Skills of a thief

I've been reading the book, Flow, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

There are different ways to "flow" and different reasons people get into "flow." But the result is the same. Flow is something that happens when we get completely absorbed in something we enjoy. It happens when we engage the mind...when we work toward a solution...when the gears in our brain are turning and we are deep into problem solving. It may be gardening, writing a paper, fixing a computer, or planning an event. "Flow" is not accomplished when veging out in front of the TV. It takes work. But the work is so fulfilling that it results in a deeper rush of enjoyment.

It made me think of a conversation I overheard one time. Some teenage boys were talking about "hitting a lick." From listening to them talk, it sounded like their "lick" had produced quite a bit of money. Not so long ago, I would have written off crimes like this as an adrenalin rush. However, I don't think that is entirely accurate.

I do believe that "hitting a lick" successfully provides an adrenalin rush, but it is much more than that. These teenage boys had to do a lot of work to rob the store. They had to plot out which store to hit, research the store, scope out the patterns of people going in and out, figure out the security system, know where and how the money is secured, ...you get the picture.

There are a lot of skills involved in robbing a store. Yet these teenagers do it successfully and often manage not to get caught. Adrenalin rush? Perhaps. But I would argue that the problem solving that takes place and the enjoyment and excitement they receive as a result of their success is what Csikszentmihalyi refers to as "flow."

I thought about schools and after-school programs. Too often, schools are set up to teach kids to read and write. After-school programs are set up to contain kids between the critical hours of 3:00-6:00 until their parents get home. In itself, there's nothing wrong with that. But we're missing a piece. We're not equipping kids to use their minds outside of the classroom!

Even in after-school programs, we often provide activities kids can do while there. They might have fancy equipment or toys that they don't have at home. That's great...as long as they're at the program. But what happens after they leave? Their mind has to become sedentary until they return the next day. For a kid with a sharp mind (like many of those "thug" teens in my neighborhood), they are not satisfied with passive learning. They want to think!

We need to begin thinking in terms of how to engage kids in a way that they can take what they learn outside of the classroom. We need to think about how to engage kids utilizing and being creative with the resources they have.

So how do we do this?

As a child, I used to get absorbed in making crafts--cross-stitching, putting craft kits together, latch hook... I loved crafts. Some days my cousins and I would walk to the creek. We searched for crawdads and strategized how to catch them before they could scoot away backward. I was given a job I hated--scraping paint and re-painting our mill. As I scraped the paint, I tried to figure out the best way to hold the scraper to get off as much paint as possible, as quickly as possible.

We need to provide kids with opportunities to pique their interest.

In our After-School Academy, we have a garden. I have watched Ladaysha and Niemen get completely absorbed in that garden. I'm hoping we can begin working with them to create container gardens for their home. In our Digital Connectors program, Vanessa said she wants to learn everything they have planned because she wants to be able to fix their home computer when it goes down. In the Library, kids can get absorbed in books...and now they can purchase them and take them home with them for a mere 25 or 50 cents.

Instead of writing off the kid who has chosen a life of crime, maybe we should look at the skill level their crimes require. I believe if we look close enough, on the higher order thinking scale, we will find that the skills they have taught themselves often exceed what we're teaching them in school.

Maybe we're the ones that need to re-evaluate.

Is lying a justifiable means to get to college?

My text message alert went off around 9:30 p.m. "Are u still up?" it asked.

I was tired. I was planning to go to bed early that evening and really didn't feel like talking to anyone. I responded by saying I was getting ready for bed, but then thought about the person sending the text. It was Jasmine and she didn't seem like the type who would want to talk to me about something pointless. "Is everything all right?" I text'd. "Not really," she replied. "I just wanted help. I'm so sorry."

When I tried calling, her cousin said she was crying so hard she couldn't talk. My mind immediately went through all of the worst that I know about some of my teens. Did she kill someone?? Is her mom pimping her out?? Is she selling drugs?? Is she pregnant?? My mind raced.

I continued trying to communicate with her through texts. She said she was going to quit coming to Teen U but wouldn't say why. She said if she told us why, we'd never look at her the same. I explained all of my former interactions with and knowledge about teenagers (some mentioned above) and told her I was still in contact with those teens. I tried to assure her I wouldn't look at her differently. "It's not that bad!" she replied. But I still couldn't get her to talk.

After an hour of texting back and forth, Jasmine finally called. Even then, all I could get out of her was, "I'm a fraud." After much coaxing, she explained to me that she was 20 years old...not 17 like she had told us.

"That's it?!" I couldn't help but be incredulous to this discovery.

"But I lied!" she went on. "I signed papers that said I was 17 and in high school, but I'm not."

Jasmine and I had a long talk about being truthful. Because of her dishonesty, she had missed the deadline for the Central Dallas scholarship. There were other natural consequences that occurred because she had lied.

I am no fan of lying. But here's the bigger issue to me...

A 20-year old girl lied SO THAT SHE COULD GET HELP WITH COLLEGE!!!!

Because Teen U is only for 6th-12th graders, Jasmine was afraid that if she told us her real age, she would not get to visit the college campuses, listen to the career speakers, and begin figuring out what she wanted to do. She was afraid she'd passed the age of being able to get the guidance she needed and desperately wanted. Jasmine's mom and aunt encouraged her to keep lying so that she could get a college education.

What does it say about our inner city communities when a young adult so desperately wants to get an education that she is willing to lie about her age to access those resources??

How often have I heard and read that we have to teach "those kids" [in the inner city] to value education?! How often do I hear that "those parents" [in the inner city] don't want anything for their kids?! Who are "those people" talking about???? Where are they getting their information??

Knowing this truth, I know our program needs to be expanded. We don't have the people or monetary resources in place, but we will make it work. Fighting crime and providing basketball leagues are important....but the communities where I live and work deserve educational opportunities as well. Our city and our society has to begin backing up this big talk on education. If education is so important, we need to improve our schools and offer more accessible, community-based programs that provide kids AND adults with the opportunities to fulfill their dreams...and helps them figure out how to get there.

The Traveling Journal

Our Education Department has what's called a Traveling Journal. Since our programs meet at different times and in different buildings, I think it's important for each of us to see what the other is doing on a particular day. Each staff member signs up for a day and is supposed to chronicle that day. They can write whatever they want. They can draw, attach items, etc. The journal creates a daily history for us.

I've meant to share some of those with you...and will try to do better...but Tameshia's struck me as one that is really representative of what a day in the life of the Education Department is like. I'll let her speak...

Today I feel like pulling my hair out. I'm so frustrated at the moment. I don't know what happened at school with the kids today but they all seem to be in a bad mood. Stinky attitudes all day today. Doesn't help that I have a headache either.

As I'm writing, I'm getting less frustrated. I just asked Iesha (Dr. Iesha) what she did at the doctor (physical therapy with Ms. Janet) and expected her to tell me not demonstrate it! I'm really impressed and delighted that she remembers. She just asked me to go to the internet (blog) so she can show me something. When the blog comes up...she asked me to make it big. Then she says to her classmates, "Look, I'm famous. I'm Dr. Iesha!" She then tells me, "You see this button (talking about the timer at the therapy place)...I pushed that first then...." (and so on and so on).

I can't be frustrated now.

My class has finally calmed down and now we're playing "roll-a-turkey" on the computer. They love it!! When you finish the game...you've drawn a turkey. Ladaysha has truly (slowly but surely) become a leader. When she finished her turkey, she started talking about what she's thankful for. Her classmates then followed. I like when they come up with their own ideas from a lesson I planned. It's refreshing.

So now it's 2 hours later...

I'm now in the Teen U lab with the Digital Connectors. I walked into the building at exactly 6:00 p.m. All of my students were together saying, "Ms. Tameshia! You're late!" Wow!!!!! These can't be the teenagers the media displays. They're ready and excited to learn.

They've bonded so well. They work together without me saying so and get mad if I put them with the same partner over again. It's all kind of surreal to me. What's wrong with them...I think to myself sometimes (haha). Tonight they learned the difference between the internet and the world wide web and my "flows/raps" about the differences. They took it serious and actually wrote really good flows. Dung thinks they could get a record deal. haha

So much for being frustrated!!

Tameshia Rudd-Ridge is our technology guru who teaches the 2nd-3rd graders in the After-School Academy and is the Coordinator of the Digital Connectors program for teenagers.

This is why I love my job!

Future Physical Therapists

We took a group of students to Prairie View A & M a couple of Saturdays ago. I'd never met Jasmine before that Saturday. In fact, she hadn't been going to Teen U very long at that point. But she's a senior and she heard about a college trip. She immediately signed up. I mentioned her in a previous post.

She ended up sitting in the front seat of the van on the way back to keep me awake. As we talked, I found out she was interested in the medical field. She said she liked to help people. But the more we talked, I found out she had a lot of interests. I think "medical field" was something she was familiar with and sounded like a good field to enter, but it was more of a default career than something she knows for sure.

As I started asking more questions, I found out that she was thinking about physical therapy. What a perfect opportunity! I mentioned before that I had been taking different kids with me to my physical therapy appointments. So, I asked Jasmine if she'd like to go.

I didn't see Jasmine again until the appointment. She arrived at our meeting spot 30 minutes early. (the dedication of teenagers should really be noted more often!) Very characteristic of Jasmine, she was quiet on the way there...answering questions as I asked and trying to make polite conversation in return. I told her a little about what it would be like at physical therapy and encouraged her to ask them questions.

I can't quite tell what she's thinking because she's so quiet. As I did my exercises, I asked the therapy technicians some questions I knew Jasmine might be interested in. One lady there took a particular interest in Jasmine's ambitions and started giving her advice about P.T. schools.

At the very end, I noticed some sparks and new understandings. She had mentioned to me that physical therapy wasn't what she thought it was (ahhh! And that would be the whole purpose in exposing kids to a variety of options!). She had started asking different staff questions that helped her process her new knowledge.

At one point, she overheard them mention that my usual days are Monday and Thursday. She turned to me and asked, "You come again on Monday?" and somewhat shyly asked, "Are you going to invite me back?" ...to which I whole-heartedly agreed.

"There's so much I want to do," she explained to me on the way home.

I'm so glad that we have Teen U, the University of Texas-Dallas interns, and Digital Connectors to help the teenagers discover all of their possibilities and make educated decisions about what they want to do. I love thinking how great our future will be because of students like Jasmine.

Nurturing youth to create their own "Flow"

The after-school programs touted as "successful" are often the ones who claim to create leaps and bounds in academic achievement and have figured out a way to prove their claims. I, too, have always thought our After-School Academy students' scores increase as a result of being in our programs, but instead of emulating schools to achieve this, I tend to strive toward creating programming that involves a lot of learning, without all of the drilling on individual skills that seems to be typical of a lot of schools these days.

Over the last few years, I've decided that we are much more like a parent than a school. But the other thing I've decided is that parents are educators in a much more meaningful way, oftentimes, than the schools. As a parent, you can teach your child math skills by opening a checking account. You teach them the value of nutrition, budgeting money, math skills, and the importance of following instructions by cooking with them. You can teach good sportsmanship, taking turns, math and reading skills, and so much more by playing board games with them. Life has so many practical lessons. Maybe that's why home schooling has become so popular with some parents.

So, when Terrence told me about the middle school boys who have now captured his heart, I was reminded all over again.

Evidently, these middle school boys have wreaked havoc in the past. They were throwing rocks at the windows in Teen U when Terrence first caught them. After using a bit of reverse psychology on them, the boys continued to return to the Teen U on a regular basis. They would usually hang out there long enough to create trouble and get kicked out for the day. However, Terrence noticed their obvious interest and began to capitalize on that. Last week, he created a special program for them on Saturday mornings and told them to show up at 10:00 a.m. Nine showed up on time and ready to find out about their new opportunities.

As Terrence explained to me how he connected with the boys--encouraging some, dismissing two (with the knowledge that they could return next week *if* they followed the rules), and letting a latecomer know he had to get up earlier if he wanted to be a part of something cool--I thought about parenting again.

Kids want to be a part of something. They want people to expect things of them. And they want their brain to be stimulated.

We all need to be stimulated. We need to have things that interest us so much that we lose track of time while doing them. We need to have a purpose so that the things we do have meaning. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi addresses this in his book, Flow. He poses that how parents interact with a child has a lasting effect on the kind of person that child becomes.

To help them create their own "flow," he suggests kids need:

• Clarity--knowing what is expected of them
• Centering--a perception that parents are interested in what they are currently doing, their thoughts, and their feelings
• Choice--possibilities and options...including breaking rules and knowing they face consequences for their actions
• Commitment--trust that allows the child to get involved in and interested in something unselfconsciously
• Challenge--dedication to provide increasingly complex opportunities

The Education programs provide that...sometimes to augment what parents are already doing...other times to step in where parents can't, don't, or don't know how.

More and more, I hope that we see our students grow...not just to become college graduates or "successful" business people, but to be people who know their purpose and have a intrinsic ambition to work toward their goals.

Those who have a "why" to live, can bear with almost any "how." Friedrich Nietzsche

Preparing kids for the future

This is why our education department is doing everything we can to prepare our kids and teens to be knowledgeable in technology:



They don't deserve to be left behind.

The purpose of a life...

Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite holiday. There is no gift-buying that adds to the stress of other holidays...just family getting together and doing what they do best--some cook, some clean, some take pictures...

I have so much to be thankful for.

Thankful was the word that came to mind when I watched this TED video:



I listened to Emmanuel Jal talk about his willingness to die for education...not for himself, but for the other children in the Sudan. He writes, he speaks, he performs...he only eats one meal a day...so that he can raise money to build a school for the children in his home country.

Emmanuel Jal credits Emma McCune for saving him. It is because of her that he is able to save other people's lives.

We need dedicated people...no matter what their dedication is to.

I am thankful that we have people like Emmanuel Jal who believe in education so much that they have dedicated their lives to ensure children have access. I am thankful for people like Emma McCune who believe so much in saving child soldiers that they dedicate their lives to the effort and, as a result, people like Emmanuel Jal and his vision becomes possible.

We all have those people in our lives. People who inspire us. People who save us from ourselves. People who are so devoted that we can't help but be devoted as well.

Thank you to all of those people.

Learning from Precious

Have you seen the movie Precious? If not, it's a must-see. But not just for a night out. Precious exists to pique our conscious. Read the book as well. The movie stays pretty true to the book, but the book provides even more insight.

I wanted to watch the movie because several years ago one of the teenagers were sitting in my apartment. We were having some kind of serious discussion and one of them mentioned that she had been sexually molested by her mother's boyfriend. One by one, the other girls spoke up...“Me, too…me, too…me, too…”

I had no idea what to do. We worked to try to get the most recent one to counseling but her grandmother resisted and her mother denied it had ever happened.

More recently one of them text'd me to let me know she was ok, but she had just tried to commit suicide. I couldn't believe it. She's in college and she had just told me how well she was doing! She explained that she had repressed her memories, but knew she needed to know. When her sister told her what all had happened, she couldn't take the reality. The residual of what happened when she was four or five years old still haunts her.

Just the other day when I was telling another young adult about my idea to have one of the girls I know speak about their situation in hopes of helping another young teenager speak out, she explained that she had also been sexually abused. She went on to tell me she knew of quite a few others who had been victims as well.

Why????????

I don’t understand! Where do these sick, sick men come from?? And why can’t we stop them??

I had heard one time that 75% of women…or maybe it was 75% of African-American women had been sexually abused. 75%! That’s 3 out of 4 women! And I would guess most times that abuser is never brought to justice because the women were too scared and unsure to tell when they were kids and by the time they became adults they felt like there was nothing that could be done. I've heard mothers say, "It happened to me and I'm fine so you will be, too." ...and they don't realize how it has manifested itself in so many other ways in their life.

As I read the book, I've been bothered even more. Precious didn’t know how to read until she was 16 and was, by chance, put into an alternative program. She thinks so little of herself because her mother always called her stupid and ugly. She was fat because of her mother's abusiveness toward her. She was raped not only by her own father, but she was also molested by her own mother.

I think about other kids I’ve known. I wonder what I *don't* know about their situations.

I think about a girl I knew who was sexually abused by her mother's boyfriend for so long. I wonder about her sister. I wonder if that's why she was always a slow learner. I wonder what a pre-GED program and literacy program could have and could still do for her today.

I’m so happy that we finally have teen programs at Central Dallas. I’m happy that we have young adults working with the teenagers who have been in their shoes. They know what the teens have gone through and they can relate to them in ways I never could.

But I am not satisfied.

We have to do more.

I have known so many adults who graduated from high school who are illiterate. After watching Precious, I wonder now if some of their childhood situations may have contributed in a much bigger way than we realize.

We are doing what we can, on a small scale, with the elementary kids and the teenagers. But we need a program that works on literacy. We need a pre-GED program. We need counselors--not the school referrals that send kids to counseling but only allow them three visits...not the school counselors (because they only administer tests and aren't real counselors anymore) ...and not the fly-by-night counseling services that come through the inner-city neighborhoods to make a buck, take on clients for a limit time until their funding runs out, and without even having the counseling ethics to tell a parent or client that they will be leaving, they disappear.

We need more programs like the ASA, Teen U, the Library, and Digital Connectors. Programs that exist for the long haul. Programs that don’t disappear. Programs that have such dedicated staff who care about the future of the kids and adults in the community. Programs that offer solutions instead of just pointing out the problems.

We’ve got to do more. Not just in Dallas, but everywhere.

I don’t know what that is just yet. I haven't figured out what we will start next. But I know we’ve got to do more.

Teen U: Helping teens realize their dreams

One of my biggest pet peeves these days is listening to adults talking about inner-city youth say, "We've got to teach these kids to value education."

Newsflash: Kids value education. They simply don't have the opportunities to get a good education from many of our schools...and they don't know what to do to progress past high school.

Note to adults: Stop trying to teach them to value education and, instead, start providing them with opportunities.

Case in point:

This past Saturday I woke up at 4:00 a.m. so I could drive the van for Teen University's college trip to Prairie View A & M. When I arrived at 5:05 a.m., I only saw one teenager walking toward Teen U. I admit, I was disappointed.

However, my disappointment was completely unwarranted.

As Terrence (Teen U Coordinator) finished up inside the building and walked out, seven teenagers followed right behind him. He told me later that they were at the door waiting for him when he arrived at 5:00 and were trying to tell him he was the one who was late!

The entire trip impressed me! As we went into our first session, the teens introduced themselves to the PVAMU financial aid speakers just as they had been taught at Teen U. As they took the campus tour, the teens stayed right on the heels of the tour guides listening to everything said.

Realities we need to recognize:

One girl in the group was a senior. She only recently got involved with Teen U, but it was very obvious she was serious about being on the trip.

After our first session with financial aid, she began talking to me out of the blue. "I've got a lot of questions, but I don't even know how to ask them," she confided. She mentioned her concern that she wouldn't be able to start college next year. She explained how she would be the first in her family to go to college. She wanted to make sure if she didn't go to college right out of high school we would still help her.

As we drove home, she and I talked about careers and college possibilities. Though she said she wanted to go into the medical field, in talking to her I found she had a lot of interests and wasn't aware of all of the possibilities available to her. She hadn't ever visited colleges beyond the community colleges in Dallas.

Why Teen U exists:

In working with kids and teens over the years, over and over I hear the same thing. Teenagers want to go to college, but don't know how. Teenagers want to be "successful" but have no idea of the possibilities of careers that are open to them.

Props to the staff:

For the first time in my career, I did not play a role in the planning or decision making. All I did was agree to drive. I'm so glad I did. It's obvious that the teens are absolutely amazing because of the staff at Teen U. The Teen U staff and interns are passionate about ensuring the teens have the information and knowledge to make a smooth transition into college.

Teen U has only been in operation for two months and already has a solid group of about 10 students plus about 20 others who show up once or twice a week. As more teens find out, I know Teen U will continue to grow.

Teens know to value education. It's our job to provide them with the opportunity to realize their dreams.

What's in your community?

I forget how easy it is to do a good deed. And I forget how meaningful those good deeds can be.

Last night we had our monthly Parent Academy. Soup and sandwiches are provided through an organization that comes each week. We try to over-estimate our numbers so that we are sure to have food for everyone. Last night we had an over-abundance of leftovers. Mostly soup and bananas.

By about 8:30 when the meeting was over, I was ready to go home. Though I *hate* to waste food, I was about resigned to throwing the soup in the trash when Tameshia wondered aloud if there would be any homeless shelter open to take it to.

Duh! Why didn't I think of that?!

Before I moved to Dallas, I was very involved with the homeless. I worked at a cafe breakfast program designed for formerly homeless addicts in Chicago and then worked at a homeless shelter in Boston. As I walked and caught the bus to work, I made friends with the homeless men asking for change or selling newspapers. I always enjoyed what I learned from them.

One of the guys in Boston, who stationed himself right outside of Mass General hospital, informed me that people would walk right past him without ever even looking at him until one of the doctors (who had become a friend of his) would stop and talk to him. He told me people would literally go around the corner then turn around and come back to give him money if the doctor was standing by him.

So, when Tameshia suggested that, I thought of the places I know. I thought of the Dallas International Street Church because of a friend who volunteers there and because of some minor involvement I've had there.

So, we headed that direction. I called my friend, Karen, to make sure it would be ok to take food that late at night. She assured me it would and told me who to connect with once there.

Just as she said, church services were in progress. Several men were sitting around out front, while others were walking in and out of a building beside the church. It was dark and the street where the church is located is not necessarily the best neighborhood to be in.

It's interesting to me how darkness and run-down buildings can make everything seem so scary. Because the man I approached had absolutely no threatening factor about him. As I asked my questions, he immediately guided me in the right direction, sending me to another man by an open door. As he saw the man we needed to speak to, he called out to him. Barry and a young teenage boy came over to the car to pick up the soup.

Each gentleman thanked us in a very gracious way that wasn't over-done or under-appreciated. They took the soup and bananas and returned to the building.

I am reminded how much perfectly good food goes to waste when people right down the street are hungry. And tonight I was reminded of how easy it is to do good if I simply get outside of my every day routine and think outside of that box.