Serve - the Junior Youth Edition

byturns:

I guess you could say he was an unlikely candidate to be a hero. But there he was. He was my student in an alternative middle school education program, a dead-end program. These were kids that had exhausted every other public school option and if they failed here it was detention or a therapeutic placement. At the time I was splitting my time between teaching there in the mornings and teaching at juvie after lunch. Indeed, some of my morning students became my afternoon students - somehow managing to get picked up over lunch.

Jonathon, I’ll call him, had an integrity I’ve rarely seen in adults let alone kids in an alternative placement setting. He had trouble reading, doing math, could barely write. But he knew right from wrong…intensely. When one of his fellow classmates started repping the Gangster Disciples in class he punched his lights out one day after school, standing over him shouting, “NOT IN MY SCHOOL.” The Disciples were never repped again despite the considerable presence they had in the neighborhood. Once when I gave out some candy as a small reward for a job well done he said, “No thank you, Mr. Allmart.” I asked him why. He said, “Candy’s like a drug and drugs don’t make me. I don’t drink and I don’t smoke weed.” When I looked at him surprised - this was a middle school where some students had already been smoking for years and bragged about how drunk they got over the weekend, brags which I had no doubt were true - he said, “It don’t help me grow.” While I’ve never had a drink or smoked weed (I’m all about candy however) I don’t think I’ve ever had that presence and knowledge of self and mind about it.

One day I offered him a ride home since he missed the bus. He looked at me skeptically and said, “You afraid to come to my neighborhood, Mr. Allmart?” Until he said that I hadn’t been, but I answered no anyway so I guess you could say he made me a liar. I followed his directions and at the entryway to the cul-de-sac of projects where he lived he motioned me to stop. Now I think he did that for me as much as for himself. He got out of the car, looked around, then slipped his history textbook under his shirt and made sure it was invisible. He thanked me and started home. Even he had his limits.

He became one of my allies in the classroom. If another student got in my face about something he’d calm them down and say, “Ah, Mr. Allmart’s aight. Just sit down and listen man.” If you’ve ever taught you know how invaluable that kind of relationship is.

When I left the school I lost all contact with those kids. Every once in a while I’d see one around town but that was it. I don’t think he’s gotten pulled into the justice system but his academic struggles were significant enough that I worried about him.

My faith speaks of the power of young people. I’ve seen that power firsthand. In a letter from the international governing body of the Baha’i community it says that young people, young teens in particular, may come “from any one of a number of educational backgrounds with all the hope in their hearts that, through strenuous concerted effort, the world will change…In the young people of the world, then, lies a reservoir of capacity to transform society waiting to be tapped. And the release of this capacity should be regarded…as a sacred charge.” I’m certain this letter was talking about Jonathon.

Source: byturns

Serve - the Junior Youth Edition

Why We Do This

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"‎”The more we search for ourselves, the less likely we are to find ourselves; and the more we search for God, and to serve our fellow-men, the more profoundly will we become acquainted with ourselves, and the more inwardly assured. This is one of the great spiritual laws of life."

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My Hero Kicks Ass. Literally.

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