I attended a Greensboro Neighborhood Congress meeting last week and the guest speaker talked about the Hope Project (organization aimed at helping youth), an organization that I think highly of and one that I’d urge you to learn a little more about. During the question and answer session Cyndy Hayworth (a previous council candidate) shared a story that I thought was very powerful. I’ve since reached out to her and asked her to jot the story down so that I can share it with you. Please take a moment to give this a read.
“I have been volunteering at the SCALES School for the past 6 weeks. If you are not familiar with this school, this is where students are schooled after they have been expelled long-term from the public schools. They are there for various reasons with infractions running the gambit – calling in a bomb threat, assaulting a teacher, mostly behavioral problems. I was charged with teaching the 9th grade boys financial responsibility and hopefully some life skills. I had 15 boys ages 15-16. Thirteen of the boys were African-American, one Hispanic and one was Caucasian. The first Friday that I was there, one of the school resource officers was assigned to sit in my class with me. I knew that these boys would not feel “free” to speak their minds with an armed officer in the room; therefore I asked that he not stay and that I felt the need, I would call for him.
Most teenagers are very visual – meaning that they relate better to “seeing” matters than reading about them. So, in an effort to show them how their environments affect their lives I had them all line up horizontally on a taped mark on the floor. I then asked them 25 questions and their answers would either take them a step forward or a step backward. The object being that the first student to reach the “winning” mark forward would win a JA sweatshirt! The first question I asked was; how many of you live in a household with both parents in the home? The lone Caucasian took a step forward…the remaining 14 took a step backwards. The next question was; how many of you live in a household with one parent? Three took a step forward, the remaining took a step backwards. (NOTE: After the exercise, I asked the students with whom they lived, if not their parents? Most lived with their grandmother.) The next question was; How many of you have at least 5 books in your home? Again, the one Caucasian student stepped forward…the remaining went backwards.
The entire purpose of this exercise was to give these kids a visual to show how the environment that surrounds them lends itself to make the decision they make. The end result was that all but one of these students were headed in the wrong direction and they could “see” themselves going backwards. Sure, they had heard from most of the adult population that they come in contact with that they were taking the wrong path…but by them participating in a backward step – forward step exercise, they could visually see their backward motion.
At this age, 15-16, these students do not have the decision making skills to understand the consequences of their errors. This is not an excuse on their behalf; they just can’t comprehend or think far enough ahead to ask themselves, “If I do this…what will be the ramifications”. I found in the end that most of these boys are starving for attention (good or bad); just someone to recognize that they exist and that they truly are a product of their environment.
- Cyndy Hayworth”
Update: Just to clarify, this post is not about race at all. If that is what you took from it you completely missed the point. One fact that was left out is that the white student is 16 (I think that is correct) and has prison to look forward to when he turns 18. Why? Bomb threat to his school.
Comments on this entry are closed.