Young bloods can't spell but they could rock you in PlayStation

At the high school I work at all teachers have to teach a literacy class. The reason is because our school's average reading grade is often below grade level. Every year when I get a new batch of students I always give a simiar spiel. I ask the students why reading is important and follow up with some practical questions regarding future success in their jobs. This is where I take a detour into my own personal experience. The next portion of my blog is written as if I were talking to my students. ...Please bear with me

Let me ask you guys a question, what is success? Is success a fancy car, name brand clothing, or owning a cell phone? These things aren't success but learning to read can help make you successful. Well, what is one thing most of us have in common? The majority of us are Latino. Did you know that we have the highest high school drop out rate? Or the highest teen pregnacy or make up 20% of the prison system? So what do we do with that? Well I have come to learn that learning to read and write is freedom. Does anyone know who Frederick Douglass is? He was a slave who become free and he wrote about what is was like to learn to read and write. I am going to be reading from his autobiography and I will be reading the word "Nigger" so I hope you are all adult enough to handle it. By the way what does the word "Nigger" mean? If you guys remember when African Americans were brought to this country as slaves they were counted by the government only as three-fifths of a person. That means for every two slaves that only counted as one and one fifths of a person. So when we look at the word "Nigger" we understand it means less than human. Please pay attention when I read out of Frederick Douglass's autobiography.

Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auldto instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read. To use his own words, further,he said, "If you give a nigger an inch, he will takean ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master--to do as he is told to do. Learning would~spoil~ the best nigger in the world. Now," said he, "if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy. These words sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering, and called into existence an entirely new train of thought. It was a new and special revelation, ex-plaining dark and mysterious things, with which my youthful understanding had struggled, but struggled in vain. I now understood what had been to me amost perplexing difficulty--to wit, the white man's power to enslave the black man. It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom.

Now I am not saying that Latinos are bad, but we have a lot working against us.

Getting an education may not solve all your problems but it is a great help and is a way for us to advance in this society.

*** If you would like to download a free copy of the Autobiography of Frederick Douglass click here