Toilet reading, Junglefowl, and restorative justice… on episode 27 of the Saturday Six Pack

During episode 24 of the Saturday Six Pack, there were quite a few good exchanges between Dr. Benjamin Edmondson, the new superintendent of Ypsilanti Community Schools, and the students who had gathered in the AM 1700 studio to ask him questions about his plans for the future of our district. Of those exchanges, my favorites had to do with Edmondson’s hardline suspension policy and his thoughts on restorative justice, which is essentially a way of dealing with offenses in a manner that favors community dialogue, accountability and inclusion over punitive measures and banishment. As the students and Edmondson were having their spirited debate about these issues, I made a note to myself that this was something I’d like to come back to in a future show… And that’s what we did this past Saturday night, when Executive Director of the Dispute Resolution Center Belinda Dulin, Executive Director of the Student Advocacy Center Peri Stone-Palmquist, and Restorative Practices Coach for the Ypsilanti Community School District Michelle Rose-Armstrong, came on the show to talk with me about restorative practices as they’re currently being employed in our local schools.

Among other things, the four of us discussed what restorative practices can look like in a school setting, the perception on the part of some administrators that these practices allow perpetrators to avoid meaningful punishment, and the commitment demonstrated by Ypsi Community Schools to ensure that these practices spread through our schools and classrooms.

Rose-Armstrong, seen here with Stone-Palmquist [right] and Dulin [below], informed us of the progress she’s made thus far in training Ypsilanti classroom teachers to employ elements of the restorative justice philosophy, which, as she and my other guests explain to us, isn’t just about dealing with issues once they arise, but avoiding such issues from arising in the first place by creating a culture of respect and empathy in which all members of the community feel as though they have a voice.

If I had a staff, I’d have a transcript for you. As I don’t, though, you’re going to have to listen for yourselves… You won’t regret it, though. It’ll be the best 45 minutes you spend today. I promise.

[If you would like to listen to episode twenty-seven of The Saturday Six Pack, you can either download it from iTunes or scroll the bottom of the page, where you’ll find the Soundcloud file embedded.]

At this point in the show, as our first guests were leaving the building, we listened to the most recent submission from our friend in Africa, Dr. Pete Larson, who, every Saturday morning, sends us another song that he’s written while eating breakfast in Kenya. This week’s contribution is titled, “All Tied Up.”

Then, at the 50-minute mark, we opened the doors of the studio and start welcoming in local people who have lined up to tell us about their cool, upcoming projects. The first to come in are Mark Ducker and Martin Thoburn, representing the Ypsilanti 24 Hour Shootout independent film competition, which is coming up the first weekend in October.

And this is probably a pretty good place to mention that I had a pretty bad cold during the show. Not only did I cough through the entire episode, but I also screwed up on several occasions, which I attribute to the cough medicine coursing through my veins. Most notably, I brought this segment with Thoburn and Ducker to a screeching halt as I attempt figure out how it’s possible that this could be their 4th annual event, when they just started in 2012. [I seriously stopped the whole show so that I could do the math in my head. Later, I tell two other guests to move their microphones closer to their “mouses,” when I’d been trying to say “mouths.”]

Here are Thoburn and Ducker discussing how the competition has changed since the initial launch, the state of the Michigan film industry now that the industry incentives are gone, and how they come to decide which distinctive elements to require the teams to incorporate each year.

Then, at the 1:05-mark, Erin Anderson-Ruddon and Katy Shay came in to tell us about the big zine show at Ypsilanti’s 22 North Gallery that they’re curating. While they couldn’t tell us much about the zines that would be at the event, as they hadn’t been made yet, they did let is slip that one will likely be about Murder She Wrote, which I found exciting. We also talked at length about embarrassing zines we’d all made as young adults. Anderson-Ruddon, if I remember correctly, said her first zine was just a long list of people she wanted to kill. Not surprisingly, Shay said that she had been scared of Anderson-Ruddon in middle school, where they had first become aware of one another.

Thankfully, Anderson-Ruddon never killed anyone, and is now a well-respected local produce manager. Here she is.

Shay shared that she first started reading Crimewave USA, the zine that Linette and I began publishing back in 1993, when she turned 18 and began using the toilet outside her parents’ home.

We discussed the trade-offs between zines and blogs… Zines live forever. Blogs, though, give the immediate gratification of reader comments… I could be wrong, but I think we agreed that zines are better.

At this point, publisher Colin Moorhouse forced his way into the studio and demanded that we talk about his magazine Ypsi Underground, which is now apparently underwritten by Materials Unlimited. He brought us to speed on his cult, and shared that their leader, a man they call Sprout, was going to be going to prison soon. Here he is telling us why his cult is better than other cults in town.

And, at the 1:34-mark, we were joined by the crew of the Dreamland Theater, who come in to tell us about their new show, Targeted Advertising, which features our old friend puppet Mark. [That’s puppet Mark at the top of this post, in case you didn’t recognize him in his space suit.] Here are Ryan Hughes, Naia Venturi, and Brian Bruxvoort exploring the boundaries of on-radio puppetry.

And, lastly, we talked about young love with newlyweds Melissa Coppola and Stefan Carr, who perform together as Junglefowl. I remember us talking quite a bit about slaughterhouses, and then forcing Coppola to join me in drinking a jar of freshly juiced kale that I’d brought from home. They also played three songs for us, and gave me a t-shirt, which I’m wearing right now.

If you remember the name Junglefowl, it might be from episode 23, when they popped by the studio to say hello. Here’s a photo from that episode. They’d been at their own wedding reception across the street when our mutual friend, Doug Coombe, had brought them over.

And here they are just a few minutes before we went live this past Saturday. [This photo was taken just prior to our interview, by photographer Chris Stranad as part of our Six Pack Portrait Project.] Isn’t it incredible how much they’ve changed after just a few weeks?

Thanks, as always, to AM 1700 for hosting the show, Kate de Fuccio for documenting everything, and Brian Robb for running the board, making sure the bills paid, and insuring that the toilet paper stays stocked. [All photos above, except for the last one, were taken by Kate.]

If you like this episode, check out our archive of past shows at iTunes. And do please leave a review if you have the time, OK? It’s nice to know that people are listening, and, unless you call in, that’s pretty much the only way we know.

AND NOW, THANKS TO SCIENCE, YOU CAN LSTEN FOR YOURSELF: