The 11th-grader begins each day at Shallcross Academy attending Townhouse, a social gathering in which students from different grades come together to discuss their issues and brainstorm on how to make the day successful.

Like most of her schoolmates, Reed, 18, was sent to Shallcross because she was acting out at her previous school, Woodrow Wilson. By the time the tumultuous teen hit the 10th grade, she was infamous for disrespecting her teachers, fighting and throwing paper balls in class. Reed says her friends constantly urged her to misbehave. And she gladly obliged.

“I felt as though I was the class clown,” she says. “The class used to laugh with me, but I soon realized that they were just laughing at me.”

When it became clear that Reed couldn’t make it in a traditional school setting, she was removed from Wilson and enrolled at Shallcross Academy, one of the city’s four Camelot schools. For more than 30 years, the Camelot Schools of Philadelphia have built a reputation making positive contributions to the lives of students who would otherwise fall through the cracks. Camelot’s outcome-oriented residential treatment centers, therapeutic day schools and alternative-education programs seek to help children dealing with autism and mental-health and behavioral problems. The Camelot schools also work with kids who are in danger of dropping out of school, and those like Reed, who can’t or won’t achieve academically because of disciplinary or learning challenges.

Reed says it was hard adjusting to the structure and discipline affiliated with Camelot schools, but it was just what the rowdy teen needed.

Read the full story here…

Jamal Nasir was 15 the first time he sold drugs. It was an easy choice for the gullible teenager: As a Baltimore high school student in the late ’80s, he watched many of his peers arrive at school sporting flashy clothes, showcasing new cars and brandishing huge wads of cash.

“It was eye-catching,” says Nasir, who lives in North Philadelphia. “These guys had all the girls and made the football and basketball players seem obsolete. I wanted to be part of the team.”

Being a player on the drug-dealing team was as easy back then as it is today: Nasir and a friend were recruited and given a package of crack along with instructions to bring back half the money they made.

“I would go out there on the corner and within 20 minutes that stuff would be gone,” he says.

Before long, the teen had enough cash rolling in to keep him hooked in the lifestyle. But the game has a way of turning on its players, and within a few years Nasir’s choice started him down a 20-year path of crime and prison stints. He got caught in his first undercover sting at the not-so-tender age of 17, and served 30 days in a juvenile detention center.

Read the full story here…

Well got to go, there’s a lot of work to be done.

What I like about the notebook in general is that they unearth a lot of important information about our cities schools that would probably be skipped over by other local newspapers. So far I’ve had the pleasure of writing a piece about the opening of the new Parent and Community Resource Center, that opened just two weeks ago at the District building. The center is establishing more of a link with parents and the School District of Philadelphia, an interesting topic to tackle and read about I think.

The School District also decided to rewrite their Delcaration of Education, which was described to me as a little vague, but interesting nonetheless, being that  I never knew we had a declaration to begin with.

The Philadelphia Public School Notebook, I believe, is a great paper for any inspiring young journalist to start out at. You learn a lot, mostly things that are not (are won’t) be covered in most mainstream media.

Last week the new site of the notebook was finally launched, done by the new web editor, Erika Owens. This time around the notebook is trying something new, blogging, check it out.

The Philadelphia Public School Noteboook

The Notebook in the news: “Foundation backs Philadelphia School Publication”

Anyway, I thought it would be cool if I posted a few events that happened throughout the years on my birth date, the 28th.

And it works!This is the video, “Keep Your Mind Wide Open” by Anna Sophia Robb. Currently this video is up somewhere on the NPM’s facebook page, but anywho the reason I put this up because Keep your mind wide open is the NPM’s motto, my motto, its what we all should live by. Now I can start putting up the niddy griddy video’s that you all should be paying attention to, next up will be the Genisus trailer. Once I can get a decent wireless connection that is. Oh and by the way, yes it was very simple to put this up yet it took me a week to figure it out, how sad.

First off, I did go see Hancock Saturday and it was funny and it had action in it. I could have wrote about it when I returned home but because of my rather weak wireless connection I can only do so much. Now if you are planning on going to see the movie then skip a few lines and move on to my Outstanding Parenting saga. I will not ruin the whole plot for you because you probably can figure it out for yourself by watching the trailer and previews, I’ll just mention some things about thats all.

In the begining of the movie Hancock is a jerk and a complete ass-hole which just so happens to be his least favorite thing to be called. He drinks, curses, destroys, and saves a lot of people in the process in his own special way. There is one part in the movie which iis very funny, something you would picture a guy like Hancock saying. After saving Ray (the guy who helps Hancock’s image) from the train a group of angry citizen surround him, one angry fat guy says something about sueing Hancock where Hancock replies, “Well you need to sue McDonalds because they f— you up.” Inappropriate and rude yes, but funny.

Then there’s the part of how Hancock is in jail and everyone he put there surrounds him. He kindly asks the guy who’s in front of him to move out of the way, however, he doesn’t. Hancock then does what he threatened to do a few minutes before shoves one guy head into another guys behing. Again, inappropriate, but funny.

There is a supposed twist in the movie, I really don’t consider it a twist because you can tell from certain looks. There is another super powered being in Hancock’s city that he knew nothing about. Its so obvious who it is and again you may already know from the trailer and previews. So in conclusion, yes Hancock may have wanted to change good a bit too quickly, yes there is a lot of cursing, yes it is funny, but I think its a good movie that deserves a A or B, not C like some critics have already given it. Though I’m not a very good movie critic.

Now to the Outstanding Parenting half of this. Hancock, like I said above is a very good movie but it has a lot of cursing and some scences that kids just shouldn’t see. For example, someone’s head getting shoved into someone’s butt, a persons hand getting cut off, you understand. But I can’t understand why parents continue to bring their kids to movies like these. I’m talking kids who are 3-7.  I know they are eager to see the movie and are disapointed that they have no one to watch their kids, but don’t bring them to a movie that will leave them to think that cursing is another form of speaking correctly. Also, its just rude for the other people who are trying to hear the movie but instead have to listen to your son/daughter crying.

But that’s outstanding parenting for you…yeah right.

I thought I understood people, but now I know I was wrong. People are always going to be a mystery to figure out. You can first view them as individuals who will not let you down and are honest to the fullest, but then you find out that you are wrong and that they have made you look like a fool. I was waiting for the bus on Saturday and this man was backing up to park, I didn’t hear him blowing his horn because I was looking to see if the bus was coming at the bus stop. Plus his horn was low. So he says “don’t you hear me blowing the horn man, what are you bionic?” I didn’t respond, I could have.

It just seems to me that with those rude remarks people are doing nothing but proving themselves to be society’s stereotypical product. Meaning what people say about African Americans are sometimes trube because we prove it to be.

Now friends, although I call them associates. I was actually able this past weekend to reconnect with some of my middle-school classmates on facebook. I’m really happy because in the eigth grade was when I had most of my fun and had plenty of my cushes, not high school though. High school was ok, but not as fun as middle-school. Middle-school was also where I found inspiration for some of my characters or where I borrowed some names. I’m still presently on the hunt for more of my associates, but so far I have 27 friends and counting. Sure most people have 320 or 537, but give me a break not many people know about Peak Johnson, hopefully they will soon.

There’s still one little glitch but hopefully I can fix it and hopefully my computer turns back on and I’m not jinxing it now. An added bonus, I have wireless internet. A friend of mine told me last Saturday that Feather was now free, it use to char

Edited to say: Feather use to charge but now is free, its a bit crappy but it works none the less. Writers do have to sleep by the way

Before reading both the Chronicles of Narnia and the Spiderwick Chronicles I went to see both movie adaptions first and, even though the target range is for the little kidies, I loved both of them. The books will always be better and going to see the movies only made me want to read the books more and learn how to create such worlds for Zach and Samantha. I am still reminiscing about when I saw Mollery (from spiderwick) fight off the goblins and Susan (from the chronicles) fought off her enemies with only a bow and an arrow. I think some of my associates, including myself, wish we could travel to Narnia