Dear Morningside Center friends,

We hope you're enjoying the fall! Below we share a Halloween circle on fear, a bit about last year's Día de los Muertos celebration, as well as an invitation to join us and our PAZ After-School program at Greenwood to celebrate Día de los Muertos this year!

Halloween, Samhain (Gaelic), Obon or Bon (Japan)…Día de los Muertos (Spanish, Day of the Dead)… humanity needs sacred time to honor the loved ones who have gone before us. And doing this communally is an essential part of how we hold our stories, our identities, our changing natures and lives—and communities—close. Read more.

We invite you to join the Sunset Park community, Green-Wood Cemetery, PAZ and us:

• Friday, November 1
• 4:00pm – 7:00pm
• More information

This classroom activity uses Halloween as a taking off point for students to share their experiences of being fearful, explore how fear is a normal part of life, and share ways we can handle our fear. See the lesson.

What teenagers told us about their faith in U.S. politics

"A solid majority of our respondents — more than 70 percent — told us they felt at least somewhat confident that a vote could make a difference. But most also said they placed little trust in the U.S. political system to address the issues that matter most to them. Almost a third of the respondents said they had no trust at all that the system would." By Matthew Thompson at Chalkbeat

How to Meaningfully Involve Students in Leadership

"What do we mean when we talk about 'student voice' in schools? For me as a superintendent, it means giving students space to examine real issues that they care about and allowing them to develop solutions to address them. It also means sharing power with students and trusting them with the complexities and challenges of effecting change in school systems." By Monique Darrisaw-Akil at Edutopia

A Bronx teacher wanted better materials for English learners. He went to Latin America to find them.

"After realizing he was having difficulty making connections between the English Language Arts curriculum and his multilingual learners, he came up with a dream plan. Mejia would visit several of his students’ home countries — Mexico, Peru, Argentina, and Brazil — and gather books and teaching ideas, from folktales to contemporary works by Latin American authors, to create lessons that could more meaningfully connect with his students." By Amy Zimmer at Chalkbeat

"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear."

-Nelson Mandela