The Educational Front

Well I survived another week of life at public school. I think I made some progress with a couple of my African-American students. Both are boys who have such a great potential, but the "ghetto" lifestyle seduces them. "Jamal" at one point had accused me of siding with white students, my white students were very quick to point out that I defend all students regardless of color.

That incident alone is one reason I am having National Geographic do a deep analysis of my DNA, to point out that we are all a part of the family of man. I don't care about the color of a person's epidermis, it is who they are that matters.

"JC" the other student is not I teach, but he walks past my room daily and has decided I am okay for a teacher. Pretty good. I enforce the rules with him as much as anybody else, and he's seen that, JC is bright and tried hard about 70 percent of the time. The other 30 percent of the time he tries us. But he is a forgiving kid and has figured out if he mutters about doing bad behavior, like fighting one of us will hear him and take 30 seconds to talk to him, and at this point reinforce the appropriate response as opposed to fighting. JC tries, so does Jamal. The odds are not in their favor, but a few of us plan of keeping contact after these young men have left our campus, We keep saying things to them about being invited when they graduate from high school and college.

Another at risk student is "Randy" he is gift, truly gifted, not just smart, but scary gifted! I read an essay he wrote and was so blown away about what he had written. Randy wrote about while we have advanced technologically we was regressed as a people. It was amazing and he thought it was just scribblings. We discussed his ideas for awhile and I was sooo impressed.

I am grateful I do what I do and that I have the students I have. I genuinely love these kids. All of them are so special, I just wish I could reach and help all of them, but that is not realistic. I shall continue to try and hope for the best for each one of these students.