I began to seek out settings where young people would be likely to have had more experience talking about and reflecting on issues of violence. Students in Leave Out ViolencE (LOVE), an after-school leadership program for perpetrators and/or victims of violence, and in Peace Power Crew, a project run by Beat the Street to address violence issues for out-of-school youth, proved eager to tell us(2) what they knew. They spoke about the violence in their lives, their experiences in school, in their program, and their ideas for what would support learning. Students in George Brown's Assaulted Women and Children's Counsellor/Advocate Program also offered rich insights into their own lives, struggles to learn in the school system, and clarity about what might help students experiencing violence(3) . As a consequence of these new sites of research, I interviewed students who had attended a broad range of types and sizes of schools in greater Toronto and elsewhere.

Interviews with teachers, a vice-principal, guidance counsellor, and school social worker from various schools and staff from youth programs provided a counterpoint to the comments of youth themselves, particularly to their common assertion that adults didn't care about what was happening to them. The professionals I interviewed clearly cared enormously, but struggled with what they were able to accomplish within the structures that limited their work.

Interviews were taped and extracts transcribed. Only repetitions, "mmmms" and "aahs" have been removed. Spoken language has not been edited to create a written format except where interviewees preferred to edit their words. All interviews are included in italics to draw attention to these words of wisdom.

(2) Interviews and focus groups were led by Jo Petite, Nadine Sookermany, Nicole Ysabet, as well as myself. All quotes in italics are excerpted from these interviews.

(3) I was not aiming to study particular schools or organizations, but rather to understand possibilities for supporting learning through interviewing in a limited number of sites in Toronto. Most students said they were proud that they could help address this issue and wanted to be named. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate some of these students at the completion of the project. When I was unable to reach students to secure their approval for the quotes I wanted to include, and to review how I was using their words in the paper, I used pseudonyms instead of attributing the quote. I have also used pseudonyms when students requested anonymity.