Occupy Education

"If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow"

- John Dewey

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One of the things I feel MOST strongly about is education reform. I sincerely believe that educated children lead to a brighter future and will eventually result in a prosperous nation. I like to think of myself as an education reform activist and I will be posting my adventures of occupying education on this page...stay tuned and please be inspired. =]

Follow: http://occupyedu.tumblr.com/

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“I graduated from there and I’m never going back”
I never understood why we’re so quick to mentally throw away our high school…I mean, I do but don’t agree with it.
If you know me, you know I founded “The Circle” , a female empowerment club, at my school (my junior year) with the help of my friends and teachers. I started the club because I was surrounded with females becoming pregnant and I saw friendships ruined over males (amongst other issues threatening our black women). Instead of talking about the situation privately, I wanted to come up with the solution…so I did.
I’m so happy “The Circle” still has a presence at my high school even after I graduated. Amante was founded after “The Circle” and it’s a male empowerment club. These two clubs got together to arrange an assembly that let students ask alumni questions regarding life after Wise High School. There were more than 20 alumni present and it was a pretty successful event because there were more questions than we had time to even get to. While I hate talking on microphones, I spoke my piece. =]
Afterwards there was a mixer where the students could personally come up to the alumni and I got questions such as “How is it going to college in NYC?, I want to go to NYU”, “I just have to be in NYC but my mom is against, how did you deal with your parents?”, “Would you recommend going into the city for college?” etc. It was so surreal talking to students that were dealing with the SAME EXACT issues I was dealing with when battling with the decision to move to NYC, but I answered the questions the best way I knew how and we all exchanged numbers.
But after the mixer, Mr. Blake (the best assistant principle known to the USA =]) asked me and a few friends to stay a little later and talk to the 9th graders during their classes. We spoke to about 4 classes collectively and the main point that we tried to get across was “YOUR GPA IS MONEY”, that “Scholarships are the way to go….period”, and “Focus is extremely important”. We let the 9th grade students know that Wise is a great school and there are a plethora of resources, you just have to be willing to push yourself and make good use of them.
Although it seemed like about 5 students (out of the classes I spoke to) were actually interested, that’s all I needed. I will be visiting my high school again and attending Circle meetings. As I grow older I’m starting to understand the true gifts in giving back to your community, it’s extremely important…also, it feels good.
Challenge yourself to give back in any way you can.
Xo

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