Graduation by Rambling Raven
By Raven • Jun 10th, 2009 • Category: Rambling Raven •
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Graduation by Rambling Raven
In two days the eighth grade class, at the school I teach, will be graduating and moving on to high school. This should be such a joyous occasion for the young students, their parents, and teachers. And although I wish them all the luck in the world I can’t help but feel a little apprehensive about the future of these students.
It seems as if the high school years is when we lose a lot of our children. It appears to be a time when they navigate towards more negative activities and in some cases forego school altogether. Statistics tell us that in the inner city nearly 50% of those who enter high school as freshmen won’t make it through to graduation. The majority of those who don’t obtain a high school diploma are the young men. Too many of them are sidetracked by gangs, violence and incarceration.
As I think about those who will be leaving the relative security of elementary school my heart goes out to many of them. For there are too many who come from fragile homes and even more who are already being pressured into immolating what they see on the streets. Right now they are still considered children, but all that will change next school year. Upon entering their perspective high schools many will be given freedoms they are not ready for. There will be no one to walk them to and from class. There will be no one checking to see where they are if they don’t show up in a class. And sadly, it is around this time that too many parents let go as well.
Having taught at both the high school and elementary school level, I know first hand how much like night and day it can be. It seems that at a time when students need their parents the most the parents step back. In high school parents are not as involved in their child’s education as much as they were in elementary school. Too many parents don’t come up and inquire about the progress of their child in class. In elementary school on a parent/teacher conference night nearly seventy percent of parents will come and see their child’s teacher and pick up report cards. In high school that number dips down to around fifty percent. In the poorest neighborhoods the number of parents who bother to show up to speak to a teacher and collect a report card is even lower.
It is during the high school years that many of our children give in to pressure and join gangs, sell drugs, cut classes, get into trouble with the law, drop out of school and begin having children. The pressure and distractions at this stage are enormous. The teenage years are a time of emotional confusion for most teens but within the inner city it can be a matter of life or death. If our children don’t go on to get a high school diploma then they have absolutely no hope of participating in achieving anything of substance in life. They are then regulated to a life of poverty and crime.
I am happy to see the students who I have gotten to know and grown to love over the years close one chapter of their lives and begin to write another. Yet, I pray for them. I pray that they find it within themselves to achieve their goals above all the odds. I pray that no one becomes a statistic. I pray that instead of bringing a baby to show off, instead over the next four years they bring back to me a high school diploma. And I pray that with that high school diploma they have an acceptance letter from a college in the other hand. So here’s to the class of 2009. I wish the babies a bright and bountiful future.
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Raven is an educator with a B.A. in Psychology and a M.A. in Education. She has been an avid reader since childhood. Her favorite genres are mystery, suspense, and horror, although she will give any genre a try. She is a life long resident of Chicago. Her love of books opened her mind to people, places and events far beyond her Chicago home. Reading helped to shape her world and her opinion of the events that took place within it. No matter what demands her career requires of her, she has always found time to read and write in a journal. Along with reading and journaling, she loves to watch the sunset, and discuss hot topics with family and friends. She loves baseball, horror movies, mysteries, listening to music from every corner of the world and expressing her view of the latest books with the women of APOOO.
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All we can do is pray. Some will make it, many will not. If you can save just a few, be thankful for that. Meanwhile, allow them to glory in their special day and dream of the future.
Dera Williams´s last blog post..Memory Monday- The Neighborhood
Raven…thank God you are a teacher who still cares…and I hope because you do that you have an impact on at least one of your former students…in the meantime I pray that this years class has more most likely to succeed than any other class before!
xoxo
Thanks you, Yasmin and Dera. I too hope and pray that my students(former in this case) go far and beyond all expectations. I will miss them and I pray that they achieve all of their dreams and aspirations.
Every parent needs a copy of this.
I am so glad that you touched on this topic. I am a member of my daughter’s school SLC (School Leadership Council) and we have been trying to figure ways to get the parents involved in their childrens education. I am a firm believer that education starts at home. I myself had to find out the hard way what an impact my involvement made on my childrens education. I once was working a half hour away from home so dropping in during the day was almost impossible unless I took a half day or was off from work all together. When my older children (three sons; the last of the three will be graduating High School in two weeks) where in school I truly believe that because I worked so far away and the children knew it they felt that because I wasn’t involved they could cut the fool @ school. Well to make a long story short the last son whom will be graduating this year was truly a problem child for the school system. He was removed from his 4th grade class to another school due to behavior problems, when he made it to the Jr High school level he was threatened to be removed from this school during his 7th grade year and placed in an alternative school that was basically for problematic children that were being just pushed to the wayside. At this point I said to myself that I had to do something because I refused to lose my son to his environment. So I had him placed in an out of district placement school. I got involved in almost everything I could at his school, I transfered jobs to be closer to home and I stayed frutile to my efforts in saving him from the environment. Well low and behold during his 10th grade year at the out of district placement he started to rebel because he wanted to go back to his home district school to be amongst his peers. I refused his request and he in turn started rebelling at school. So we (his teachers, counselors, principal and myself) met and came up with a plan that would allow him to do a half day at the OODP (out of district placement) and his HDS (home district school). Once he got to the HDS half day in wanted to be there full time. So we met and told him that it would be up to him so succeed in that environment because the rules were different, and there would be no one to enforce his class participation. He has grown so much and I am so proud of him. He has been a full time HDS student for his last two and a half years and he has done a marvelous job maintaining. He has been making the honor roll (all A’s last marking period and all A’s and one B this marking period), and will be graduating with his class. He has been accepted to two different colleges and will be furthering his education this fall. I say all that to say this (as a parent we need to stay involved and let the children know that as parents we are here for them). I thank the Lord all the time because I truly know that without his Grace and Mercy I do not know where my sons could have landed in our society. but thanks be to God all three have graduated and become productive, upstanding gentlemen. My motto right about now is: “Three down and One to go”
@ Dona…thanks for sharing…what an inspirational story…and it shows that with everyone working together we can keep our kids from falling between the cracks. YGG!
xoxo
Yasmin´s last blog ..In The Nude by C. Alexandra Allen
Donna, wow!! Thanks for that heartwarming statement. I take my hat off to you and congradulate your son. Sadly, too many parents are not able or willing to become so completely involved in their children’s education. I would think that the fear of losing a child to the streets or the system would be the rallying call but so far it has not. I wish we had several million parents like you. Thanks for your input you really put what I was trying to state into perspective.