Feedback from students

Week of September 2-5

We've moved beyond Back to School season and we're moving full speed ahead.

This past week has been great! I've had the pleasure of meeting ans speaking with a group of students between the ages if 17-21. The information they provided about their educational paths and stories of their struggles within our educational system was very enlightening.  Out of the conversations came some interesting suggestions, including:

• Promote more cultures as well as women
• Have every student take one culturally relevant course
• Break the mental crutch, don't use that victim mentality
• Change the curriculum and viewpoint from one that is based off of white middle class America to standards that reflect the realities of today's society.

The young adults also deatiled what allowed them to be successful in the educational system.

• "Learning from my mistakes"
• "Learning about our history from the civil rights research tour on equity"
• "Having a vision of who I wanted to be and looking toward that now in order to get there"
• "Understanding the media has filtered what we see"
• "Being put in leadership roles made me check my actions"

These are just a few of the many statements that the young adults wanted me to be aware of as I commence on this work. One student left me with this statement, "It takes a leader to bring some leaders."

  

I also had the pleasure of meeting representatives from Generation Next, the Search Institute, and Minneapolis Community and Technical College (MCTC). These organizations are similarly committed to achieving postive outcomes for young black men here in the Twin Cities. We had great conversations and brainstorming sessions that will assist in moving us forward.

The work continues.

Meeting with dads at Lucy Laney to talk about hopes and dreams for their sons.