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NEWS & LETTERS, JUNE 2003
'Warriors' criticizes budget priorities
Oakland, Cal.--The students of Sequoia Elementary School
celebrated May Day by putting on a play called "Warriors of the Spirit: A
Protest Play About Children as Prisoners of War and Budget Cuts." A number of teachers discussed with their classes
articles from the daily papers about budgets. The students talked about war and
prison budgets and the realities of prisons and war as against spending money on
schools and the impending school budget cuts. The teachers shared the substance
of those discussions with a Sequoia parent, Cherrie L. Moraga the playwright and
editor of the feminist anthology THIS BRIDGE CALLED MY BACK, who created a play
based on the students' comments. The first scene, featuring "Sequoia State Pen for
the Young and the Restless," presented some of those discussions: comparing
the $7,000 it takes to educate a youth to the $1,620,000 to incarcerate one for
life (they figured 60 years at $27,000 per year). A student observed that
"teachers should become prison guards, they will get paid better and even
get paid overtime." Another explained, "Sometimes it feels like we're
already in jail." After the performance, there was an opportunity for the cast to answer questions from the audience. When asked how they would choose to spend the money in the national and state budget the third, fourth, and fifth graders answered: on shelters for the homeless, on a drama program for the school, on Oakland, on all of California, or to split the money between the Iraqi children and their own classroom so all could at least have pencils. --Urszula Wislanka |
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