Right, and then you ask them what they are reading. Sometimes they are
reading stuff that they say you can't read.
[Laughter] I'd say, "I'm married and have children and you
say you're reading something I can't read?" They'd say yes.
[Laughter] So, that starts them, you walk in
and put a statement on the board, math, science, it doesn't matter, just
put something on the board. They look at it for a while, then they look
at you and then they look at it again. You leave it for five minutes.
They will think and talk and look at the logic of that one sentence. Or
you write it up, tell them to write it down and then go on with whatever
else you were doing-it doesn't matter the course, P.E. or anything,
because you are generating a curiosity about words. No matter what you
know, you have to put it into words, even if it's on a computer. If you
are a math whiz, you still have symbols that you must put on paper, and
they need to know that. So, I'm excited about kids learning and with our
system discussing a new program for kids who are serious discipline
problems. Someone asked whether it will be boot camp and will we just
tire them out. I said there is one other component you will need, and
that is a rigorous academic
Page 46program. If he goes out
and runs around the track, then comes back and you slap him with one
page of My Dungeon Shook with James Baldwin, and you demand that they
read it and talk to you about it. Then you pull one page or one
paragraph from Malcolm X saying I was not literate I wanted to write
this letter but could not, what was he talking about here? Where was he
when he died in relation to where he was then? You pull a page from
Edgar Allen Poe that has all this dreary, cold stuff and you read it
'the heart thumping under the floor and you are hearing a heart that's
not beating', what's going on there? They have to come up with answers
and you get them engaged. Then you do not hurt them by asking for in an
English classroom, you must learn standard English. It's not going to
hurt anybody, let them speak their own language. Well, their own
language is not going to get them some places that they might want to
go, they are not going to forget that. See I'm bidialectal, I can go to
Marion, Alabama and say "Hi dere y'all" and "Hi Cousin so-and-so" and
[other examples of country dialect]; I can do all of that with ease. I'm
not going to forget that because that is part of who and what I am. I
also learned from teachers and from courses standard English, the
language of the marketplace. Not good English, but standard English.
That will put you in good stead in certain situations, and you need to
know that. You can't play football if you don't know the rules of the
game, and so that's how you use what it is that they have. You also ask
kids what they want to do, what they want to become. You don't get there
overnight; you are on the way now. If you want to be a fashion designer
that means teachers must be on their toes. Name some fashion designers
and ask them if they know anything about them, you give them a research
project to find out about fashion design. Find out what it is they want
to do. I had to ask my grandson who just graduated from high school and
he said he wants to be a computer engineer, what is that?