Academic Success under Circumstances of Extreme Poverty: The Continuing Triumph of Damon Preston in the New Salem Educational Initiative

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With the exception of the appellations used for my son Ryan Davison-Reed and mate Barbara Reed, the names used in this article are data privacy pseudonyms---  my practice always for participants in the New Salem Educational Initiative who gain reference in articles posted on this blog.


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The drama and ongoing triumph continue apace in the familial case of Damon Preston, the economically most impoverished student whom I have taught in my forty-five years of working with and teaching the poorest of the urban poor.


The essence of what happened in the course of the rambunctious months of August 2015 to the present time is as follows: Damon was a Grade 7 student at Washington Magnet School in St. Paul during academic year 2015-2016--- his second year at the school. Remember that I followed Damon through three residences in Minneapolis before mother Evelyn Patterson moved the family to the eastern edge of St. Paul when she located cheaper Section 8 housing at that location. When I had the time, I brought Damon back to New Salem Missionary Baptist Church in North Minneapolis for our academic sessions, but for the sake of time I sometimes worked with Damon, and typically did so with half-brother Javon, in the hallway outside their apartment, which was too spare of furniture and devoid of lighting to do our academic work inside.


Damon had his ups and downs during the school year.  He struggled with a science teacher who seemed to lose track of assignments and whose determination of grades was erratic and mercurial. But Damon’s grades in mathematics were consistently excellent, and his marks were good over all; furthermore, happily, by the end of academic year 2015-2016 he had pulled his science grade up to a “B” and attained an overall 3.4 GPA.


Javon, whom I have known since he came into the world and whose academic talent I had carefully nurtured in kindergarten, in Grade 1 performed at levels in both math and reading typically associated with the fully achieving Grade 3 student. Javon is truly precocious. But circumstances at home have led to behavioral struggles, both in class and on the bus, so this became one kind of metaphorical fire that I was continually putting out.


Home life was rough and got rougher as academic year 2015-2016 moved forward. Evelyn struggled mightily against worsening domestic conditions. Her significant other Marcel Gifford was less frequently employed than had been the case in some years. A talented cook whose culinary inspirations can rise to professional chef quality, Marcel has had difficulty meeting the demands of the workaday world and at best in recent months has had seasonal employment for athletic events and concerts at Xcel Center. Hitting his 40th birthday under the limited achievement scenario of his life hit hammer-hard at Marcel’s psyche. He took his life frustrations out physically on Evelyn and Damon (not on Javon, who kept his distance and suffered mentally rather than bodily).


As Evelyn confronted reality and talked ever more persistently of splitting, Marcel ramped up his outbursts of anger. He began to think nostalgically about his life as a gangbanger in Chicago, saying that by now he could have been a “general” had he stuck to his formal affiliation. As Marcel observed Evelyn exploring options for moving the family again, he said that he was just going to give up any attempt at a conventionally successful life, that he was just going to let himself go crazy, and that perhaps a return to the South Chicago ‘hood was the most appealing option. Many times I got calls from Evelyn appealing for my mediation.


In time, Damon started emulating Marcel’s behavior and became obstinate with his mom, even exerting low-level violence. At one point, after I had talked Damon into a better frame of consciousness and sought to ease his way back into Evelyn’s good graces, the latter accused me of thinking that Damon was an angel and that she was a no-good mother. At one cliff-edge juncture, Evelyn told me that she didn’t want me to tutor her or the boys any more.


Damon’s behavior and this attitudinal outburst from Evelyn (who had always been effusive in her gratitude toward me) were startling new developments. With great care and patience, I counseled Evelyn that my love for her family was eternal and equal from one family member to the other, that my love was unconditional, that we would find a way through the family’s struggles. Evelyn responded positively, apologizing and saying that she had been crazy with stress and that she had been erratic in taking her medications.


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Things got better: Damon and Javon found in me a sanctuary from the storm. I got them up and over to New Salem at least once and sometimes twice a week. With Javon, I joked in my usual way with the young ones, and with him in particular, issuing a steady stream of malapropisms, telling him, “You did a good snob” (“job, man--- JOB --- he would reply) and perpetually mispronouncing his name as “Mayvius” so that he could giggle and correct me, the teacher and the adult.


Evelyn located an apartment in a duplex on a quiet street in Coon Rapids. She and the boys will stay at this residence essentially rent-free: The abode is of a kind granted to enrollees in a program for people with significant disabilities (Evelyn, who has various allergies, high blood pressure, and other physical maladies; who suffers from a mild but at times daunting form of agoraphobia, from stress levels well above the norm, and from other psychological conditions; only recently confided in me that she has also been HIV positive and taken pertinent medications for a decade).


Evelyn went online and came up with job possibilities for Marcel and urged him to move in with a friend of his near the eastside St. Paul apartment. The split was looming, but Evelyn was exuding great love and concern for her partner of nine years.


Evelyn and the boys all took roles in my compressed version of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar that we rehearsed for the banquet. Evelyn was one of the fickle citizens who is first on the side of Brutus and then aligns with the camp of Antony. Damon took the major role of Brutus and knocked it out of the park at the Annual New Salem Educational Initiative Banquet in early June 2016; Javon played Strato, the attendant who holds the sword upon which Brutus runs when the battle seems lost.


Damon also gave a speech delivered by Frederick Douglas in 1882, in the context of the disappointing decline of the immediate post-slavery era known as Reconstruction. He and I had worked on that one and studied the historical context for two academic years. Damon was so proud to give eloquent evidence of all that preparation.


At the banquet, I gave Damon the most prestigious, Student of the Year award--- richly deserved for being the most frequent student guest on my television show, for reading (at only Grade 7) two chapters (Economics and Psychology) of my new 14-chapter college preparatory Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education, and for the dedicated preparation that led to roles as Brutus and Frederick Douglas.


I gave Evelyn the Caring and Loving Mother award and Javon the Precocious Young Student award.


In order for them to attend the banquet, for the third year in a row, I paid bus fare for Damon, Evelyn, and Javon; I also gave fare for Marcel, but he did not attend.


I gave this particularly economically challenged family all of the leftover food from the banquet (that I catered myself)--- two kinds of chicken, spaghetti, lasagna, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, and salad. They had no money and the cupboard was bare when they arrived at the banquet, but they left in spirits welled with pride and stomachs that would not do any hunger-howling for at least two weeks.


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During the summer of 2016, Damon traveled with me and two other students for our annual foray to Winona for the Great River Shakespeare Festival, this year to see that super-talented ensemble’s production of Julius Caesar. Damon smiled as if from ocean to ocean when I nudged him and told him to observe if the professional actor who performed the Brutus part was as good as he. I know Artistic Director Doug Scholz-Carlson and introduced him and some members of the cast to Davon and the others, who then went to my home (son Ryan Davison-Reed [who was a regular for such occasions during his years in Minnesota] lives in Burlington, Vermont, with an inclination toward Montreal, Quebec, Canada; but wife Barbara Reed was in attendance) for a Chinese meal of my preparation.


In the meantime, Evelyn had not had anywhere close to the $200 needed to make the move to Coon Rapids, so I moved the familial belongings in two trips via my Toyota Matrix, gratis, naturally, as with all of my responses of both personal and academic sort.


I just checked in yesterday (as I write this on 1 September 2016) with the family. Evelyn and the boys are doing well in their new home in Coon Rapids. Damon and Evelyn are getting along amicably. Damon, ever the old soul and mature in many ways beyond his years, is working hard to be respectful and helpful to his mom. Javon is not acting out with his former frequency. Marcel comes around every so often and has been a source of irritation--- but will soon be working as a cook in a mid-range quality restaurant and is looking for greater stability--- far away from Southside Chicago.


Evelyn and I talked a long while. I complimented her for how neatly she is keeping the new place, which is much better appointed than the apartment in eastern St. Paul (her key social worker in the program in which she is enrolled helped her secure some quite decent furniture and lighting for the new residence). I told her that she looked good (she had dropped a few of the many extra pounds that she carries for her average frame and height) and seemed in fine spirits.


She said, “Thank you, Mr. Gary [Note: I always encourage students and family members to call me ‘Gary,’ but often the ‘Mr.’ is appended in observance of a cultural custom of respect for elders]. And thank you for all that you have done. Thank you for not turning away when I said all that crazy stuff. My boys and I just would not be where we are now without your help.”


I just replied: “It’s all been my pleasure, and your efforts to gain your current situation are all that I need for thanks. I love you and the boys and will always be here for you, whatever you need.”


Evelyn's eyes teared up behind an expression of relief and joy. I hugged her, Damon, and Javon and then departed with a share in that joy.


Evelyn, Damon, and Javon are looking forward to the coming academic year, during which they will continue their pathways to futures that will hold better fortune for Evelyn and for the boys can be descriptive of lives generally attained most readily by children of upper middle class parentage.


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The above account of student success amidst circumstances of extreme poverty and familial malfunction is of the kind common in my network of 125 students and family members in the New Salem Educational Initiative.


The principles in action via the New Salem Educational Initiative impel my efforts to overhaul the delivery of K-12 education at the level of the locally centralized school district with the Minneapolis Public Schools as focus.


If officials at that school district were to streamline the public school bureaucracy for full focus on the delivery of a knowledge-rich education to students of all demographic descriptors, all of our precious children would have maximal opportunity for lives of cultural enrichment, civic engagement, and professional satisfaction.


I am intent on impelling the transformation that will produce this outcome.