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Christopher Goins is the founding principal of Butler College Prep, a four-year-old charter high school on the far South Side of Chicago with a student population that is 95 percent low-income and Black. Much like Goins, who is a bold and snazzy dresser, Butler stands out. Though surrounded by the blighted blocks of the Pullman community, Butler has fast become a model of what urban education should look like, particularly for African-American boys. “I know Black kids,” Goins said. “I do.”...

For Lauren Adair Ball, the cost of racism is a 25-milligram dose of Lexipro. She arrived at Lawrence University four years ago excited about the economics courses, nice financial aid package and beautiful campus about four hours north of her southeast Chicago home. Soon after, she got a counselor. A black student in a predominantly white community, Adair Ball felt overwhelmed by racial microaggressions — actions and remarks based on her race, marking her as out of place. Each one may seem...

Being an extrovert is a double-edged sword. I can speak confidently in my college classes and in front of large groups. But everyone seems to think I’ve got it all under control, and I rarely feel that way. There’s a ticking clock always in the back of my mind. I need to graduate and become financially independent before the support I get from the foster care system disappears. [For more of this story, written by Noel Anaya, go to ...

Police in a northwest Pennsylvania town responded about six years ago to a disturbance at a mental health center. The officers confronted an upset client. When he became combative, he was cuffed and spent five years in prison, said Audrey Smith, a psychologist in Meadville, Crawford County. Not long ago, the man returned to the center and became agitated. Back came the police. But this time, officers took a gentler approach. “They let the guy have a smoke,” Smith said, “and got him to an...

Participants in the Community Conversation on Resilience and Equity in Whatcom County, WA, form a human pulse. ________________________ Teri Barila, director of the Children’s Resilience Initiative (CRI), figured few people would venture to Walla Walla to learn about brain science, self-regulation and resilience. She was wrong. A June 2016 conference, “Beyond Paper Tigers,” drew 250 people—some from as far away as Texas, New Mexico and Tennessee—to sessions on “Why Brain Science Matters,”...

As many American parents know, hiring care for young children during the workday is punishingly expensive, costing the typical family about a third of its income. Helping parents pay for that care would be expensive for society, too. Yet recent studies show that of any policy aimed to help struggling families, aid for high-quality care has the biggest economic payoff for parents and their children — and even their grandchildren. It has the biggest positive effect on women’s employment and...

Two years ago, in an instant, everything changed for my family and me. While my husband, Dave, and I were on vacation, he died suddenly from a cardiac arrhythmia. Flying home to tell my 7-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son that their father had died was the worst experience of my life. During that unimaginable trip, I turned for advice to a friend who counsels grieving children. She said that the most important thing was to tell my kids over and over how much I loved them and that they...

Kassie Benjamin-Ficken, a teacher in Minneapolis, discovered her love of math in elementary school. One of her earliest memories is begging her mother to come to school so her teachers could share how she excelled in math class. While earning average scores in reading, she was consistently above average for math—which instilled her with a sense of accomplishment. That continued into middle school, where she recalls asking her math teachers to move her into a higher grade for more advanced...

It’s been almost a year since the story of Brock Turner, the former Stanford University student who sexually assaulted an unconscious woman behind a dumpster following a fraternity party, was splashed across news headlines. And it’s been almost a year since he only got a slap on the wrist . [For more of this story, written by Jeff Back, go to https://psmag.com/the-responsibility-of-men-in-conversations-about-campus-sexual-assault-e1c6192ebbe3]

In Martin Luther King Jr.’s last book published before his assassination, he reflected on the civil rights movement and asked, “Where do we go from here? Chaos or community?” That same question resonates today, said Howard Pinderhughes , PhD, during the 2017 UCSF Last Lecture , in which he highlighted the importance of community and social justice in tackling health care challenges. Now in its sixth year, the UCSF Last Lecture has become an annual tradition in which a UCSF faculty member is...

Violence was a mainstay in George Galvis’ life from as far back as he can remember: His earliest memory, from age 3, is of witnessing his father savagely attacking his mother. So it’s no surprise that he brought what he learned at home to the streets. That ended at age 17, when he was incarcerated for multiple felonies, including attempted murder for his involvement in a drive-by shooting. Once he left prison, Galvis began a healing journey that led him to embrace his American Indian roots...

A report released today by Georgetown Law’s Center on Poverty and Inequality calls for specialized yoga programs to be offered widely to girls in the juvenile justice system amidst growing evidence that they can help them overcome the harmful effects of pervasive childhood trauma. The first of-its kind report – which draws on original pilot studies in Pennsylvania and Connecticut, an extensive literature review, and interviews with experts and girls around the country – finds that tailored...