Rising Star

[STOIC]

No.Sorry this is not a Somali star, nonetheless still relevant. After watching this weekend the new documentary by CNN about black in America, I was impressed by this young African American Economics professor at Harvard. I was impressed by his words and research of reaching out to the young African American kids. I tried to dig his biography and I found out this excellent New York Times Piece about him….

Toward Unified theory of Black America

[Miriam1]

Inspiring, read most of it. Will finish it soon, I really liked how there was no exaggeration about his inherent intelligence and genius, but an emphasis on how hard he works.

 

ahhhh starting grad school in sept. I hope havard law school calls me :cool:

[poolwizard]

Great Story!

[LayZie G.]

Waryee Morehouse, wasn't he impressive?

 

What is freaky about your thread is I did a wiki search on Roland's background as early as yesterday afternoon after watching the CNN & Essence clip. He is a very impressive young man and I like the project he is currently involved in; allowing children to earn incentives for their academic achievement. It is indeed a success by the numbers he briefly shared, especially the group incentive. Black children love money and when you tell a young boy or girl that you will reward them for going to school, they will jump at the chance to earn some few dollars. Children don't care how you get the doe, as long as it keeps coming, they will keep taking it by doing whatever is required of them. Holla

 

I didn't appreciate Dr. Malveaux objections to Roland's vision about reaching to children by way of giving them money. She summed it up as a short term solution, when infact its a solution that can be adapted by the school system in the long term. If the government and those responsible for education were to look at the success Roland's program is having on the children from various schools and see the numbers, they have no choice but to pour the money into such programs. After all, they are spending millions of dollars into already lacking projects, so why not gear the funds into successful, proven methods of reaching to children?

 

When Roland spoke of his vision, I immediately remembered similar programs offered in some of the UK school system. When I last visted my cousins, I found out that some schools pay children an allowance weekly to attend school.

 

At that time, I thought it was impressive, it was another way to encourage children to show up at school and earn their allowance. This is just gets children to be that much closer to getting their education. A child shows up all week, gets paid. Next thing, child is wondering why Ali from math class is getting a B when he is getting D's. So he will do his best to get a C or even B and maybe an A. This makes the child more competitive. Children need to compete and the group incentive is definitely covered that ground.

 

 

If there was such incentives for our north america schools, we wouldn't have such a high drop out rate, especially from inner city schools.

[STOIC]

LG,

 

I loved how he equated his incentive based program to how the white or the affluent middle class parents reward their kids with shiny cars. His program would not be without a resistance, but at least in such a situation it makes policy makers think twice when they are funneling all those unnecessary funds to some none fruitful programs. Some may argue that this is sort of a bribe to educate our kids, but they are already in need of help. With shrewdness and skills I think his program will WOO THOSE black kids who drop out of school. Behind all the statistics of black American kids, lay a story of disappointment and frustration in the fight for a better life. Yet such fight is paled by lack of support to achieve their dreams. No community, however poor, should accept such alarming drop-out rate. I believe his program is an initiative and encouragement to all kids that they could gain something tangible by working extra hard and staying in school. The relative equanimity within our black community towards this alarming drop-out is something that needs a dare attention. In the end such an approach create an extraordinary precedent for both parents and kids to be involved. It is a bold move and somewhat controversial but I want to see how far his program will achieve.