FOR CHILDREN IN POVERTY CREATIVE SKILLS MAY BE THE ONLY WAY OUT   by Doug Wallace

in Education / K-12 Education    (submitted 2010-12-22)

I have often wondered why the output of our school system is predicated upon the assumption that every child should aspire to be a teacher, university professor, engineer, or some profession that required math or science. Laudable as that goal may be, there simply aren't enough jobs for every child, and not every child wants to enter a profession that requires that specific knowledge.

Yet our public schools place a higher value on math and science than they place on those creative and gifted skills that are unique to each child. If those creative skills were on the same hierarchy as math or science, it would create a positive school environment that expanded opportunities for all children, but especially for problem children and children born into poverty.

If a child has a gifted talent for, say, dancing, or singing or training animals, just to name a few, and if the school nurtured those skills with the same degree of importance and value as math or science, imagine how that could enhance the self-worth of a child born into generational poverty.

I can't help but wonder what educators might have said to a young Cesar Milan, if he had told them that he believed he had a special talent with dogs, and that his creative skill would make him a well-known celebrity and a wealthy person. The public school system wouldn't give Cesar Milan credit for that skill, but the Job Corps would. I know, because I joined the Job Corps as a high school dropout in 1967.

It didn't dawn on me that my business and personal growth were dependent upon the lessons learned from my background in poverty until about age 23.

Dealing with problem children often means having to understand what is bothering the child in the first place. A child in poverty doesn't have the same support resources as a child born into the middle class. They learn coping skills that are unique to their specific environment, and while the value of those skills may not fit neatly into the school curriculum, it doesn't mean those skills are not worthy of recognition.

In my case I had to learn how to survive in a diversified neighborhood comprised of children born into impoverished families. My personality, planning abilities and acquired coping skills were critical to survival in those violent neighborhoods. As I learned in the Job Corps, it happens that these same skills are also necessary for managing people. I didn't get an "A" for my survival skills in public school, but when I opened my own business at the age of twenty-six, those skills helped me start a company from scratch and create a multi-million dollars enterprise that became the largest in the industry.

As is true with many poverty victims, I grew up in the constant presence of violence, particularly fistfights or worse, knife fights. For all my childhood years, family and friends were talking about the violence in our lives, and they were either engaged in it, or observing it, but there was no mistaking the fact that they would eventually get caught up into it.

At age eighteen, I had to make a choice. I could continue fighting, with all the negative outcomes, or I could choose to channel all that energy and acquired coping skills into something positive. It was a difficult challenge for me, and it took many years, but I eventually learned how to use the creative talent acquired over a lifetime of poverty, to acquire wealth beyond my dreams. Imagine the possibilities if the public schools could honor creative skills on the same level as math and science.

As with most young people in my neighborhood, personal security was a major concern, a driving force for everything I did. I needed to know that my future would not resemble the past; in fact, the past terrified me. Planning for the future meant delaying gratification to an uncertain date. At the same time, I could see first-hand how taking immediate satisfaction was destroying the lives of others around me. It seems to me that the public school system could play a major role in helping these children channel those acquired survival skills in a positive way. Instead, impoverished children must deal with put-downs by classmates, the embarrassment of the deprivations and isolation of poverty, and the lack of a support system to help them adapt to a classroom environment--an environment completely different from anything they have ever known.

About the Author

Doug Wallace’s memoir, Everything Will Be All Right is about the riveting journey of a child desperately seeking to escape the stranglehold of poverty that had enchained his family for generations. Winner of the Indie Bound Next List Notable Award in the best non-fiction category.