i know a big influence in my life was not only my family, church and community but television. My parents and grandparents were college-educated. Everyone THEY associated with had some type of schooling. At church, they pushed the FACT that you will go to college. They even had rites of passage and other youth programs for us to prepare us for life beyond high school and mama/daddy's house.

But it wasn't until A Different World made "going down south" to college seem like so much fun that i really internalized that college was for me! Movies like Higher Learning and something else with black people in college came out around the same time. This helped me out, although i was already on a college prep track academically. With my little crew, even if you didn't have the best grades, even if you didn't know what you wanted to major in, we just KNEW that we were going to Central, Spelman, FAMU, or wherever... and this was as far back as middle school.

Now I have a co-worker who has young children and i am ALWAYS talking about college with them. I don't know what they're getting in shool and Lord knows i don't know what they're getting at home, but they need to know that they CAN go to school and they SHOULD go to school, even if "being fun" is the hook that gets them there.

Cosigning completely on this.. I have several friends who are teachers(at all grade levels) and many of them have stated on nuimerous occasions that administration BARELY support them.

Out of the folks I know who are teachers, when is the last time you all taught anything to a group of unruly kids? (Soror AKA2D91, you have to stay outta this one... ;) )

Because blaming teachers is not the only factor that goes along with this issue. Yes, some teachers are to blame. But YES, teachers have to be prepared for the "crop" of kids they have during the year. And each year, there is a new "crop" with a different set of cirumstances. There is no "rubric" or "generalization", a teacher just has to know his or her kids and teach to what they are ready to learn or develop. And guess what? Not all kids want to learn or develop and YES, they make this decision at 8 years old!!! (Don't ask me how that works in my parent's household!)

My experience, I had "Henri" who decided that he would not bring his pen/pencil and a notebook to the "field trip in a large park". Instead he decided to bring a "Red Punch" drink in a soda can with a small needle like hole AND the drink was not even cold!!! Moreover, he proceeded to throw this can in the air... Now don't ask me why he was allowed to go to the field trip. But, he was there playing. Then when the kids needed to write all the things they could see in the park, he demanded to have a pencil and paper from his fellow classmates... And that is when it started for me: "Henri" yelled "DANG" to his classmate trying to help him and I got on him so fast... I took his broken can put in on the trash can and said go back to his group!

"Henri" was hurt. But the other kids were asking me to stay... Go figure.

Uhhh Soror, 23.5 school days remaining.....





:o