Hear, Hear

[acroyear]

Go into any inner city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can't teach our kids to learn. They know that parents have to parent, that children can't achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white. They know those things. -- Barack Obama, 7/27/04

Comments

[capi.livejournal.com]

I agree with all of that except that you can find those words/philosophies among the regular folk in the inner city.

I had nothing but fighting on my hands when i worked with THOSE VERY KIDS, and the resistance came from the teachers, the administration, AND from the 'hood. A tremendous portion of the parents there are too busy with their own thing (be it survival, drugs, power, bringing the rest of the family "over", you name it) to give that much thought to the rearing of their own get.

They *didn't* teach their own children, at least, not the things you want them to learn. They resisted like mad when expectations were raised. (Yes, i personally raised expectations in the areas where i had such influence, and despite the hue and cry, it was successful!) And if you even think about taking away their TV/babysitter, you be TOAST. The few children who looked like they might overcome all the odds down there were tormented because they were so different from the rest. Then it was anybody's guess whether they'd hang in there and chase their dreams, or cave.

Yes, the above is a generalization. I worked with 900 kids a year and personally saw and worked with the best and the worst, with the middle kids sort of left alone if they were doing ok. Even so, these generalizations have truth in them. It's a helluva tuff life down there in the ghetto, and the primary focus there is NOT how to get your child to Harvard.

It's hard to give a rip about whether or not your kid attended 3rd period when your boyfriend just blew away your next-door neighbor and your dealer is holding out.

It's not that it's their fault, but honey, it's UGLY there, and life is HARD like nobody's business. You just can't expect people coming from that to fit right cozily into middle-American values. Sometimes the best thing we had to offer those kids was breakfast.