Part One: Another illustrative Case to Consider in Observing the Principles of the New Salem Educational Initiative in Motion

Interaction with Ezekiel Jefferson, Melinda Parks, and Family on 19 August 2013

Note:  Data privacy pseudonyms are used for all people and schools cited in this five-part series of articles.

Part One: Introductory Comments

Recently I recorded the highly notable events pertinent to my interaction with Damon Preston and family on 13 August 2013, offering both an account with actual names for those of you with strong interest and connection to the New Salem Educational Initiative; and another version using data privacy pseudonyms for posting on my blog.

At the beginning of that account, I emphasized that each interaction with a student enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative offers enough compelling material to fill a book, and mentioned that a number of such encounters have been recorded in my compact book, Just Another Day at the Office/ A Day in the Life of the New Salem Educational Initiative: The Remarkably Unremarkable Events of September 29, 2012.

On 19 August 2013, just a week after that interaction with Damon and his family, there occurred another exchange of word, knowledge, and emotion that struck me as bearing particularly on the essence of the program that is the New Salem Educational Initiative. In this case, the familial residence had been stable, and there were more caring adults rallying around the young person, Ezekiel Jefferson, than was and is the case for Damon Preston.

The specifics of familial circumstances differ in certain notable ways but in each case, that centered on my interaction with Damon Preston, and that centered on my experiences with Ezekiel Jefferson, those involved are battling poverty and elements of familial dysfunction, even as they demonstrate a magnificent will to endure, survive, and seek a better life for their precious off spring.

As you read this account you will note certain key features of the New Salem Educational Initiative at work in a particular case, on a given day, and against the background of many previous days. You will note the permanence of my relationships with the students and family, the multiple roles necessary in providing a panoply of functions, the willingness to transport or travel as often and far as the moment requires, the love and respect that pervades the communications that flow between all of those residing in the family and myself.

So it is that in another five-part series I give another account of interactions that seemed especially salient in illustrating the principles that undergird the Initiative: those that unfolded on 19 August 2013 with a visit to the home of Ezekiel Jefferson, and his family, including little sister Anna Parks, mom Rolanda Jefferson, and grandmother Rebecca Jefferson.

Part Two gives the background to the interaction on that day, provided by the experiences that I had been fortunate to have with Ezekiel and his family over a four-year period.