My LTW Experience - Draft I

The routine is not the same now; I no longer get in my first self purchased vehicle (Buick) and take my 10 minute commute to work in Frankford. I can no longer arrive when I want and leave when I want. I cannot take off days I do not feel like getting up or even days when things go wrong and I do not feel well. My life has changed and it will no longer be the same.

For my entire adult life, I have only had one full-time job before working LTW Overbrook. I worked for Carson Valley, which is the sponsor organization for Frankford Freedom School. This is a reading summer enrichment program that I worked for since the age of 14. I entered as a high school intern and then became a college intern once I graduated from High school. The elders of the program notice something special about me during my tenure with this program. I was given promotion after promotion until I was the supervisor of all youth programs. Where do I go from here? Is this what I want to do with my life?

Carson Valley was a great opportunity for me, but it was not something I could do for the rest of my life. I wanted more! So I applied for a position at Overbrook, with no intentions of getting the job. I eventually got hired. It was a tough decision for me but I decided to leave my comfort zone and try to explore something new.

Overbrook has been a great wake up call for me. It gave me a chance to work with Teens on a daily basis, outside of my comfort zone. It taught me that I do not know as much as I thought I did. I am not as good as I thought I was. The students here did not get the message that I wanted them to. There still do not understand the value and importance of education. Some students do realize that they need grades to move forward. Others do not care about moving forward. Most do not truly understand education and the fact that it is any and everywhere. You have to wake up today and know more than you did yesterday (period). Coming in, I wanted to stress the importance of education so in turn, students would begin to self educate. I tried to teach them that the education we get from our inner-city Philadelphia schools, in most cases, do not effectively prepare us for life after high school. It is up to us to help get that information ourselves and disperse it to one another. For most, they never truly got this message and do not care to get new information.

Each component I brought to LTW was presented with a purpose. Some of the material was things that I was not introduced to in school. I though there were several opportunities of material presented those students did not take advantage of. DEAR Time was supposed to help improve our ability to focus with distraction. How many students actually read each Tuesday and Thursday for 15 minutes with no distractions? I presented Ethic Notions as a film. How many students came to school that day, let alone watch the film and understood what was going on? We reviewed a budget on what the cost of living is right now if you were to live by yourself. How many people followed up on the project to see what profession they could attack that would make them enough money? I can go on with several projects we did that student did not truly understand the purpose. For that, I must look at myself as well and recognize that I must change my delivery for the different audience.

Most students feel like they know what's best and that is the final word. I understand our students have issues, but our students act is if they are the only students or the fist students to attend school with issues. People have had issues since schools have had walls. That is no reason to not get an education. We use any and everything as an excuse to not learn. Students act like they're incapable of functioning without their electronics as if they are going to miss out on an event. It is sad looking at some of the students but there is still hope.

I look forward to working with the students in the summer who were not as successful as I would have liked. I plan to come with different activities and concepts that I hope will in turn get the students to understand how serious their life is right now. I care about each student in LTW. I think they do not understand that. I tried so hard to dance the line between teaching those things they will need in life and not overbearing them with work which would have forced most of them to fail. It is heartbreaking watching a movie you have seen dozens of times and you already know how the story ends. Especially when the characters in the movie cannot see what's really going on even when you tell them they're headed down the wrong path.