The city of Chicago’s Parks Department routinely works with my students when developing wetlands, growing wild grasses, and establishing ecological parks around the city. For many years, my students have worked with the city aldermen in developing abandoned lots into resourceful green areas and community gardens. My classroom’s Turn a Vacant Lot Around project was so successful that seniors in our community helped us to continue the program for four years.
Students also went into public housing complexes and decorated the porches with live plants and flowers. They earned many hours of Service Learning credits toward graduation requirements while helping to make life a little better for their families and others. Our Botanical Club earned the highest award of any such group of environmental education students exhibiting in the Chicago Flower Show over a five-year period. All these programs required tremendous student discipline, dedication, and scholarship.
When students discover the amazing interdependence of people, animals, and nature, they develop a connection to the environment. Conservation, health issues, extinction of species, world pollution, rain forests, food sources, trees, and recycling become as much a part of their daily lives as McDonald’s and video games. I want students to know that I can give them some knowledge and skills to protect our global environment, but what they do with their own lives is the real answer. I want students to know that I care what they do with their lives.
The reason our kids do not value education in the same way we did is that we almost teach them how to be helpless. We give them whatever they need, or what we think they need. And that is not their fault. We even supply them with more paper and pencils than they need. We think we’re helping them when we do not allow them to attach themselves to some degree of responsibility, and that’s what I try to bring out in my classroom.
Teachers lost their authority with kids when parents lost their authority. When children don’t come home on time, they don’t necessarily come to your class on time. Single mothers try to do most of it by themselves, and they need a helpmate. They’re struggling, they’re doing it; they’re doing the best they can with what they have. I’m not bashing them. If the fathers were not there, it was overwhelming for the mothers to do it all by themselves. So when the family structure fell apart, so did order in the schools.
If the middle class moved back to this area, it would of course help. When you have a heterogeneous grouping of people, economically and educationally, it does help. There are examples to see. There are examples of mothers going to work, of fathers going to work.
I suppose I could get very upset about finding out that a student has dropped out because she’s pregnant or another is in the Cook County Jail because he’s busted for selling drugs. But then I look at the students as they’re walking through the hall, as they’re sitting in the cafeteria and in my classroom, and I wonder, if I was in this community, which one of them would I be? Just which one would I be? If I was dealt a hand of an environment that is so negative, that draws so much energy away, that actually reinforces their negativity so well, and they are successful being negative, then how can I offset it with being positive? That’s difficult to do, yet it can be done by repeating it over and over again—not bashing a student because of where he’s coming from, but helping him to get where he ought to be.
A child who goes to prison, or has to drop out because she’s pregnant, or succumbs to drugs, is a lost child. I feel very uneasy about it. I feel for that child with a great deal of compassion, but what I rely upon is what I gave that child while he or she was here with me. I gave him all or gave her all I possibly could give of myself and all the training I could, and tried to guide their life through what they were enduring. So the satisfaction goes with the belief that I did as much as I possibly could do, that I knew how to do—and that if I can’t do it, there’s another teacher in the house.
Many of the students are in transit when they leave Du Sable High; they’re moving to another school in another area of the city. They just don’t drop out and that’s the end of their career. Where we are is not accepted, and I wouldn’t want them to remain here when they can get out. So we don’t really lose a lot of students; they transfer to other schools.
Of course, if I see bad behavior in a child, I don’t blame that on the child. Children are the reflection of the society in which they live. What they see on television, what they’re allowed to hear on radios and CDs, is what they reflect back into the schools. They keep it real.
If I had been born in the Robert Taylor Homes, perhaps I might not be where I am today. That’s a real possibility. I said that to a judge when I was being a character witness for a student. I asked him, if you were born where he was born, would you be sitting there or would you be sitting where the young man is sitting? It gave him something to think about. And the young man got probation instead of jail time.
As a black man and as a teacher, I attempt to change lives and mend broken spirits through the power of education. It was not long ago, during my childhood, that my family made its living on the farm. From that humble American beginning, my blackness, my appreciation for nature, and my respect for family and others have given me the power to teach with conviction.
As a teacher and as a man, I am motivated by those around me, and I have been fortunate enough to surround myself with some of America’s greatest men and women. Over the course of my career, Du Sable High School has had hundreds of the most talented teachers in America. Many have gone on to higher positions in the education field. I have learned from many of them, I have worked with all of them, and I have become who I am because of them. My students have taught me the most and have given me immeasurable hope and spirit, generation after generation.
Teachers have an incredible influence upon a student, whether it’s negative or positive, and most of it is positive. When you’ve done it well enough and the kids know that you’re sincere, that you’re dedicated and your passion is for the total development of this child, the entire child himself, they will come back and let you know. They will call you; they will come back. Every day— I can truthfully say this—somebody comes by the school to see me because I made an impact on their lives in some capacity. I helped them develop their academic skills and their survival skills, and I gave them tidbits of inspiration and words of wisdom in the classroom: Do today what others want so you can enjoy life later like others can’t.
A critical issue facing education, as I see it, is that we continue to need workers who are trained to use their hands and minds to build the future of America. Many urban youth are not meeting the standards for college entrance, but this does not preclude their making useful contributions to society in other ways. Schools must reflect the needs of the community, and while technology and advanced education are very important, hands-on workers are greatly needed in the fields of medicine, industry and manufacturing, food service and agriculture, building and technical operations, and especially in my field of horticulture and environmental protection.
School districts have few trained vocational instructors and are making no provisions for the future. School boards are stressing “back to basics” in such a way as to eliminate vocational courses in lieu of additional reading and math. Instead of opting for innovative alternative and authentic assessment strategies such as portfolios, demonstrations, or thematic units, they rely on standardized testing as the only method to determine what students know and can do.
I believe that if standardized tests should do anything, they should indicate the vocational capabilities of our students. Students who are either not able to meet the standards set by tests scores, or who are unwilling to do so, would be given the opportunity to investigate vocational fields. Educators would make sure that these are fields that will be needed in the future. Starting in the eleventh grade, students would begin to specialize in a vocation, with sufficient hands-on training to prepare them as capable workers in particular fields.
The Essential Schools research out
of Brown University indicates that students involved in small schools where they receive more personalized education do better in their academics. In urban areas, this has meant restructuring large schools into small schools within the present building. Each small school had its own leadership, usually teachers, who were responsible for the progress, selection, and care of their own students. The overall building was run by a building principal who coordinated all the teachers’ efforts.
My involvement started with a staff development trip to New York City to visit several small-school programs there that were highly successful. Our faculty became so excited about this education movement that groups of teachers designed several small schools at Du Sable based on academic and vocational themes. The small-schools model worked very well for most of the school’s programs. The question is, what can we as educators do to move away from the large urban educational facilities where students are treated as numbers, and where during a school day some students may just slip through the cracks? Many students are so anonymous that they eventually become tremendous discipline problems.
Teachers run the small schools, taking on most of the administrative functions that it took several teams of administrators to do poorly. Children’s scores improve, and they want to stay in school. Districts find many excuses and create red tape to hinder the programs, however, and eventually, like the one at Du Sable, they are terminated without even an explanation as to why.
I believe that the future of education in America’s cities is in the hands of teachers and that teachers must be empowered to get the job done. Teachers are effective administrators, and they can collaborate to improve schools when given the opportunity.
JASON SMITH
A Different Version
“A lot of the guys didn’t want to see my brothers and me make that type of money,” Jason Smith told me about his teenage years selling drugs on Chicago’s South Side. “I had my mom, but she wasn’t always there. I probably would have been proud to have her spend more quality time with me. I wanted to have nice clothes and the jewelry and cars, but I think I missed that quality time more.” Remarkably, Jason is now giving quality time to youngsters facing the same dilemmas and choices he once did.
I’m twenty-three years old and I attend Governors State University, where I’m completing my bachelor’s degree in business. I’m the former program director of the Evening Reporting Center here in Chicago, for young people who have been in trouble with the law. I recently started working as a probation officer with the Illinois Circuit Court of Cook County Juvenile Justice and Child Protection Division. For the past eight years, I’ve lived in the Lawndale community.
I was arrested for the first time when I was twelve. The charge was UUW—unlawful use of a weapon. I wasn’t guilty. My friend and I were playing in the neighborhood. He had a gun with him. It wasn’t a real gun; it was a starter pistol, like a BB gun. We arrived at the house of another friend. The friend’s mother was home, and suddenly the kid with the starter pistol pulled it out on her. She called the police and they came to the house and arrested us. I wasn’t referred to the juvenile court, and I don’t know what they did with the case.
Around that time I started having fights with other kids. I was like most young boys who look up to their older brothers and want to be like them. My two older brothers were part of the Gangster Disciples. I did a good job emulating them and became a member of the same gang. It was an organization with supposedly a family-type atmosphere. I joined for that reason, but I came to find out the gang was involved with violence, drugs, and fast money. By the age of thirteen, I was selling drugs, staying out late, and going to parties—basically what they called back then having fun.
My parents had separated when I was nine years old, and my mom became a single parent. I think my mom had no knowledge of my gang involvement. I was hanging out mostly with one of my two older brothers. She thought he was more responsible and would bring me home at a decent time. We used to sneak in the house through a window, and she was probably asleep in her bedroom.
Once when I was thirteen, I stole a car. It was a bad experience. I was seeing lots of older guys who had nice cars, and I was younger and wasn’t making that much money. One night I got together some of my friends to look for a car to steal. We kind of stumbled on one. We knew it belonged to a neighbor, and we figured that since the neighbor didn’t work in the morning, it would be a good time to steal their car. I got a screwdriver and broke the neck off the steering column. Inside some cars, under the steering column, there’s a little device you can pull up to start the engine.
I stole the car to joyride in it. I got on the expressway with the car. I knew how to drive, but I wasn’t an experienced driver. I almost got into an accident. The police chased us and I jumped out, and one of my friends got caught. I got away. My friend went to jail. He spent time in a juvenile detention center.
Around the time I was thirteen and in the eighth grade, the Gangster Disciples killed my cousin, who was a member of the gang. He was sitting in his car and they shot him eight times. We didn’t know what it was about, but my brother got angry and became a member of the Black Disciples, a rival gang, to get revenge. I stayed a member of the Gangster Disciples. I was somewhat in the background. My brothers were more out front.
In 1992, I was charged with possession of a .22-caliber gun. I was selling drugs with a friend in the street at the time. Another guy we were selling with had given my friend the gun, because the two of us had to do security at the same time we were selling. We had hidden the drugs behind a house, and when we had a customer, one of us would go back to get the drugs while the other kept watch out front. I was at the back of the house when the cops showed up, and my friend ran to the back and dropped the gun to the ground. He did some time in the detention center and I got off.
It was an older guy that supplied me with my first twenty-five bags of rock cocaine to sell. He had a set that he determined was his, or that was given to him by a member of the gang. A set is a street, sometimes by a school, sometimes by a neighbor’s house, where a person’s spot to sell drugs is designated by gang members. I was out there on the set with three or four guys I had grown up with. We sold each of the twenty-five bags the older guy had brought us for $10, and he told us that out of the $250, we had to give him $200 back and we could keep $50.
I was a naïve fourteen-year-old then and I thought $50 was a lot of money, especially because twenty-five bags would sometimes go in twenty-five or thirty minutes. It sounds like a good gig to some young men, but they don’t know the dangers that are out there in the streets waiting for them. We got stuck up, police chased us, and we had rival gang members come over and shoot at us to take over the guy’s set because it was making a lot of money. They would have killed the guy if they could.
We had guns to protect ourselves. We had security. Four other guys and myself were selling drugs at the set during that time, and there were three guys who carried weapons and watched out for us.
I made enough money to buy my own car, buy my own clothes, and provide for my family. I didn’t have to ask my mom for anything. I was making roughly $600 a day. Sometimes my brothers and I would each make even more.
In January of 1993, I was charged with throwing dice in a game of chance in the company of eight other individuals. The case was thrown out. The next month I was charged with unauthorized possession of one clear plastic bag containing twenty-six smaller, pink Ziploc plastic bags thought to be holding cocaine. An older gentleman was arrested with me. “Older” guys were anywhere from seventeen to their mid- or late twenties. That seemed older to me at the time. These were guys I had watched grow up. They were two or three years older than my brothers. We’d all gone to the same schools. Back then the older guys recruited the younger guys to sell drugs. When an older guy and a younger guy got arrested together, the older guy figured the younger one would do less time than he would, and he’d ask the younger one to take the case for him. Sometimes the
older guys offered us cash—up to $600—or clothing or jewelry. Most of the younger guys would say no, because if you said yes, you knew the police would remember your face or plant drugs on you.
The cops must have had surveillance on the older guy. They knew the abandoned house where he’d been going to get drugs. I didn’t have any drugs on me when the police arrested us on the street, but after handcuffing us both behind our backs and putting us in the police car, they drove to the abandoned house and got some drugs out of it and split them between the two of us. The older guy asked me to take the case for him. He already had other cases and was afraid of doing two or three years, whereas I would have done thirty days. When we got to court the case was thrown out, because the police wrote one location for the arrest in their report and testified to a different location.
We were hiding our drugs pretty well then. It was hard for the police to find us with the drugs on us, unless they sold or bought the drugs as undercover agents. It was harder for them to sell us the drugs because we’d ask if they were an undercover agent. But when the undercover agents bought drugs, they’d pay you with a marked bill, say a fifty. If you kept the bill in your pocket, the police would come back in ten minutes—not the undercover person, because the cops didn’t want to give him away—and they’d ask to see the money in your pocket and arrest you. That’s why we always looked at the bills that people paid with, and if they were marked, took them to a store right away and bought something to break the bill with before returning to our spot.
About a week after the Ziploc bag case, I was charged with unlawful possession of six pink plastic packets containing cocaine. I was on the street selling drugs, and the police pulled up and started searching me. They handcuffed me and put me in the police car. They got mad because they couldn’t find drugs on me. I guess they planned either to find something on me or plant something on me to get me convicted because the case from the previous week had been thrown out. But their story was inconsistent about the evidence, so the judge threw out that case too.
America Behind the Color Line Page 57
