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 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 »

I changed the way I measure my wealth.  I used to measure it by the amount of material things I owned like a built in pool out in the country and my farmhouse in Michigan.  I had arthritis and had plenty of insurance to obtain medicine whenever my ankle would become inflamed and prevent me from walking.

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We should be concerned about at risk children because without intervention, they grow up and engage in at risk behavior as adults in order to make a living because they do not have the educational level that allows them options in life. Their job flexibility is limited to their level of education. A drop out is an example of the ultimate failure of a society to properly rear its children.

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The most frequently asked question I remember hearing from teachers rather they were just beginning in the education field, or seasoned teachers is “How can we get different segments of the school’s population to get motivated to learn?”

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