My job is to expose potential first-generation, low-income students to pursue a course of post-secondary education. Mostly I’m an administrator, but I have a case load of junior high students and that’s the fun part. No panic like there is with high school students, for whom college is right around the corner. The objective of my job with these junior high kids, I think, is to expose them to education and convince them that they can go—that they are smart enough, that they can find resources for money to go, and that they deserve to go.
Last week, I went to our state association conference, and the highlight, as it always is, was the TRIO Achievers luncheon. Former TRIO students are asked to speak to the group about their experiences with their particular TRIO program. One of the women this year told us these things about herself: Her parents were killed in a car accident when she was young; she and her brothers were in the car when it happened, and they lived with various relatives in not the greatest environments after that. When she was in eighth grade, she got pregnant, and she and her boyfriend married; when she was 20, they’d had two more kids and another was on the way, and at that point her husband decided that he didn’t want to be married anymore, and so she worked two jobs just to feed her kids. College was never a subject in her household, but when her daughter was in high school, they made a pact. If the daughter would go, she would go, too. She intended to just go long enough to “learn to type or something so that I could make more than minimum wage”. She now has a Master’s Degree, thanks to the Student Support Services program at Tyler Junior College.
Yesterday, I had my own TRIO achiever story, and although it was much less dramatic, it brought home to me why I get out of bed in the morning. Raul, a ninth grader at one of my junior highs, has been in our program for the past three years. I don’t think I’ve heard him say a dozen words, and he often does not participate in what we’re doing. I’ve always invited him to participate, but not pushed him; the groups of kids are comprised of smart kids, not-so-smart kids, all colors of kids, and seventh through ninth graders, so students are sometimes intimidated by others in the group. But as long as Raul shows up, I’m hoping that he’s getting something.
Yesterday we did an exercise on our vision of our lives at 25. They were told to imagine that they were 25 years old, and I wanted to know where they’d gone to school, how they were supporting themselves, where they were living, if they had a family, what kind of car they drove, what they did for fun, etc. I compared their visions to putting an address in a GPS system: you have to know where you’re going in order to get there. Then they were all invited to share their visions with the group. As usual, Raul declined to share. His paper had no notes on it. I asked him what he wanted to be when he grows up but he said he doesn’t have a clue. That’s okay. When we finished the lesson, most of the kids went back to class, but several of them hung around and we decided to walk around the building to look at some of the artwork that students had done. Out of the blue, Raul said to me, “Miss, my dad thinks that the counselor at ABC High School [of course, not the real name of the high school, but the school that Raul will attend next year] is racist.” I asked him why and he said that when his older brother had been there, the counselor had told his dad that “people like you don’t go to college”. I was flabbergasted and really had no clue how to respond. I asked if his brother had made poor grades, and he said that no, he hadn’t. I told Raul that I just thought that was a stupid (a word that wasn't allowed in my household when my boys were little, but holy cow, that was the only word I could think of that was appropriate!) thing to say and that I bet it made his dad really mad. Oh yeah, he said, it sure did. As we walked around the building and looked at the art (some of it was his, but I hadn’t known that when I suggested it), Raul kept talking to me. At one point he said, “Miss, do you have to go to college to be an airline pilot?” I wanted to throw my arms around him and say, “You go, Raul!!” He gets it. HE GETS IT. And his brother? He’s currently a student at the University of North Texas. Life is good J
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