Credit: Weknowmemes.com

Is there a real way to help youth transition from jail into school?

Research shows that youths’ biggest influence is their peer group, not their parents, not their schools. How much would it actually help if schools engorged their budgets to help but after the bell rings, students continue to interact with people they did prior to their incarceration, and go home to struggle with the same environments?

Surprisingly, it seems like a lot. Very few youths commit crimes out of love for criminal livelihood. Instead, they’re often out of desperation. If schools could show alternatives and demonstrate that there are ways out past what they’ve been shown in their environments, it could touch a few more students. We know for sure current attempts to cut art, sports, and standardize education are only hindering student progress. I wonder how many students would have found a release in painting, in playing football, or even learning history or chemistry under a teacher that created lessons out of passion and not out of the State’s book.

How many would have then pursued these passions, studied them at a higher level, and made a career out of them?

School had a larger effect on me than my parents. It’s there that I learned about poetry and used it to express my emotions, there that I learned I’m not half bad at drawing, and there that I learned about the world and social issues that motivates my writing today. I wasn’t at risk as many other students but many of my friends were and found the same solace. Their poetry was often deeper, the art richer, and their contributions to class discussions better. But only when they felt like contributing was worth it. It took special teachers to cultivate a sense of self-worth in students to allow them to take the classes seriously.

I agree with my mom; schools should be contributing more to the progress and transition of students. These students are asked to be upstanding members of society without the same opportunities that molded other students around the nation.

The money in our budget is supposed to help students by standardizing the way they are taught but it fails to address the true root of the failure. Students aren’t performing badly because the curriculum is poorly done; they are failing because they face issues larger than anyone their age should cope with. Until you uplift the communities these schools serve, they will continue to serve as a catch-all for what these environments create. And that usually entails angry, poor youth who have given up hope that they will ever escape.