I have a story to go along with these.
Where I work we have 4 staff who work in middle schools with students who tend to be chronically suspended from school. Due to some of the factors that contribute to the cradle to prison pipeline those students are disproportionately African American boys.
After Barack Obama's election, one of our staff told us that when talking to these boys about their behavior, he would often ask them "What do you think Obama would do?" He found that when he did that, the boys would engage in the conversation and think about how it applied to their situation.
If, in handling himself with such intelligence and dignity at all times accomplishes nothing more than to inspire these young men to have the courage to make better choices in their lives, Obama will have been a transformational president.
These pictures open my heart, as President Obama often does. I think he would consider your words high praise. He obviously loves children and young people and I think has a deep understanding of how much support they can have to know that they can live their dreams too when so many messages from our culture tell them the opposite. I was scoring essay questions not long after his election. Most of the students were very, very poor and of all races. Their spelling and grammar were terrible, but their was incredible dignity and hope because their eyes were opened and they said in so many ways that they realized they could make it too.
ReplyDeleteDid I say I just love our POTUS? I guess it's obvious that I do. Love the pictures, too. Wonderful selection and loving words of a truth I believe in.
Those photos are why it breaks my heart every damn year that President Obama's "welcome back to school" speech is censored in too many schools.
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