"We Tell Them Right Where the Door Is"

Going through my past few days trying to drum up some sort of entertaining or enlightening story I keep coming back to my interview with Preston and a lot of the different things that could be said about that particular institution. It's different than anywhere I've been before. The building itself holds three unique organizations - for lack of a better term. One is an accredited high school, that's where I went last week. The other two train their students in completely different ways. The first is a shipping and receiving center where students will learn the ins and outs of working in a setting like a FedEx or a UPS. The second is a vocational school that teaches its students how to work on cars or become a carpenter.

Preston is a center for dropouts.

To get awful-wedding-speech on this post: A dropout is defined as someone who has abandoned a course of study or who has rejected conventional society to pursue an alternative lifestyle. This is a problem in Chicago. In my short experience I've spoken to several students who were not where they were "supposed" to be. I taught a 19 year old in a junior classroom. I've talked to academic seniors taking a freshman math class. The examples are many and I've been in the field for less than a year officially.

What follows is not the solution, but an examination of the problem.
 "Man Mr. N I ain't got time for this shit. I got places to be, things to see and other shit to do," David gave me the usual runaround when I assigned him some sort of work but I persisted about how it was important and how it would help him. "Nah man, this shit helps you. Let's you know how you think we all be like, but you ain't got no idea what we be like."

David did the work because, despite the game he talked, he understood the value of school and had big dreams. Publicly he talked about being a basketball player or maybe a football player and buying everything him and his mom ever wanted, but in private he talked to me about his work ethic and his struggles to get everything he needed to get done finished. He worked, went to school, played football and basketball and performed well in all of it. He also had his "girls" to take care of. He spoke about his mom and his girlfriend and told me about the time and money he had to spend on each of them.

I don't know what ended up happening to David, but from what I could tell he didn't become buried in his struggles but rose up.  That's not the case with thousands of kids in the public school system. They grow up with the ingrained idea of us against them and me against the world. Unfortunately, I end up representing the "them" and the "world" to these kids.

"Mr. N why you all up in my shit? Let me be. Bitch be talkin' and I gotta be shuttin' her up."
"Shaneiah, I'll talk to her. You don't need to get in this same fight day in and day out"
"Momma said if someone say somethin' I gotta be the one to end it."

This is a conversation I had with a second grader in my computer room this year. She doesn't have aspirations that other second graders have. She struggles on her way into school and when she's out. There is no safe haven for her.

Statistically speaking, she'll likely dropout before she finishes high school and the likely reason will be a teenage pregnancy.

When talking to Preston about the population at their high school, specifically what a "dropout" typically looks like I had a conversation very similar to this:

"Well we have students here ranging from 17-21 and they dropped out, mainly due to pregnancy, but sometimes because they had to work or gang issues. They come back here in order to finish high school the right way and even though they've had a completely different life than most of the teachers around here, we find that they're still typical teenagers. They still don't want to work sometimes, they still go through spells where they don't think anyone likes them, they still need love and support. The difference is they also are dealing raising a child, or pushing away former gang associates, or any number of issues."
"So then, do all these students choose to be here or are they forced to stay here because of the state or something else?"
"Oh no, we tell them right where the door is at orientation. We ask them if they want to do this or if they think they can do this and if they tell themselves no, then they can walk right out the door and never think of us again. We're here to help the people who want help and are willing to work for it. We're no different in any other school in that regard."

Lesson 11: The world can't keep you down, it can only convince you to keep yourself down