Reflections on a neighborhood walk through North Baton Rouge

Today I was privileged to join with member of the East Baton Rouge Parish School System, the District Attorney's Office, the Sheriff's Office and a number of other groups to walk the neighborhoods of one of our North Baton Rouge Schools. The purpose of our walk was to remind parents of the fact that school starts this coming Wednesday, to ensure that their children were registered, and to provide information to help them get to school on time and prepared.

Jennie Ponder from the Truancy Office and I teamed up to walk one side of the street, and we met some of the nicest, most sincere and caring parents one can find anywhere. We also saw living conditions that were absolutely appalling. We saw well-kept lawns and small, cute houses, and we saw totally overgrown lawns and boarded up houses covered with graffiti. We saw adults drinking beer and smoking cigarettes (this was at 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning) surrounded by young kids. At one home we suddenly realized as we were talking to a mother that her young child, perhaps 18 months old, had a pack of cigarettes in one hand and was chewing on one. While the situation was quickly dealt with by the mother, when she noticed us looking at her child, it was a scary reminder of what children live with. In a number of homes kids were home alone, and we spoke through the doors to children who knew not to open the door to strangers.

I am always reminded anew, when I walk through neighborhoods and see the conditions in which some of our students live, that those who argue that teachers alone are responsible for the education of our youth somehow just don't get it. We are educated from the moment we enter this world, and the conditions of our young lives impact us every day of our lives. While we all know of children who have overcome tremendous odds to succeed, we can also recognize the incredibly strong correlations between early childhood resources and conditions and academic success. In all the homes we visited, we saw not a single book. Televisions were on, and children were present, but no books did we see. The words of Peter, Paul, and Mary come back to me…. "Oh, when will we ever learn? Oh, when will we… ever learn?" I often end a speech in the community with these words… "We will have the schools, and the community we want, when each of us wants, for other people's children, what we want and demand for our own children." It is going to take so much work, and so much caring, to short-circuit the cycles of poverty, economic and spiritual. There is no better time to start than today!