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Suggestion: Talk to an Old Black Man About Education.

This is my dad. He just turned 85 (also the number of pills he takes each day).


His mother fled Mississippi to escape the Jim Crow south.


He grew up in a rat-infested “house” in segregated St. Louis.


His school taught him close to nothing - by design. But it did teach him one thing: that he wasn’t very bright.


But the US Army changed him. It opened his world. For the first time, he realized that he loved to learn. He learned to LOVE reading.


He studied a dictionary at night to build his vocabulary. Earned a degree at 50.


He threatened, yelled, and argued with his three sons to “go to college.” Only one of us did but all three are HUGE readers and insatiably curious. It was curiosity that was our lifeline.


His story reminds me of why:

1) I feel such anger when I see schools labeling kids - especially Black boys - as “failures." (Maybe it's not the children who are failing, but the system.)

2) I hate “Gifted and Talented” programs. They disproportionately serve well-resourced students and begin the messaging that “some kids are smart and others are not.”

3) I’m fighting to feed learner creativity… the only lifeline that many kids will have.


Ok... back to work.

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