You see what you did wrong?

As I've mentioned before, the mentoring relationship that I share with my 'little' Jamal, has a funny way of teaching me things sometimes. About 4 months ago, he completed a mail in art test from the Art Instruction Schools. Maybe you've seen one of their commercials on television if you found yourself with nothing to do in the middle of a weekday afternoon. I had seen one or two of the commericals over the years, but never paid much attention to them. When Jamal showed me his completed mail in test, I was deeply impressed with his performance, but somewhat skeptical that anything useful would come of it. About a month later, a representative from the Art Instruction Schools came to his home to speak with Grandma about enrolling him in their course. When he told me that it costs about $100 a month, I was pretty sure that the young man and his grandmother had been roped into some kind of scheme. It wasn't until I saw him two weeks ago to hang out that I realized how inaccurate my assumptions were. Every few weeks they send him an instruction booklet that walks him through the steps of a particular technique or series of topics and includes a sheet for him to mail in a submission for evaluation. I was very impressed with the quality of the booklet and the credentials of the instructors cited. And what's even better, is that I can see how much Jamal has already improved.
During our last outing, we went to the Medical School library (it has a lot of quiet rooms) and watched a Batman the Animated Series DVD to search for the perfect scene or character to draw. He has told me before that he sometimes feels intimidated by me when we draw together because my picture tends to turn out looking more like the model we're using. I often remind him that I'm more than twice his age, and that I expect him to be a lot better than me 15 years from now. On this particular session, he did something he hadn't yet done. About 1o minutes into our project, he stopped working on his picture, peered over at my sketch pad, and asked "You see what you did wrong with her face?" I was actually getting a little frustrated with my picture when he brought it up, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that he had properly identified the problem. I had formed the chin on my villainess (word?) incorrectly, and it was in turn throwing off the relationships between all of her facial features. I made the correction, and the sketch ended up a lot better because of it.
I have been a casual artist since I was about 7 years old. My abilities continue to grow with age, but I have been buying books and materials over the past year and a half in an effort to accelerate my growth a bit. After flipping through Jamal's Art Instruction School Books, and observing his progress, I've decided to send off for that mail in art test. I'm not sure I want to drop $100 a month, but they do have a scholarship program, so maybe I can get a discount.

"I don't know." "Nothing."

I realize that it's only fair to reveal that being a Big Brother isn't all smiles and high-fives. Sometimes hanging out with the kid can get a little annoying. For instance, Jamal has a habit of responding to questions about his day, school, or just about anything that I may ask him about with "I don't know" or "nothing." He has at times taken this to ridiculous extremes answering "I don't know" repeatedly if I ask him a series of questions which he very likely knows the answer to. I think of it as a game of "who's the dummy?" Me, for thinking that he really doesn't know the answer, or him for not knowing what happened on September 11th, 2001 (one of the questions I asked to begin a conversation about current events).
Last Saturday I made plans to spend my only day off in a span of eleven to take Jamal to out a 3-D movie at the Air and Space museum in D.C. For most of the trip down to the Metro Station, Jamal was very content to sit quietly and study the ridges on the cap of his soda bottle. When I tried to interrupt him with a question about school or even his leisure time around the house, he would respond with "nothing" or "I don't know." He has done this regularly since we met, but somehow I thought of it as shyness that would subside as our friendship grew. After about 10 minutes of this I was pretty irritated, but I did my best to hide it with a chuckle, and change of subject. Realizing that the only topic that would get more than a two or three word response out of him was video games, I broke down and asked him about his latest conquests. He was more than happy to tell me all about the best weapon to use against robot invaders and over sized monsters. Any attempts to change the subject were met with more of the same dull responses. You know, I wasn't exactly a master of conversation at the age of 13, but I did at least make an attempt to speak to an adult if he/she was showing some interest in my wellbeing. Except with my parents. But I saw them every day, so I feel like that's a little different.
Once we were at the metro station, I did succeed in getting Jamal to calculate the fare that we needed to pay to get to the Smithsonian stop on the Metro and back. He made a small miscalculation, but got the correct answer with a little coaching. The movie was very well narrated and filmed, and more than lived up to my expectations. Jamal's favorite part was a scene where rocks were being shot towards the audience during a rocket launch. The action played in full 3-D with loud stereo effects. The realism was impressive. He denies screaming like a frightened girl scout, but I have first hand knowledge to the contrary.
After the movie, we looked around the museum a little and headed out. Before getting back on the train, I thought it would be nice to look at something new. I took him by the Freer Art Gallery , to take in some cultural pieces from Asia. As we walked around we both noticed how empty the place was compared to the other museums and attractions we had been past. Within 5 minutes we realized why. It was the probably the most boring collection of displays that I could imagine being in one place. A PBS documentary on box factories would have been more exciting. We bounced. On our way back into the metro station, he decided to slip through the gate behind another patron so that he wouldn't have to use his metro card. He was so proud of himself when he told me about it. Of course, I realized that we were now going to encounter an error at our destination since it would appear as if he had teleported himself from Washington back to our station of origin. Once again, I was a little bothered, but I didn't say much other than "Don't do that again" in the most neutral tone that I could muster, and explained that not using your card to get through the gate constitutes theft. As expected, when we arrived at our destination the gate flashed a message "Please see the attendant." To set things straight quickly, I just moved him through with me and destroyed his card so that we wouldn't be stealing. All in all it was a good day, and I still have much love for the young man. But I 'm learning that despite wanting to do a good thing, I'm not immune to being irritated by his behavior at times. Maybe my expectations are too high. After all, I have established a relationship that makes me more of a buddy than an adult. Perhaps it's a good thing that he's relaxed enough to get on my nerves.

Back to School

School began last week for Jamal, and I gave him a call before he started to discuss the new school year.

"So what are your goals for this year?"

"To pass."

I almost hit the ceiling when he replied. After all, we had been through this too many times for him to still think that just passing is actually a respectable goal. I chuckled a bit, hesitated, and then repeated myself. Maybe he just didn't understand the question. It wasn't until he quickly said that his goal was "to get nineties in all of my classes" that I realized he was actually joking with me. Good, so he has heard me. Of course, he immediately asked about what kind of loot I was going to bless him with for such a great achievement. Yeah, I don't like it either, but I have to get him moving somehow. I told him to give me some ideas, and that DVDs and video games are off limits. For now he has settled on a remote controlled airplane. I think he was really impressed by the models he saw flying around during the afternoon that he spent with my father. I made sure that he understood that a lot of those planes were beyond my budget for the prize. On my trip back from Hawaii, I was briefly tempted by the flimsy plastic R/C airplanes offered in this month's SkyMall catalog, but I'm probably going to have to do better than that if Jamal actually rises to the occasion.

Before we ended, I pressed him for some details on his plan for the quarter.

"How are you going to get these great grades all of the sudden?"

A good response would take considerable insight into what has been going wrong, as well as an understanding of how excellent students get it done, so I was very curious as to what exactly he would have to say.

"I'm going to do my homework and pay attention in class"

Pretty basic stuff, but I guess it can make a big difference if you haven't tried it yet. I'll see what's up when the progress reports come out in 5 weeks.

A Young Mind Takes Flight

The Department of Defense was kind enough to sponsor me on an all expense paid trip to Honolulu for the month of August. Of course, I had to commit to long days of surgery and endless clinic hours in the Army Hospital there in exchange. They were kind enought to give me the weekends off to explore the island and and partake of all its recreational wonders. While I'm spending the weekends surfing, scuba diving, and hiking through wilderness, my father volunteered to pick up some of the slack with Jamal. A licensed pilot, and fanatical flight buff, he recently made another trip to the friendly skies above Prince George's County with Jamal in tow. His account of the weekend is below.

"...When I first mentioned it to him almost a year ago, he rejected the trip out of hand, showing no interest in flying around the county is a small aircraft, a Cessna 172 to be exact. But after we spent some time together, he actually seemed to warm up to the idea. We set the date, I reserved an aircraft at Freeway Airport for Saturday morning and it was a go.

All week, Jamal kept track of what the weather forecast. In fact, one day he called and asked me if we were going to fly if there was a thunderstorm. I assured him that if the weather was not nearly perfect – if we couldn’t see at least three miles in front of us, little wind, high clouds – that we probably would not go flying.

Then he asked an interesting question: If we don’t go flying Saturday morning, are you going to take me straight back home? At that point I realized that he actually enjoyed being around me. It was almost as if I had another son – except of course for the fact that he actually enjoyed being around me.

The weather was right on the edge Saturday morning. There was a broken layer of clouds at 1400 feet, and that meant we would not be taking a trip over the bay to have breakfast. Instead, we flew out to the practice area and fiddled around a little for about twenty minutes.

When we first took off, he was a little uncomfortable. And every time the plane shook, he was obviously startled. We got to listen to Air Traffic Control talk to a couple of heavies on approach to Baltimore Washington International, to Trooper 2 – a Maryland Highway Patrol Helicopter, and various general aviation aircraft like the one we were flying. He even got to listen to me as I participated in the air traffic exchanges. Interestingly, he said I sounded like a robot when I was talking to them.

We finished flying and had breakfast at one of the newer diners in the area. On the way back to the house – he had almost convinced me to return to the house and play video games – I stopped off at a hobby shop and looked around a bit.

That was when I saw the jet-propelled scale model of an F-4 Phantom. Jamal asked if the model could go as fast as the airplane we flew that morning. I arrogantly said “No.” After all, we were flying a real plane and our top speed was about 120 knots. It turned out that the radio controlled model had a top speed of 200 knots, real knots not scale ones.

In a case of pure serendipity, the worker-bee told us about the radio control club that flew out of PG County. I decided to take him (part of that exposure thing) and see what they were doing there.

As we pulled up to the field, I heard the unmistakable sound of a jet engine – a small jet engine – but a jet engine none the less. One of the enthusiasts was flying an RC Model that had a real jet engine in it.

It turns out the guy had spent over $5400 building the aircraft. We watched several other people fly their planes and once the jet fellow flew a second time, we left for home.

While we were driving from place to place, Jamal asked me to tell him the difference between a blimp and a hot air balloon. At that point I felt my fatherly impulses kicking in. As a result, when we finally got back to the house, I had him research the two (I also threw in the Zeppelin for good measure). An hour and a half later, with very little coaching from me, he explained the difference between a blimp, a hot air balloon, and a Zeppelin.

I think I made a little bit of progress with him. We didn’t play video games the entire time he was at my house. He had to stretch his brain, and he did something he had never done before (he did actually fly the plane for a moment). All in all, I think it was a good day. And more importantly, I think Jamal enjoyed himself and learned a lot about what it takes to succeed in life and perhaps even what the possibilities are for him. We should be seeing each other again in about a month."

I gave Jamal a call some days after the flight and he told me that he really enjoyed it. Despite being a little scared, he wants to go back up sometime soon.

Little Man

My little brother, Jamal, truly embodies his title. He's short. Very short, to the point that you want to give him a lolly pop and pat him on the head at first glance. It's only when you hear him speak that you believe that he's actually 13. Given his troubled infancy, and his diet of McDonald's 4-6 times a week, I became a little concerned that he might have some kind of chronic disease or nutrient deficiency retarding his growth. I asked him if he was on any medications or if he had seen the doctor recently, and he replied that he was perfectly healthy and had been to a doctor within the last year. Apparently, his grandmother was concerned about the same thing and had taken him in to get measured.

While studying for this exam that I'm taking tomorrow, I did run across a little tidbit on growth and development that inspired me to go ahead and measure Jamal myself when I stopped through Baltimore a few days ago. According to the CDC Growth chart, he's in the 25th percentile for height for his age (translated: he's shorter than 75% of boys his age). That fact alone does not indicate that there's actually anything wrong with him. That combined with the fact that his sister had a huge growth spurt in her mid teens convinced me that he's probably alright. Grandma says he has another appointment soon, turns out he's seen in the same clinic that I was working in a few weeks ago. Before I left, I apologized for bringing the whole thing up (now that I knew he was relatively normal), I was afraid that I might have embarrassed him. But he just shrugged and asked when I was coming by next. It seems as if even after living through a year of middle school (cesspool of adolescent cruelty), he is the least bothered by his stature. Good for him.

One Year Later

Last week marked the one year anniversary of my first meeting with Jamal and the beginning of our friendship. I'd love to say that he's grown 6 inches, earned straight A's, and started a successful non-profit under my tutelage, but that would be a slight exaggeration. Jamal is a good kid. He was quite bright and free of all signs of thuggishness before I met him, so I haven't exactly been fighting a battle to save him from the streets of Baltimore. His grandmother has established a solid moral compass in the child, but has left much work for me and others to do in getting him to realize his true potential and to sharpen his talents. That battle is far from over and will be ongoing into the next school year. There was a point when I had considered picking up a new 'little' and keeping loose contact with Jamal. But I suspect that I would probably just end up doing a marginal job with both, so I decided to focus on Jamal for as many years as our lives permit.

I'm pleased to have discovered a number of black authored "let's-stop-the-foolishness" blogs over the past year. They are great for generating and maintaining much needed discourse on the errant path that mainstream black culture seems to be taking as of late. Some of my favorites are listed to the right under the blogroll. But sometimes, I feel as if we have used these forums to echo back to one another our shared sentiments about the most offensive and destructive trends working their way through our community while the people who are a part of the problem skip over to the BET or The SOURCE web page. I started Reaching Young Minds so that I could push a few more of us to take things a step further, and get the message where it can make the most difference.. the children living under difficult circumstances in "high risk" neighborhoods. After all, they are the ones destined to become tomorrow's babies' daddies and criminals if something doesn't change.

It's easy to think that you don't have enough time to mentor a child, but after mentoring through my third year of medical school (huge time commitment), while planning a wedding, and shopping for and moving into a new home, I'd have to say that most people probably have time for it if they are willing to make the time. As long as you can stand being around someone else's child for more than an hour at a time, and you have an honest desire to make a difference, Big Brother Big Sister or a similar program is a great place to start.

Summer Time

I am currently mid way through the first summer that I have spent exclusively in my hometown in almost 12 years. Although most of the time has been spent studying, and staring out the window when I should be studying, it has brought back a lot of good memories of summers past. We lived in a neighborhood full of children and friendly neighbors. So even when there was nothing special to do, there was always something to do. Exploration in the deep woods, riding bikes to forbidden locales, and playing outside until it was dark. Sadly, my 'little' isn't having that kind of summer.
I started to notice that he was inside everytime I called, but I was hesitant to believe that was the case all day everyday until I dropped in yesterday to see him. We spent most of the time talking about his latest pieces of art. I let him borrow a cartoon drawing book, and he's been hard at work trying to master some of the techniques. He asked me questions about different approaches to the cartoon human, and I showed him how to deal with hands and torsos, and clarified what the book was showing. All throughout this time I started asking about his daily activities for the past month. It turns out he IS actually staying in the house alone all day almost every day while his grandmother lays on the bed upstairs trying to stay cool. It's pretty sad, I had actually looked into some day programs before the summer started so we could prevent this sort of thing from happening. Obviously, I didn't find anything.

"So where are all of the other kids?"
They all moved away.

"How about your bike?"
It's broken.

"What about your cousins that I met that one time?"
They live too far away.

Quite sad, but since I'm very much in the books every day, living almost 40 minutes away, there's not a lot that I can do to improve his day to day right now. Makes me that much more pleased that I sprung him from Grandma's on the 4th of July a few weeks ago. We started the day with Go Karts at the local track, stopped by the cook out at my parent's house, and ended the day with a late showing of TRANSFORMERS. A great movie I must say. There's nothing quite as cool as seeing your old animated heroes on the big screen in live action. I was blown away by the fact that they used the same voice actor for Optimus Prime that they used 20 years ago on the cartoon. Jamal doesn't know much about the old show, but he really liked the movie and hung the poster up in his room.
I should have a week long break from all responsibility starting two weekends from now. That is, if I can get ready for this test in time. If I do, it will give me the chance to spend a lot of time with Jamal and possibly make this summer a little more memorable for him.

I'm Back

It's been a while, but I have an excuse this time, really. From the end of April until last week I had been living through a whirlwind of moving, getting part of the house renovated, getting married, and taking final exams to wrap up my third year. Quite hectic I have to say, but through it all I actually managed to keep up with Jamal from week to week.
The wedding was held in NY, near my Wife's hometown and on the campus of my undergraduate alma mater. I had a great time at the wedding, and as promised, my father picked Jamal up from Baltimore and kept him company during the event weekend and through the ceremony and reception. It was good to see him mingling with my friends and family, and generally having a good time. As weddings go, I didn't get to spend too much time with him individually, but I did follow up with him a week later. He approved of the festivities and said that he had enjoyed himself.
School ended about two weeks ago, and report cards were mailed home in the middle of last week. On a good note, he called me the day he received his report card to let me know how he did. Sadly, he told me that he passed as if he was unsure whether or not he was going to pull it out. Unfortunately, Jamal's grades have grown progressively worse with each passing quarter this year. That is particularly frustrating to me since we both sat down in December and set a goal of improving his academic performance.
Almost two months ago, I gave him a firm talking to about his progress report (all C's and D's), telling him that I knew he could do better, and trying to explain how important good grades are to his future. He acted as if he understood (and had even heard it before), but continued to ignore assignments, and play video games instead of studying until the grading period ended.
As I look back on my first year of mentorship, I would like to say that it was successful, but since my only truly objective measurement of success (grades) did not demonstrate this, it's hard to walk away with that impression. I realize that it's quite possible that the impact of my presence in his life may not be felt for many years. And I'm learning that instant gratification cannot be the nature of my motivation when it comes to our "therapeutic relationship." I must learn to deal with the fact that progress will be slow and at times invisible.
I've come to believe that raising a child to do well in school is part inspiration and part discipline. I think that how much of each is needed depends on the child. At this point, it's clear to me that Jamal needs a lot more discipline, which is something that I cannot (and will not) provide given my role as a Big Brother. Unfortunately, when it comes to school, his grandmother has demonstrated time and again that she either does not know how or simply will not give him the structure that he needs. So I feel as if I'm at a bit of an impasse with regards to getting him to achieve. At this point, I'm left to look forward to another year, and continue to work on developing his artistic talents, affirming his self worth, and helping him see beyond the stereotypes that surround him on a daily basis.

Trying to Keep up

In preparation for my quickly approaching marriage, I moved back to the suburban city that I grew up in. This, of course, puts Jamal and I at a huge disadvantage as far as spending time is concerned. Instead of running or driving a mile to his house, I will have to drive 40 minutes just to get there (if traffic is light). There's been so much chaos surrounding the move and the wedding preparations that I haven't seen him in about three weeks. He calls me weekly to ask if we can go somewhere and I feel terrible when I have to give him the same answer. I can tell that he's extremely bored, and I have no doubts that he's probably already called everyone on his grandmother's pre-approved visitation list before he gets to me each week. But it's still encouraging to know that he'll come to me for that sort of thing.
Since I can't visit, I've just settled for phone conversations, discussing school, his grandmother, cartoons, and inevitably, video games (it's the only topic that seems to get him interested on the phone). As of right now, I plan to bring him to the wedding. My father volunteered to transport and keep track of him while I take care of the final details and recite my vows. Hopefully, our wedding will be something that he remembers for a long time, and he will grow towards seeing marriage as positive and a normal thing to do.

Baltimore Sun

Last Sunday felt like an afternoon out of my own childhood. It was the warmest it's been in Baltimore this year, and I thought it would be a great day for Jamal and I to get together. When I called over to his grandmother's house, he told me that he was doing... that's right.. "nothing." Well I couldn't imagine why any able-bodied child should be inside the house on a day like that so we made plans for me to drop by.
Instead of driving, I decided to run to his house (it's only a mile and a half) so that I could squeeze some exercise out of afternoon as well. On the way over, I realized that I had seen very little of his neighborhood up to this point since we spent most of our afternoons going out. This gave me a great idea for how we could spend the afternoon. Once I arrived, we set off for his favorite places to go. We zig-zagged through about 5 blocks, running most of the way between each play area that he frequents. Most of them were just your standard jungle gym, basketball court, and swing set arrangements. We played on, and climbed over everything we could find, and raced each other up and down a few side walks (I had to give him a few meters head start). I even managed to get him to do push-ups with me. In a few places, he showed me his favorite daredevil stunts. I had to stop him in mid-demonstration of his most dangerous one because I was having visions of me carrying his limp body back to his Grandmother and explaining why I let him break his neck right in front of me. I was very impressed and pleasantly surprised by my little brother's fitness level, agility, and foot speed. Particularly since he seems to enjoy giving me the impression that he's very inactive and lazy.
After ripping and running, we returned to Grandma's house to get a drink. As of late, I've become very anti-video gaming with my little brother, hoping that I can direct his interests towards more productive pass times. But since we did spend the day outdoors, I thought I could make a small concession before I took off for home. I probably shouldn't have bothered though, because it was just more of the same embarrassment with me getting blasted game after game of Smash Brothers while he laughed. As I was heading out, he handed me one of two walkie-talkies that he was recently given by his father. Apparently, Dad shows up rather sporadically, bearing gifts for the young man. He wanted me to take it with me so that we could talk whenever we want, without having to use the telephones. It didn't look like it had a range of more than 1 mile, but on the run back to my apartment, I radioed back to him each block so we could determine it's true range. Turns out they're good for about 8 blocks. Not too bad, but it looks like we're still going to have to use the telephone.

Young Men in Baltimore Stepping Up

Teaching Teenagers to Live Strong- Baltimore Sun


I ran across this article the other day in the Baltimore Sun and thought I would share it with those who had not. This is another good example of insightful adults using the peer relationship to build cohesion and positive work ethic rather than oppose it. Kudos to these young men and their mentors.

Small Lessons

Most days whenever I call my little brother and ask him what he's doing, he tells me "nothing." By that, I thought he meant nothing in particular. But Sunday afternoon I saw that he really means ABSOLUTELY nothing. When I scooped little man up, he was playing around with an almost empty bottle of Krazy glue. He told me that he had been gluing his fingers together and then separating them for the past day or so, and that he had purchased the bottle for that sole purpose. Fascinating. Well at least he's not sniffing it I thought to myself. I didn't see a need to intervene until I noticed that he was chewing the residue off of his fingers. "Alright, take your fingers our of your mouth."

Whoa, where did that come from?

Frightened by how much I sounded like my father, I realized that I would have to approach this delicately. As a big brother, it's my responsibility to promote good decision making without coming off as a surrogate parent, or too bossy. Once we made it to my apartment, I set him up with some soap and a sink full of water, and asked him to scrub the glue off. The whole ordeal wasn't really that big of a deal, but given that he "likes the taste of it" and that glue fumes are damaging teenage brains all over America, I thought that I should make it clear that recreational exposure to Krazy glue is a bad idea.






We started the afternoon watching all of the action scenes from 2003's THE HULK. In the interest of staying awake, we skipped all of the dialogue and just soaked up the car tossing, tank smashing action. Afterwards, he asked for some help drawing more realistic superhero figures and faces. An avid fan of comic book art myself, I used one of my books to walk him through some step by step directions. Jamal is a very good cartoon artist, but he's finding it difficult to take the human form to the next level (as most people do at that age).
Throughout the course of our impromptu lesson he grew more frustrated with his drawing and wanted to quit and do something else. I insisted that he finish his picture, and helped him make adjustments until he was more satisfied with it. I felt that it was important for me to push him a little bit, and show him the value of sticking it out. Once again, I tried my best to do this without irritating the young man or being too authoritative. In the end, he seemed pleased with his drawing, and went home with copies of some of the book's pages so that he could practice on his own.
I know that Jamal has potential for great things artistically and academically. Although I cannot instill the discipline he'll need to maximize his abilities, I hope that I have inspired him and taught him some of the things that he will need along the way.

Keep it Moving

Jamal and I have been maintaining for the past few weeks mostly in the form of phone calls with the occaisional drop in. We even managed to squeeze in a trip to the bowling alley a couple of weeks back when there was a snow day that coincided with one of my days off.
Always eager to assess his progress, I've been pressuring his grandmother to get his second quarter report card which has been available for 8 weeks at this point. I could go up to the school and get it myself once again, but I feel like it's really not my job at this point. I need to help her become more involved in his academic development. She seems to knows that generally, it's a good thing to get good grades, but has showed little understanding of how important it is to monitor the grades on his report card instead of random graded papers that trickle into the house (which she says are improving lately). Is it harsh to think that she's woefully negligent for not having mastered the art of holding a child accountable for schoolwork after 8+ children and a few grandchildren? I don't think so. But I suppose if she had been successful with this thus far, Jamal may not have ever come to my attention.
Anyway, my 3 month surgery rotation ends this week, so there should be an opportunity for Jamal and I to share another outing. I'd like to get him out and moving since he uses his asthma as an excuse for him to do no physical activity whatsoever. Of course, he has no idea where his inhaler is, and has never experienced an emergency so I'm skeptical. But lucky for him, the emergency room just happens to be right next to the campus gym.

Positive Peer Pressure

Black Parents Seek to Raise Ambitions - Washington Post


I was excited to read about this group of parents from Virginia a few days ago. They have taken aim at the "crabs in a bucket" mentality that has been blamed as a major player in the black achievement gap. Not surprisingly, they have seen the attitudes and grades of their children improve as a result. I experienced a similar dynamic growing up as I followed the same set of motivated peers from elementary school to high school. I believe that the encouragement and competition that we shared among one another was part of what kept us from buying into alot of the anti-academic attitudes that were alarmingly popular among our fellow students. That and the threat of violence from our parents.

Six Months Later

Last week marked six months since Jamal and I first met. In celebration, our case manager from Big Brother Big Sister bombarded me with voicemail and email messages requesting that I give her my thoughts and complete a survey on the arrangement up to this point.
The case manager’s harassment turned out to be a good thing since it reminded me that we hadn’t hung out for some weeks. When given a choice between another museum and ice skating, Jamal decided on the ice rink. He found it awkward at first and asked me for a pointer every few laps as we coasted around the rink. Usually, he would shoot off half way through my explanation, eager to put it into practice. By the end of our two hour session he had become pretty difficult to catch when we had a one lap race. That was partly due to his tendency to intentionally weave around small children so that I would have to slow down or risk body checking one of them into the glass. We both enjoyed the afternoon, and he actually said that it was more fun than roller skating, which he does somewhat frequently.
As I look back on the past six months, my objectives for the mentorship, and Jamal’s development, I am pleased. I signed up for the program with the hope that I would get the chance to guide a young, black, pre-adolescent down a path that leads to a brighter future. And for the most part, I believe that Jamal is moving in that direction.
Socially, his grandmother’s rigid limitations have prevented him from falling into peer groups likely to encourage violent or destructive behaviors. So for the time being, I believe that he is more than capable of dealing with the negative peer pressure that is typical of his age group.
Academically, he seems to be trying harder, but I won’t have an objective measure of improvement until his 3rd quarter grades are released. He does seem responsive to my encouragement. He keeps me updated on what assignments he’s working on and as we were driving back from the ice rink, he brought up the topic of our goal of a 90% average for the coming quarter without prompting. It’s quite possible that it had more to do with him specifying which accessories I should include with the Gamecube console that I set as his incentive, than the grades themselves. But even if that is the case, he knows the goal and has made it clear that he intends to achieve it.
Most importantly, our relationship has become a genuine friendship. My fiancée claims that I wish I could be 11 for the rest of my life, which would make a 12 year old friend ideal. But the ability to use our friendship to influence Jamal’s perspective and decisions is perhaps its greatest benefit.