An All Boys Book Club!

I'm starting one! Doggone it if I read one more article about the plight of the African-American community being in downward spiral to extinction, I'm going to lose my mind! I've decided to stop complaining so much about the schools and my sons teachers and do something about it. I was clicking around this past week on a website called http://www.educateordie.com/ and it was definitely a wake up call for me. The articles on that website didn't pull any punches. Basically if we don't wake up and start taking responsibility for our children, our family and our communities we are going to be a thing of the past, a relic a part of history, much like the civil rights movement of the 60's. As the website's owner puts it...Educate or Die. No beating around the bush. That's it. Those are our only two choices.

With that in mind, I thought a lot about what I could do. The statistics are alarming and it got me to thinking about what I could do, to help our children and our community. My son and I are already a statistic in at least two catagories: I'm part of the 70% of women who are raising children without the father in the home; and he's part of 50% of the children in the African-American community whose parents never married. I'm determined to not let him be a part of any of the other alarming statistics. Statistics like homicide being the leading cause of death for African Americans ages 10 to 24, 87% of homicide victims betweeen the ages of 18-24 were African American males. 58% of black boys do not graduate from high school in the United States.

Those statistics are dismal, and it seems as though the outlook is bleek for our community. But I refuse to believe that and I refuse to give up on our community and our children. But what can we do you might ask. Well there's plenty we can do, but we must do it, and we must do it now. We are out of time. We cannot afford to lose another generation.

My son is not the best student in the world. To put it mildly, he could try much harder in school, and all year long I stay on him, and make sure he does what he needs to do to pass. But that's not enough. It's time for me to stop thinking the educational system is going to educate our children adequately. It's not going to happen. They don't know anything about our children, and I don't think if they did they would care enough about them to make a difference. So we have to make a difference ourselves. Yes, in the midst of working fulltime jobs, worrying about bills, keeping food on the table, keeping a roof over our heads, worrying about elderly parents, etc. With all that, we have to step up our games and start doing something about our children. And not just our own children, but our neighbors children as well. That's the only way to effect change.

What I propose is a small thing right now, but something I think needs to be at the foundation of any real learning our children receive...it's simple, but huge...it's reading. It's reading to comprehend, it's reading to understand, it's reading to form opinions, it's reading to broaden horizons, it's reading to write a coherent sentence, it's reading to do a book report, it's reading to do a thesis. It's readin to prepare for STEMM, as Philip Jackson of Educate or Die puts it. STEMM - Science, Technology, Engineering, Math and Medicine. It we are to survive, it will be because we understand and master "STEMM". We must teach Black children accordingly, according to Philip Jackson.

An all boys book club - It's small, but it's a start. I'm taking the education of my son into my own hands at this point. I'll keep you all posted on how it's going.