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By Tiffany Jackson
If Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today, he would be very proud to see today’s youth talking intelligently and candidly about education and their fight to avoid becoming another statistic.
The Black Academy of Arts and Letters gave an open discussion platform for local high school students after sending them to watch the movie “The Great Debaters.” The movie is based on the real debate team during the 1930’s at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas which is told through the eyes of producer Oprah Winfrey and director Denzel Washington. Although, Melvin Tolson played by Denzel Washington pushed his students to succeed the question remains, are the teachers responsible for how much the students learn or is it the students responsibility? The answer to that question is very debatable. Now the debate begins here.
“Some of the teachers help as much as they can but you have students who are disrespectful and it throws us all off our lesson,” said Roderick Manuel of Lincoln High School.”
An educator from Molina High School attending the open discussion agreed.
“Its not that the kids are not college bound, it is just that they don’t have the drive to learn,” she said. “Teachers can not do it all. A lot of the parents are not involved nor do they have the desire to help.”
When this comment was made, it raised many eyebrows and created a crowd of students to respond.
“There are a lot of single parent homes where the parent are so busy making sure that the bills are paid and food is placed on the table that taking out any extra time is almost impossible,” said one student from Burleson, Texas. “We need the teachers to help because sometimes it is hard to get that help from home. It is not always that our parents are not concerned, they just don’t have the time.”
James Muhammad of Lincoln High School remains neutral on the teacher vs. student discussion.
“I am on the neutral side because we all have trials and tribulations that we go through,” he responded. “We have to look outside of ourselves because we have the teachers saying one thing and the parents saying another thing.”
Another student from Lincoln responded. “It’s a lack of commitment on both hands,” said the student. “My family history goes down a long line of teachers and I have seen that it takes two parties. The teachers have to have the passion to teach but we also have to have the passion to learn.”
The students at Wiley College displayed the need to commitment to learning by enduring hard practices and long studying. It led to an extensive undefeated history of debating and helped produced several great leaders. The comment of them trying to sound or act white was raised and it appeared to be controversial topic.
Carter High School student Karessa Jones said, “It’s a time and a place for everything and when you are around your friends you may talk one way but when you are around white people you may talk another way.”
Many disagreed with this comment including actress and writer, Irma P. Hall.
“There is no such thing as ‘black talk’ or ‘white talk,” she said “Language is language. You need to be grounded in Standard English then you can play around with the colloquialism.
She continued. “Encourage each other to be the best you can be.”
The debate could have gone on for hours but former executive director of the Texas Commission of Arts wrapped up the session.
“They refer to you guys as ‘Generation X’ as if you have no beginning or no foundation,” said John Paul Batiste. “I have heard footprints being expanded today and we must be fulfilled by our youth.”
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