Break the Cycle
I saw this video on Stumble and then went to YouTube to see if I could find it. So I typed in success to see how far and how hard I would have to look before I found it. I had to look all the way to the bottom of page 5 before I found it. My previous post from TED was on page one.
It is so sad to be in the schools every day and see just how little opportunity that the underprivileged kids have. I don’t just mean black students either. I have Latin Americans (Mexico, Venezuela, Honduras, San Salvador), Kurdish, Africans (Congo, Egypt, Sudan), Laos, White kids, and more. They are all in the same situation. It is not that there are no opportunities, it is that they do not see any opportunities.
So this is the problem. These young, smart, men, and women on these videos are great. They are great role models. They are preaching the right message. They are preaching that everyone has a chance, everyone has a right to succeed and there is a simple way to do so. You work hard, you persevere, you don’t give up, and you simply work through all the negativity.
That is not so easy for these students. I try my best in my class to teach my kids not only Algebra, but to teach these students through education that they have a chance. They just have to work hard, they have to put in the time, they have to do something to be something.
It is great, I see their eyes light up, I see their posture change, they begin to smile, and they go to work.
They act like this because many times this is the only time that they ever have anyone say anything good about them. It is the first time that anyone has ever told them that they have a chance.
But what happens when they leave my class room? They hear profanity in the hall ways, they see their friends cutting up in class, they are told that they don’t have to do their home work. They go home to fatherless and motherless houses. They don’t have family around them when it is time for them to go to bed. They don’t have any positive influences.
They watch negative TV. They listen to negative music (and I don’t mean rap, I mean the violence and the sexual mistreatment in many of the songs that they listen to). They have nothing but negativity in their lives.
So what happens? The next day when they get back to my room they don’t have their work done. As a matter of fact they have not done one problem since they left my room the day before. I say what happened? Why did you not do your work? Do you not remember what we talked about yesterday?
The answers are all the same. “I lost it, I did not know how to do it, it is in my locker, I left it at home.” No, they did not do it. Not because of them, but because of the outside forces.
As a society we need to do something. We need positive role models to overtake all the negativity on the streets and on TV. We need to celebrate the good things that have happened. We need to treat everyone like they are the next best thing to happen.
We need to hold people accountable for who they are.
We need to hold people accountable for who they are.
Read it one more time very slowly.
We need to hold people accountable for who they are.
