Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Monday Night
I bought it Sunday. I was in the middle of a very good book, full of stories following people of all ages and social classes to their dreams, or at least, toward a more meaningful life. But I haven't picked it up since.
Instead, through schoolwork, one article for the Cougar, laundry, and a full work day, I am a quarter of the way -- more than one hundred pages in -- and I put it down this moment to reflect, because already, it has moved me to near tears, and has filled me with a greater sense of purpose, arming me with a realism, a picture of what I know I must do.
The story follows four recruits that come from completely different lives than my own: one is Armenian-American, and a graduate from Boston College, who was raised to become a doctor or lawyer, who organized singlehandedly an organization on his college campus in pursuit of its members exploration of their Armenian heritage.
Another is an African-American, whose father was only remotely involved in his life, and sporadically, who grew up in Massachusetts and went to college in Connecticut. He thought he would be more at home at Locke High School in L.A., a school overtaken by metal bars, and over-run by gangs, than at his upper-middle class white college, where shopkeepers would look at him suspiciously when he so much as went into a convenience store.
Then there are two white upper-middle class women: one, the child of two lawyers; the other, two highly involved school administrators. Neither of them necessarily went into education straightaway because it was ingrained in them, but more because in its ideology the program did speak to them on some level, and because the indecision of what else they might do after college overwhelmingly riddled their sense of choice with anxiety.
They all knew the stakes were high; they all new the program would be a challenge to break into, and that thousands would be rejected. To make it would mean they were the best of the best, in some respect, and that alone may have been the flattery they needed to maintain the commitment even when doubted by family members how much they could achieve in such a violent, conflict-ridden environment.
The writer gives a brief history of L.A. and the surrounding areas, and brings us from the Watts Riots around 1965, to the Rodney King Riots in '92. The fact that the school resembles a prison; that the security guards open the gates just slightly enough to let the teachers in and out at 6:00 a.m.; that everyone knows what colors not to wear to school, is never debated or questioned much: these are facts of life, for these kids, 32 percent of whom, if African-American, are predicted to end up in jail, and maybe 50 percent of all would even graduate.
Getting to class isn't just an issue of wanting to be there; one 15-year-old girl was shot right out back of her school, waiting for her aunt to pick her up one afternoon. The 18-year-old gangbanger who shot her in a misguided attempt at a driveby meant for someone else, was a drop-out from the same school. He was tried as an adult one year later, and sentenced to more than 80 years in prison for second-degree murder.
Another boy, Darius, hadn't shown up to class in weeks. When pressed, he said that he had gotten in a fight in his neighborhood, and won, and his opponents were not willing to take the loss. They had approached his house with guns several times over the last few weeks, and his mother forbade him from leaving. They had gotten a restraining order, but his only answer was that he may have to kill, if he didn't die first.
These are not stories to be romanticized, and the author I think does a good job to avoid that, and I hope I am keeping them real for you, the way they have burned impressions on me I fear may keep me awake tonight.
And I ask myself if I would be safe; if I may get too emotionally involved; or if I will even make the cut for the program at all, but these questions are trivial. If I could trade my petty problems with these kids, I'm sure they would love to take them on, if they could dream to.
This is a sealed deal; it is something I have always known, and run away from, because I didn't have much better to do outside of my mind for so long, things like pursuing silly things like goals.
Now, I feel like I have to. I have to pursue my goals and I have to get there so that I may show them. I feel like I am born to, and worry if that's going to sound arrogant, or if my overbearing sense of idealism is going to even be to much for the program's recruiter's to get.
I bought it Sunday. I was in the middle of a very good book, full of stories following people of all ages and social classes to their dreams, or at least, toward a more meaningful life. But I haven't picked it up since.
Instead, through schoolwork, one article for the Cougar, laundry, and a full work day, I am a quarter of the way -- more than one hundred pages in -- and I put it down this moment to reflect, because already, it has moved me to near tears, and has filled me with a greater sense of purpose, arming me with a realism, a picture of what I know I must do.
The story follows four recruits that come from completely different lives than my own: one is Armenian-American, and a graduate from Boston College, who was raised to become a doctor or lawyer, who organized singlehandedly an organization on his college campus in pursuit of its members exploration of their Armenian heritage.
Another is an African-American, whose father was only remotely involved in his life, and sporadically, who grew up in Massachusetts and went to college in Connecticut. He thought he would be more at home at Locke High School in L.A., a school overtaken by metal bars, and over-run by gangs, than at his upper-middle class white college, where shopkeepers would look at him suspiciously when he so much as went into a convenience store.
Then there are two white upper-middle class women: one, the child of two lawyers; the other, two highly involved school administrators. Neither of them necessarily went into education straightaway because it was ingrained in them, but more because in its ideology the program did speak to them on some level, and because the indecision of what else they might do after college overwhelmingly riddled their sense of choice with anxiety.
They all knew the stakes were high; they all new the program would be a challenge to break into, and that thousands would be rejected. To make it would mean they were the best of the best, in some respect, and that alone may have been the flattery they needed to maintain the commitment even when doubted by family members how much they could achieve in such a violent, conflict-ridden environment.
The writer gives a brief history of L.A. and the surrounding areas, and brings us from the Watts Riots around 1965, to the Rodney King Riots in '92. The fact that the school resembles a prison; that the security guards open the gates just slightly enough to let the teachers in and out at 6:00 a.m.; that everyone knows what colors not to wear to school, is never debated or questioned much: these are facts of life, for these kids, 32 percent of whom, if African-American, are predicted to end up in jail, and maybe 50 percent of all would even graduate.
Getting to class isn't just an issue of wanting to be there; one 15-year-old girl was shot right out back of her school, waiting for her aunt to pick her up one afternoon. The 18-year-old gangbanger who shot her in a misguided attempt at a driveby meant for someone else, was a drop-out from the same school. He was tried as an adult one year later, and sentenced to more than 80 years in prison for second-degree murder.
Another boy, Darius, hadn't shown up to class in weeks. When pressed, he said that he had gotten in a fight in his neighborhood, and won, and his opponents were not willing to take the loss. They had approached his house with guns several times over the last few weeks, and his mother forbade him from leaving. They had gotten a restraining order, but his only answer was that he may have to kill, if he didn't die first.
These are not stories to be romanticized, and the author I think does a good job to avoid that, and I hope I am keeping them real for you, the way they have burned impressions on me I fear may keep me awake tonight.
And I ask myself if I would be safe; if I may get too emotionally involved; or if I will even make the cut for the program at all, but these questions are trivial. If I could trade my petty problems with these kids, I'm sure they would love to take them on, if they could dream to.
This is a sealed deal; it is something I have always known, and run away from, because I didn't have much better to do outside of my mind for so long, things like pursuing silly things like goals.
Now, I feel like I have to. I have to pursue my goals and I have to get there so that I may show them. I feel like I am born to, and worry if that's going to sound arrogant, or if my overbearing sense of idealism is going to even be to much for the program's recruiter's to get.
Labels: Books, College, Teach for America
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