At Risk: Stories of Hope

I created this blog for anyone interested in reducing the drop out rate in America. There are many factors that cause a sense of hopelessness. I passed through it myself, so I became a middle school art teacher in Detroit at Earhart Middle School. Intervention came in the form of a mentor for me, so I simply learned the same sense of social responsibility and used those principles on my students. I identify with those that perceive teaching as a calling.
Detroit has taught its residents resiliency and perseverance in order to survive its mean streets. For those of you who are not familiar with it, you should know that it has the lowest high school graduation rate of all major cities in America. It also was considered the most dangerous city in America based on the level of gun violence. I got an intrinsic reward whenever one of my mentees graduated and beat the odds against them. I hope you will gain some insight so that you can use it for yourself as an educator or that you would inform an educator that you know about this site. Prospective or novice teachers will especially enjoy this blog.

I have a friend who is a fantastic portrait artist formerly of Detroit, but now living in the South.  He read about the Lindsey couple who has lost their children to a drunk driver and adopted new children.  Rob Maniscalco appeared on the TODAY Show and p

I am writing this after seeing the world markets taking a nose dive.  Maybe we need to rethink what is really important, the fact that we are still alive.  I would imagine that students are wondering if it is worth it to even carry on and continue their education.

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My son, Andres, just gave me a slice of some star fruit.  I noticed its shape, and I can give you an answer.

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I have relocated to Hawaii since my RA arthritis was getting much worse in Detroit.  Now that I am here, I realize that I lived next to what appeared like Oz to me when I was a little boy.  I grew up in a poor barrio called Sunnyside.  Now that we have tools like Google Earth, you can find my childhood home at 1630 Dorothy St., Adrian, Michigan.

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I recently saw an HBO rerun of children who have Tourette’s Syndrome.  They shared their stories that made me cry and smile during different times of the program.

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Gas is still at $4.00 in Kauai.  It has gone down on the mainland.  I ride the bus because I teach on the east side of the island; I live on the south side.

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I saw Sir Ken Robinson’s video on how American education kills creativity, and I happen to agree even though it hurts to think we use education to produce worker bees rather than creative thinkers which evolve into engineers, designers, and inventors. Read the rest of this entry »

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.” — Albert Einstein

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I taught for twenty one years in Detroit, Michigan and all that time I heard plenty of talk about merit pay.  It never happened.  So I decided to reward my wife and family by moving to Kauai.  Now I got this idea that hard working teachers should be discovered through the mouths of babes.  If I saw solid evidence that an at risk student has overcome obstacles through mentorship above and beyond duty, then why can’t society reward them with a trip to Hawaii.  So where do hard working Hawaiian teachers want to go for their dream vacation?  Let me go ask a few teachers here, and I will have an answer.

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