IN•BETWEEN•MIDDLE: Where Stories Reside documents the final year of The Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School, a restorative justice school rooted in community and collective responsibility, closed as part of a broader Boston Public Schools district-wide restructuring.
IN•BETWEEN•MIDDLE: Where Stories Reside
This project documents the final year of The Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School, a restorative justice school rooted in community and collective responsibility, closed as part of a Boston Public Schools district-wide restructuring.
An extensive public exhibit of my photographs and the work of students and staff is on view at the Healy Library's Grossman Gallery at UMass Boston.
The Frederick School’s foundation rests on the five pillars of PRIDE: Personal Responsibility, Respect, Integrity, Determination, and Empathy. Students and staff have long strived to embody these values championed by the school’s namesake, Ms. Lilla Frederick —a Grove Hall neighborhood resident, tireless community advocate, and passionate believer in the potential of every child.
As a visiting artist invited into the school for this transitional year, I was privileged to walk the halls and wander in and out of class sessions and school activities. During my first day in a classroom, I witnessed something I was unable to convey in photographs: the teacher became very upset about some students' behavior and quelled it without ever raising her voice or taking out her anger on the offenders or other students.
I witnessed different versions of this over the course of the school year, and kept seeing adults skilled not only in their subject matter and general class discipline, but also in connecting and communicating with their students. Their currency was a shared commitment to the community they had created.
Included in the exhibit are texts from a research program that empowers youth to explore, critically examine, and problem-solve issues that impact their lives by centering them as experts in their own experiences. The process is youth-led. For this project, students researched the question “What is Justice?” Guided by the school’s Restorative Justice Facilitator, students conducted focus groups, interviews and led professional development with staff and students at the Frederick Middle School.
In a meeting with that group to prepare for our exhibit, a student asked if they should include responses that were negative or critical. The adult response was “well, if I was looking at an exhibit about a school and only saw positive responses, that wouldn’t seem real to me.”
This is the environment in which I captured candid moments of daily student life: their connections, struggles, and comfort — in short their spirit, in the place that was their home school.
The catalyst for this project and exhibition lay in a profound question: How do you close a school and keep your heart intact? The Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle school community chose to focus on the spirit of their school, embracing the idea that joy and grief can beautifully coexist.
