When you tell my students there is something beyond this neighborhood, something better, filled with white picket fences and walls that have no graffiti, you are not being inspirational. When you tell my students that with a little hard work and gumption and just the right test scores they can get a free ticket to college and earn themselves a Lexus and a two car garage instead of a car port, you aren't selling them anything they need.
Don't get me wrong. College is great. I want my students to pursue a higher education, but not so that they can get a gas-guzzling hunk of metal, but so that they can think better about life. I want them to get a career that is measured not by the number of digits attached to the dollar sign, but by how much it fits their interests and identity and sense of meaning.
You are right that there is life outside of this barrio. But there is life inside here as well. You should visit it some time. Beyond the police helicopters and the painted walls, there are quinceneras and weddings and funerals. There are pick-up games at the park and the smell of carne asada wafting through the air. There are neighbors loading up pick-up trucks, because around here you can't pay someone to move - the currency is community and there is less of a tendency to confuse belongings with belonging.
I tell my students that education gives them choices they don't otherwise have. I tell them they need to graduate from high school and go to college or a trade school because the more education they have the more opportunities they have.
I too teach in a poor area, we don't have the police helicopters overhead or gang members on our street corners. We have parents making meth in kitchen or growing weed out back. We also have great kids, just like you.
I also tell my students to get a degree and work professionally and in five or ten years bring their job back home and help build up our community. They can have both a career and a community. I know they can because I do.
I've already begun to see the cycle of moving back into the neighborhood and it's pretty impressive. There is conflict sometimes and people are skeptical of elitism. However, when someone gets a degree and decides to work professionally in our neighborhood, the results can be impressive.
I agree that education can mean more options. It can mean empowerment. It doesn't have to mean a six-figure salary (though for some it does and there's nothing wrong with that, either)
i love this so much. more people need to be screaming this kind of thing from the rooftops. it's high time we realize that different isn't better or worse, it's just different.