Press Room

This Award is Not for Me

Speech delivered at the Jefferson Awards ceremony in 2005.

On a brutally hot and humid day in July 2003, something special happened: I met Monet. I was walking through the Belmont projects, in my only suit, carrying five foam boards while residents yelled "Narc" as I walked by. But it did not matter. I was there to see a student, I was there to recruit students to my yet to be created High School for Public Service. When I went into the apartment building, I noticed that the elevator was broken. But it did not matter. I was there to see a student. So I walked up more than a few flights of stairs and knocked on the door. A woman looked very suspiciously at me asked me what I was doing. I introduced myself and said: I was here to see a student.

And there she was, in the back of the living room reading a book. Her mom couldn't believe that one) I was a principal and two) I would come to their house to talk to their daughter, who had been rejected by at least half a dozen schools already. I said that didn't matter. I was there to see a student. And after a half hour talk about Monet's dreams and fears, about the mom's dreams and fears, they had both signed up for the High School for Public Service.

They had said it was crazy for me to walk into the projects to speak to families about my school. They had said that these kids were nothing but trouble, but I was there to see a student, not a kid. I was there to enfranchise a family. It didn't matter that they lived in the projects. Monet wanted to go to a high school, a good high school and I was going to give her one.

That summer I visited over 100 families with my suit and my foam boards, going from house to house. Sitting, talking, visiting with families that had never had a teacher let alone a principal sit in their house. But I knew that this was the way to start a school. Believe in the students, believe in the families.

People say that public education is dying. But it is not true. People say that the inner-cities of America are places without hope. But it is not true. Even in a community devastated by poverty, drugs, and violence the High School for Public Service shows that our children can overcome and persevere and give back.

That is why at the High School for Public Service, we not only focus on the academic subjects, but we also teach classes in community service and I teach a class in Ethics to all incoming 9th graders.

I know sometimes my students have bad days. Days when they come to school with black eyes. Days when they are at funerals instead of school. Days when they don't want to leave the school because of what might happen at home. But they continue, because they have a promise to keep: That the students of the High School for Public Service will not only be academically strong, but that they will be better citizens. So this year with over 5,000 hours of community service logged and a 92.3% passing rate on the Math Regents Exam, my students are fulfilling that promise. The promise of all young people: All students can be leaders, all children can be exemplary.

When I was born 28 years ago, with severe factor nine hemophilia, my parents did not know if I would make it to my first birthday. But my parents believed in me and I was able to thrive in ways that were thought impossible. And so it is with that knowledge: that the odds are irrelevant, that what people think is possible is yet a rung on a ladder to potential, that I believe in my kids.

These are the kids we see everyday, these are the kids we run away from, we talk about in muffled voices, these are the kids we read about in the police blotter. But they are my kids and I love them.

This award is not for me. This award is for Monet and Ashley and Taquiain and Clara. This award is for Mr. Wolkoff and Ms. Alleva and Ms. Boan.

The words I speak here will soon be forgotten, but the deeds of my children, the deeds of my staff, and the deeds of my chancellor who allowed for schools like mine to be created will live on for generations. Don't forget what is possible when you say to a child: I believe in you.

But there is a second step to education. As Martin Luther King said, we must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character, that is the goal of true education. Education is the magic bullet. Education is the panacea for all. But, to create better citizens we must not shy away from teaching responsibility, we must not shirk from moral leadership, we must not be afraid of drawing the line in the sand and saying to a child: What you are doing is not ok, let me teach you what is right. In my ethics class, students learn from great thinkers, from great texts. Why not teach students about Confucius, about Aristotle, about the Old Testament? Would anyone argue that there is no wisdom there?

My students see so much. I wish sometimes I could take them all away to the mountains and have a school away from the streets of Brooklyn, away from the drugs and the violence, and the abuse. But we cannot hide the world from them. We must equip them with the tools necessary to endure and prevail. We must teach students how to decide what is right and what is wrong.

How can Shaquashia defend herself against the onslaught of peer-pressure, parent-pressure, society-pressure if not with Kant or Rousseau or the teachings of John.

At times I wonder how some of my children can come to school at all. I wonder why this week with classes cancelled because of exams, we still had over half our 10th grade stay until 8 o'clock at night to study for the Regents.

Let us teach our children that education can be not only about the possible, the answer in the back of the book, the 95% on the science quiz, the 5 plus 5 is ten, but also about the impossible, the art of improving ourselves and the world.

We must resolve that education both academically and morally be our focus for generations to come. Do not let our children live in the gray twilight of studying for the sake of a grade. We must instill pride and courage, hope and sacrifice, civics, and civility.

Education is meaningless without values. It is difficult, children are difficult, but it must be our mandate, make better citizens.

Our future depends on our will. Our will to believe in our children, our will to teach right from wrong, our will to have faith when others do not.

On the door across from my office is painted, "Let us all dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and to make gentle the life of this world." We must dedicate our lives to this.

If we actively participate in education, we will not see students as them, as the other, as those kids, but as ours, and mine, and yours.

When you ask students how are they doing, look forward to them saying they are doing good rather than doing well. Let their answer not be a grammar mistake, but an axiom.

Teach them to do good. Engage in the discussion, show them that there is right and wrong. If not you, then who? As Proverbs says, Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of your hand to do it.

At 600 Kingston Avenue, our nation is at its best. My children, our children, your children --- they are our hope, they are our spirit, they are our dreams.

This award is not for me. It is for Juanna, it is for Femi, and it is for our society for believing in our children. Thank you and good night.