Every year, Fieldston hosts the wonderful tradition of the Fall MAD (Modified Awareness Day). The celebratory and serious day is based on the school’s summer reading book. It typically begins with an assembly and continues with student and teacher-led workshops for the remainder of the day. On November 18, 2021, the Fieldston community did not experience the typical MAD.
This year’s summer reading book was Just Mercy: A Story of Justice by Bryan Stevenson. On November 18, Fieldston had the privilege of hosting Anthony Ray Hinton, whose heartbreaking narrative is featured in Stevenson’s book. He recounted his 30 year experience on death-row for a crime he did not commit.
Mr. Hinton’s speech was incredibly moving. When he cried on stage, the community cried with him. When he shouted in anger and pain over his wrongful conviction, the community became enraged with him. When he called for reform, the community called with him.
The atmosphere in the auditorium was heavy as his words weighed down on the hearts of the community. When the assembly was over, students were sent directly to class. Many students and faculty walked into their next class feeling anxious, upset, angry and frustrated; there were no immediate debrief sessions set up for students to help them process the emotional toll of what they had just heard and there were no workshops organized.
Across campus there was a blanket of extreme dissatisfaction for the way the transition between the assembly and classes was handled. Not only that, but the Upper School looks forward to the MAD workshops every year. For a book that holds such emotional and enraging stories about this country’s legal system to not have workshops was simply unfathomable to many students.
Fieldston is known for its co-curricular activities, the key part of these activities is student involvement. It was a grave error on behalf of the administration to exclude students from co-planning the MAD even if there were no workshops. Collaboration between students and faculty for this event is a tradition: an extremely important one.
It can be easy for administrators to get lost in the hectic cycle of planning. There are deadlines to be met, speakers to be booked, and much to get done. Each person involved with planning has an array of other responsibilities on top of the MAD. There is no doubt that the process is stressful and overwhelming, especially when juggling it with a normal workload. Within the chaos, important details—like student emotions—get overlooked. Students know other students; they know exactly how their peers will react to different situations and what needs to be done to address these reactions. If students, particularly those of color, were included in the conversation behind inviting Mr. Hinton, processing spaces most likely would have been set.
It was unfair to ask students and faculty to improvise in the face of processing the assembly and addressing the criminal justice system. It was irresponsible to not have workshops. Mr. Hinton’s story and the overarching point in Mr. Stevenson’s book of the inequalities in the United States’ disastrous criminal justice system, is a topic that deserved more examination on behalf of the Fieldston community. These conversations are critical to furthering our community’s education and understanding of institutional racism.
MADs, especially with a topic as relevant as criminal justice, cannot be done incompletely. The day must include an assembly followed by workshops. Otherwise, it is unbeneficial. If the school could not commit to the previous—and successful—plannings and executions of past MADs, there should not have been one.
Timia McCoade (VI) said their frustration stems from “the fact that it was really such a powerful assembly and it was so very good, but we didn’t have any time to process it, even though in years prior we’ve always been given that space and that time to have deep thoughts about what we’re hearing.”
According to McCoade, this year’s MAD defeated the entire purpose of the program, “The point of a MAD is to build curriculum and to educate the community, and that frankly wasn’t education at all. It sucks because it’s very emotionally taxing to kind of sit there and have all of these thoughts but no one to share them with.”
Many teachers took the liberty of creating safe spaces within their classrooms due to the lack of planning, instead of continuing their regular teaching, but McCoade did not think it was fair to leave the emotional states of students in the hands of teachers. “I don’t think many of the teachers were even equipped to handle what we had just heard, let alone lead a discussion on it.”
A few hours after the assembly, an email was sent to the community with locations for discussion spaces during lunch. To many students, especially those of color, the effort was too late.
The day made Kiara Muñoz Diaz (V) question why the assembly, as powerful and important as it was, even took place. “If you’re not ready to handle this type of conversation and the consequences, then don’t have the speaker; don’t assign this book. Why would you open the door and then not deal with what comes after?”
For some students of color, Mr. Hinton’s speech hit close to their real lives. Muñoz Diaz did not feel as though the administration understood this type of emotional reaction. “That assembly was one of the only assemblies that actually moved me to tears.”
Stevenson’s book, and Mr. Hinton’s story specifically, are wake-up calls for the rest of the world to understand the realities that people of color face at the hands of the United States legal system. A system that Muñoz Diaz has seen take people away from her. She explained, “As someone who has witnessed the school to prison pipeline in real life, and has seen her classmates fall through the cycle of incarceration, it was deeply personal. It felt like I had no time to mourn the people that I knew or reflect on my experience.”
Like many students, Aiasha Siddiqui (V) was disappointed that there were no student-led workshops, which are typically the most exciting part of the day-long event. “When it comes to actually having these conversations, people don’t want to talk about it. It’s like people don’t really understand what’s happening even though we have this curriculum set in place to have these conversations; it’s like we’re not prepared for this.”
Eliza Stulman (V) commented on how Mr. Hinton’s story, and the inequalities within the criminal justice system, is not a narrative she can relate to. “This is just something I can only be sympathetic for. I can’t be empathic, no matter how much I try because I will just never have that life.”
However, she would have found workshops extremely helpful to push students to understand their emotions and channel them into new learning opportunities. “I definitely think that there should’ve been something—like a brainstorm session. What can we do? I don’t feel comfortable just donating money because I’m not physically doing something. I mean, yes, it helps, but I wanted to take action; I don’t want to be a bystander.”
Sr. Randolph, the Assistant Principal of Student Life, was a part of planning the MAD. He stated that due to “logistics behind the scenes,” workshops were not able to be organized. However, he said that “department chairs encouraged all their teachers to develop lesson plans related to Mr. Hinton’s assembly and the topic of criminal justice, specifically criminal justice reform. Off the top of my head, I know that math, ethics, English and history teachers planned some great extension lessons related to the MAD.”
In terms of processing spaces, Sr. Randolph said honestly that they were an unfortunate oversight, “Sometimes when planning a huge event like the MAD, there’s some things we forget and that was one of them quite honestly. The flow of the day and how many moving pieces there were, that was something that was overlooked. I do feel like that was a missed opportunity and that’s something that we will be better with moving forward.”
The severity of the student’s reactions were not on the radar of administrators. Sr. Randolph understood there was some upset, but he was not aware of the scale of complaints. He said to me, “This is really the first time I’m hearing that there were some strong negative reactions, quite honestly, but I certainly understand why. My hope is that next time we’ll get it right. It’s a difficult situation because yes, I agree wholeheartedly, that there should be processing spaces. Not only for students, but also for faculty too; for community members that heard Mr. Hinton’s speech.”
However, Sr. Randolph brought light to the fact that MADs with workshops operate the same way. Attendance at workshops is not mandatory and requires teacher permission during class time: “It’s one thing to keep in mind that it’s hard to go to math or science class or whatever class it may be, but remember that for a MAD classes would run anyway. For some students, that would still be their reality in the way that the MAD is usually structured.” Even if there were workshops, processing spaces should have also been available.
Despite events after the assembly, the assembly itself was phenomenal and one that Fieldston students will have a hard time forgetting. Sr. Randolph summed it up perfectly, “Mr. Hinton was incredible.” He praised Mr. Hinton’s vulnerability, “To just think about a person that has such a difficult situation to still come out and be able to openly bare their soul and share his story with a community that doesn’t know him personally. It can be very difficult to stand in front of people you don’t know and talk about the criminal justice system and how it really has taken almost, in his case, half his life away from him and to hope that the community that you’re speaking to, who doesn’t know you, will receive that in a heartfelt and positive way.”
Mr. Hinton and Sr. Randolph were both impressed by the respect from the Fieldston community. Sr. Randolph said that “I also thought that our community, especially the students, were so respectful and welcoming to him. There were students that came from the locations where the live streams were happening over to the auditorium just to shake his hand, and to say thank you, and to meet with him, and to ask questions. I thought that was just a wonderful moment of appreciation; I was really proud of our community. I drove him from campus back to the airport after his speech and he commented, quite a few times, on how wonderful the students here are. I was really happy with that.”
Hearing from Mr. Hinton, a victim to the criminal justice system, and not Bryan Stevenson is a distinction Sr. Randolph found of the utmost importance: “Keep in mind [Mr. Hinton] was mentioned in the book that we read this summer, so to be able to have a conversation not with Bryan Stevenson who wrote the book who talks about his role as a lawyer, but to actually talk with a person who was defended by the person who wrote the book, but [for him] to say this is actually my case, this was my life, this is my story. To be able to put that together was so cool.
To have Mr. Hinton in “live and living color, right here in the flesh, to give us the first person account of what they went through is invaluable,” said Sr. Randolph. He hopes that students will remember it.
Hopefully the administration will reflect on student sentiments and feedback and implement it into future events. Student input at Fieldston is what we are known for; let us not forget that now.
