Part Five/ Interaction with Damon Preston on Tuesday 13 August 2013: The New Salem Educational Initiative in Microcosm

Concluding Comments:  Reflections on the Microcosmic Nature of My Interaction with Damon Preston and His Family on 13 August 2013

What was true of my interaction with Damon Preston and his family on 13 August 2013 is substantially true in every single encounter with a student and her or his family in the New Salem Educational Initiative. Each represents in microcosm the goals of the program and the features that make it possible for me to develop quality relationships, ensure high attendance and retention, and put young people who were originally floundering academically on a college preparatory track of study.

Damon’s case is particularly salient. Evelyn and Marcel had just moved to Minneapolis from Southside Chicago when they enrolled Damon in the New Salem Educational Initiative during his Grade 1 (2009-2010) academic year. Damon had been studying with me ever since that time, and this is true of all---every single one, no exceptions--- of my students. Not one of my students ever indicates any desire to discontinue, and the families parents and guardians of my students typically have younger family members lined up waiting to participate as they come of age.

This is true, as noted in Part Three, in the case of Damon’s little brother, Javon. Marcel, Evelyn, and I formed a bond almost immediately. This, too, is a key feature of the New Salem Educational Initiative. I love the parents of my students. I know the struggles born of history, both societal and familial, that they have endured. I admire them for wanting a better future for their children. And, make no mistake about it, all parents want such a future for their children. They may not have discovered a secure route, they may not themselves be well-educated enough to negotiate the public education system, they may not have the background to give their children academic assistance themselves. But to a person I always find that parents of children in North Minneapolis want the best for their children and deeply appreciate my efforts to provide a route to success.

So I have great relationships with the parents of these Northside students from challenged circumstances. They let me know when their cell phone numbers change. They notify me when they are making a residential move. They thank me profusely for showing up week after week and for the academic improvement that they witness immediately and as an ongoing matter. We hug. We laugh. At times, we cry. We feel part of the same family called Human.

The young people in the New Salem Educational Initiative know that I will never go away. Damon knows that I will follow him anywhere he moves, that I will provide him the minimal materials and the abundant knowledge that he needs to succeed, and that I will do this until he is in college and beyond. Little brother Javon has seen me week after week and has been chomping at the bit to participate. Now he is participating. One life comes to include many lives, and the future of succeeding generations becomes more promising. This is the power of love and concern and teaching that never goes away.

The academic instruction that Damon and now Javon receive is of the highest caliber. It is the product of years of study, keen intellectual pursuit, enormous curiosity about every aspect of the world, and a fervent desire to pass this knowledge on. Students such as these feel my own excitement about the world of learning. They absorb it. They manifest it. They pass it on.

So on this particular day of 13 August 2013, I drove my hail-beaten ’96 Honda to eastern St. Paul from my base in North Minneapolis, connected with the significant adults in Damon’s life, reinforced and advanced his skills in reading and math, provided an array of liberal arts academic content, maintained light-hearted banter against the backdrop of a life that has known multiple challenges, started little brother Javon on a successful academic track of his own, and left all concerned with no doubt whatsoever that I would return again, week after week, month after month, year after year.

My efforts in the New Salem Educational Initiative are undergirded with the programmatic features of enduring relationships, loving and empathetic communication with families, knowledge of familial circumstances and shifts in cell phone numbers and residence, flexibility as I track students down wherever they are on a given day, with all of this making possible our avowed mutual goal of exploring the exciting and vivifying world of knowledge toward life satisfaction and good citizenship.

All of this may be seen in motion and implementation as I interacted with Damon and his family on 13 August 2013. That interaction was composed of constituent parts in formation of a Gestaldt that is leading Damon and others toward a better life. The parts are lubricated with elbow grease, a huge dose of love, a great desire to know, and passion for the healing power of knowledge.