American Voice

Now per the recent poll that I posted, I am showing that 75% of you believe that education is one main reason that would most likely help our inner city youth to succeed. 25% believe that parenting is the key.


So, let's begin with parenting. It is true that any child needs the love and attention that only a parent can give. When there is no parenting or supervision, the results can be catastrophic. Teenage pregnancies, contracting STD's, hanging with the wrong crowd, drug dealing, drug using, robbing, fighting, gangs, murder...the list goes on.


There are any amount of situations or predicaments that a child may find themselves placed into, if someone is not there to tell them, "That's not a good idea," or "Why don't you try this instead?" Any type of advise that can be given a child would certainly help them avoid drastic and tragic situations.


However, what if a child does not have the proper parenting? What happens to that child then? What if that child's parent didn't have proper parenting as they were growing up and had their child as a young teenager? These are a lot of "what if's" but these are very real scenarios.


Let's paint this picture. A mother has a child as a teenager. She knows who the baby's father is, but he has never claimed the child. The mother was running in the streets before she got pregnant, while she was pregnant, so after she had her child nothing changed. The mother does what she can to feed her child including holding drugs for some of the drug dealers on her block, selling sex, and running illegal scams.


Now, this child has no real parenting, being that the mother is rarely home with the child. And when the mother is home, she doesn't give the child the proper attention that a child needs. So, the child turns to the streets. The child becomes pregnant at age 15 and, well you know the rest. The cycle repeats itself.


Let's take education, our last option. With the previous example that was used of the basically parentless household, how would we keep this child from going down the same path as her mother?


This is how. We educate the child. With the proper education, the child will be opened to new worlds beside the tumultuous world in which they live. To get this proper education, there have to be teachers put into place that will take the time and passion to teach every kid that comes through the doors of their classroom. There needs to be extra staff on hand to assist with the monitoring and mentoring of these schoolchildren. This will give the child an almost definitive chance of being successful in their life.

This has been Part II of the poll results. Part III will be posted shortly, which will include a more detailed explanation of how education can save our inner city youth.