• Must commit to one year of service as a
mentor of a youth, aged 5-17;
• Must participate in 52-week reading
assignment and enrichment activities;
• Must complete application, be willing to
undergo background screening and
meet criteria;
• Must participate in one-day training
program;

• Research has shown that
prevention/intervention programs
are the most effective methods of
addressing youth violence and
creating a productive work
environment.
• Youth diversion programs such as
PEN OR PENCIL provide an
alternative to suspension or
channeling youth through the
juvenile justice system.
Intermediate Outcomes

Service Learning . . .
• PEN OR PENCIL offers a
unique opportunity for
students of all ages to
become involved with their
communities in a tangible
way by integrating the B.U.S.
Boycott into classroom and
after-school learning.

Service-Learning
• Participants not only learn
about democracy,
citizenship, and public
policy, they become
actively contributing
citizens and community
members by engaging in
the B.U.S. Boycott.

• The service-learning
segment of PEN OR PENCIL
tests the knowledge, skills,
and behavioral
improvement gained by
student participation in the
course.

• Students use the history of the
Montgomery Bus Boycott as a
template to implement
strategies to learn about history,
learn public policy, and reduce
contact with law enforcement
or threat of suspension for
educational growth and civic
participation.

Pen or Pencil Facilitators
• Are adults or may be classroom
educators, aged 18 years or
older;
• Must undergo a minimum of six
hours of specialized training
• Are accomplished or possess
experience in public speaking
• May be certified educators
willing to undergo PEN OR
PENCIL training for introduction
into their classroom setting.

Pen or Pencil Facilitators
• Can be those willing to
volunteer their time
• May represent faith and
community based groups in
partnership with the National
Alliance of Faith and Justice
• Must narrate each presentation
and facilitate dialogue and
training with targeted
audiences

• Is endorsed by the American
Friends Service Committee
• Is endorsed by the National
Council for the Social Studies
• Under development and
consideration for court
referral placements

Available for Purchase
to organizations who desire to implement
PEN OR PENCIL: FREEDOM OF CHOICE
• Student Activity Books
• Facilitator’s Guides
• Curriculum Guides
• Silver Rights
• The Intolerable Burden
• If interested in becoming
a facilitator, contact NAFJ
. . .

www.nafj-nabcj.org
P.O. Box 77075
Washington, DC 20013
(703) 765-4459

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