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KNOW DUMB QUESTIONS FT Tommy Mabry: The Triumph of Second Chances and the Heroes Who Light the Way
Have you ever witnessed the transformational power of a second chance? Our latest episode features Tommie, a beacon of hope whose life story is nothing short of a rollercoaster. From being expelled from multiple schools to becoming a lauded graduate, Tommie's tale is a vibrant illustration of resilience. His journey through adversity in education serves as a reminder that with the right support, anyone can turn their life around.
Tommie's narrative delves into how identity and environment shape us, and how personal encouragement can be the catalyst to break the cycle of negativity. We discuss the crucial moments that forced him to reassess his path and how sports, mentorship, and a rekindled self-worth propelled him toward triumph. His story is an intimate look at the reality many face, and the conversation is an ode to the mentors and coaches who invest in shaping lives beyond the classroom or court.
Wrapping up, we celebrate the unsung heroes of our education system - the dedicated teachers and coaches like Mr. Tugalu, whose influence remains indelible in the hearts of their students. Each chapter of Tommy's life contributes to a mosaic of lessons on the importance of relationships, the autonomy of educators, and the weight of gratitude. This episode is a heartfelt acknowledgment of the power of persistence and the beauty of human potential, inviting you to join us in honoring those who guide us toward our dreams.
We are live Time for the main event of the evening, really excited to be back on no Dumb Questions. Last couple weeks I took the time to answer some of your questions and speak specifically about some of the concerns that people are having around raising kids and being educators, and both Tonight I'm going to jump back into having conversations with our guests. It's important that you understand that this is our conversation and to the extent possible I try to answer your questions because I think it's important, and then from time to time I get to ask my own, and so tonight I'm going to introduce to some of you others to have a conversation with the young brother who is making his way in the world. It's a great opportunity that I have to be able to communicate with cats who are on the rise, working to make an impact in our community. Tonight is no different.
Speaker 1:Each and every one of you has people who you let me say it differently. What I recognize is that when I was coming up, I didn't feel like I could connect with a lot of the folks who were doing the work that I wanted to do, because in many ways, there were none. There are very few people who were opening schools at all and so even less so who are black, and for me, I didn't have access to those folks. And, brother Tommy, I just invited you, so I'll try that again. So because of that, I get the opportunity sometimes happening, sister Peters, I get the opportunity excuse me one second to communicate with people who are on the rise, and try that again. You know, in light of a lot of what I'm seeing on the internet, the conversation we're going to have tonight is one about helping people to live their reality, to work beyond the circumstances that they have been handed. Let me see what that is. Just invited you.
Speaker 1:So, in light of what I'm seeing in a lot of you know, I'm sure some of you saw cat Williams Recently. I don't know when the interview actually took place, I just know when I saw it. Brother, I keep inviting you and you keep inviting me, and I'm not sure if you are seeing that I'm inviting you, so I'll try one more time. So, yeah, I keep inviting you, brother, and I'm gonna do it again. So I saw the. Uh, there we go, uh, oh, alright, there he is. How?
Speaker 2:you doing, brother? I'm having time in my life, bro, how you been hey man.
Speaker 1:Trying to get like you when I grow up. Yeah well, you have to take a couple steps back, so you don't want to do that. You keep going in the direction you're going. You really shyden. You come a long way, hey, man.
Speaker 2:I credit that to God. Man, I couldn't do that. I couldn't get that credit by myself.
Speaker 1:Why don't you tell us your story, talk a bit about what it is that you have experienced. That, I think, will blow people away when they see where you are. You don't look like where you come from.
Speaker 2:Hey, man, that's a good thing too, because if you would have told me like man, you look, like you come from it, I mean, I'm still within my testimony if I look like my adversity. So I'm the youngest of six. I come from Jackson, mississippi, man, one of the toughest neighborhoods in Jackson. I stayed in every neighborhood in Jackson and I come from a broken home, but my mom and dad were broken also. So my mom and dad was kids, raising kids. My mom and dad didn't. They didn't get raised by their mom and dad. My mom was 14 when she had my older brother and then she was 16 when she had my next to the oldest brother. So I'm first generation of everything and I'm the youngest, I'm the first to finish high school and finish college.
Speaker 2:So I was kicked out of 10 schools, man, seven elementary schools and three middle schools. I hated that building man. I hated school. But this is going to sound crazy to you when I said but do you know how popular I was for not being smart? When you think about, when you think about the educational system as a whole, when I say I was kicked out of 10 schools, this sounds crazy to only adults, because kids think like kids and kids act like kids. Who are the most popular kids in your building?
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, take it one step further. If you go on the internet, bishop J has about 6 million followers on IG, which is a lot, and the Pope has 9 million, which is a lot, and Meg Dostalion has 35 million and Nicki Minaj has 225 million.
Speaker 2:So I mean, you get what I'm coming from.
Speaker 1:It ain't just in our schools. Those ain't all kids.
Speaker 2:So when you think about why I was kicked out of 10 schools and why I said I was never engaged, I was popular for being the opposite. I thought it was smart to be dumb and dumb to be smart. And it wasn't just me, this was a community of us, the ones that was really like I didn't get popularity for wearing a book bag man. I didn't get like. We picked on those ones that come off to be smart. So, right off, I have a standard that I'm living up to because I'm fighting for acceptance man. That kid that come into school every day with his shirt tucked in and he's saying yes sir and no sir, he don't get the popularity that I would get. And then I didn't have consequences when I got suspended. So when I get suspended, you give me 10 days at home. I didn't want to be in your building in the first place, so you really giving me a vacation away from the place that I feel more incompetent. See, this conversation don't mean a lot, because I've been on both sides of the track. I've been a teacher before, but I've been that same kid that's walking through your halls every day. But you got to understand me from my perspective, though, in order to lead me out. You got to enter my world. You got to enter. Why I walk in that building with a defense mechanism? Why do I feel like I'm not in a safe haven? School was never a safe haven for me, man. It was fear. That's the place that I felt more incompetent.
Speaker 2:So when I was, when I said I was kicked out of 10 schools, I never wanted to be in that place. And then when I was in that place, I got more popularity for picking on kids, making the students laugh. I'm not going away from that. So I never wanted to be a scholar man, but, man, I saw a lot. I grew up fast, man. It was six of us in that house.
Speaker 2:But I was kicked out of seven elementary schools and three middle schools. I was arrested for breaking an entering my fifth grade year. So you take a young kid that comes from an environment like me and I'm 36 years old. So imagine getting a call as a parent. This was back then too. I keep saying back then, like I'm, like I'm an old guy, like I'm an old guy, I got you, I got you. You get a call and say that's your fifth grade student, your fifth grade kid just got arrested. They're going through that fingerprint process laying on that that cut taking a shower with every other person in that building, you know what that did to me.
Speaker 2:I got out in the fifth grade Like I was just a man, but that was the acceptance I was fighting for. So I was kicked out of 10 schools and all men were brought me. Acceptance was the tattoos I tattooed my whole body as a young, a young kid. I got the permanent gold teeth in my mouth when I was in middle school. I had to have surgery some years ago to get my goals removed. But you looking at that kid that you teaching every day. So I came from that environment.
Speaker 1:You talked about the acceptance that you got. What did it mean to you to get the acceptance for doing bad?
Speaker 2:The worst thing you can do to a person is make them feel less, then man, the worst thing you can do for a person is make them feel less then. So if all I'm hearing in the and we got to do a better job as a society on this because if I keep hearing about my house, meaning my environment, you know what research shows about poverty, the place where I lay my head every day, and all I'm hearing is I'm being treated like, because I'm from the hood, that I'm an animal. Now let me explain something before I get to your question. Because I grew up in the hood man, you know how many successful families that stay in the hood Ghetto, and hood is a mindset man. It's some beautiful people that live in that neighborhood, but you got your half and you had your half nuts. But if you constantly hearing, oh, he from poverty, he at risk man, I don't even like using the word at risk because I feel like everybody's at risk for something. But if you talk about my house for so long, I'm not going to have pride in that place. It's hard to set standards when I don't have values.
Speaker 2:So my self-esteem, my ego, was shaped in that neighborhood. So I'm hearing you would never do this. When you grow up You're going to be just like your dad you can't get a job with tattoos on your body, you can't do this and that. So that's all I'm hearing. That I'm, in other words, because where I come from, I'm lesbian. I didn't realize this until I got older, to realize how that affected me. But when you ask the question like what did the tattoos, what did everything bring me? The validation that I'm somebody, the attention that I'm getting from being a young kid with a body full of tattoos, that's hustling, that talk on the level of an adult at that age. Do you know the kind of attention good or bad is attention? So that's what created my self-esteem.
Speaker 1:So your identity was connected to being bad, as it were.
Speaker 2:Same way in school, not to cut you off the same way in school, my defense mechanism was similar. My defense mechanism was if I pick on the kids or if I disrupt you in the class, you would never ask me to stand up and read. I probably will be the last one that you're going to ask to do anything. But that works in my favor because I already don't feel like I'm reading on a level that other kids are reading on. So I'm already, in my mind, behind. So if I come in and I act up in the classroom, you would never ask me to do anything. Did you know you were behind? Yes, I did?
Speaker 1:How did you? Because I think that a lot of times teachers don't realize that kids are aware of their position. Now they don't need to just see that data on the wall. They actually know. How did you know you were behind?
Speaker 2:My grades always reflect that. But even standing up and read, I'm almost the product that you see now, man, I'm not too far removed from that. I didn't know how to write a complete sentence in college, so what they teach you in middle school. I didn't know what an adjective or pronoun I didn't know the problem was, I really was passed alone. So, if you really want to understand, I repeated A grade, so what you would learn in middle school. They don't teach it in college. So when you ask me, how did I know? My grades reflect that I was behind. But when I hear people read and proficient and I'm seeing how they pronounce their words in the classroom and I'm knowing I'm not close to that you can still almost hear this dialect in my tone now. But everything around me in the school system allowed me to see how far behind I was. But that wasn't just me, though. It was the kids that I hung with also, but even they were a step ahead of me.
Speaker 1:So the reason I ask you that and I thank you for making the distinction, because, as they say, birds with feather I would imagine that the kids you hung with were young people who were in similar situations. I mean, a whole bunch of people I hung with didn't get much better grades than I had.
Speaker 1:I didn't need that smoke, I didn't need to make me feel worse than I already felt, but knowing that Jackson is a city that is struggling. Many of us got to know the community through Deion Sanders, but others of us have known it for quite some time. It's very easy for those of us who are in the northeast to have a northeast prejudice. If it ain't the Bronx, if it ain't Harlem, it ain't hard. A lot of us don't understand just how hard a town like Jackson can be.
Speaker 2:But how do you know that is bad? That's where the problem lies. The reason you know that Jackson have their issues because we broadcast everything that happens bad. It's not always the good things that like if they really showed you the geniuses that's in those neighborhoods. We got to do a better job at widening the stream man. It's some beautiful people in the neighborhood I grew up in Jackson got some beautiful highlights. But you know what make the media first if I go out and I rob him, got that kid that struggled in school and now he got a PhD. That's not the click bite, it's the water, the streets, the roads, everything that they show you. And you're not even from Jackson and you know some of the worst things that happen.
Speaker 2:I always think that's a problem because why we can't highlight the beautiful first, like happiness and positive. Be evil every day, but we show that part. There's no way you can be telling me about Jackson from that angle, because they saw you that way.
Speaker 1:There's something in the subconsciousness of people, whether we like it or not, the fact that there are going to be more people watch Cat Williams rip apart a number of black comics and make statements even about their wives the fact that I can't imagine how many millions that's at right now versus watching a young brother who is making his way in spaces that data would suggest are not possible.
Speaker 1:And I would argue that the conversation that we're having is far more meaningful to most people, meaning most people who watch me work with young people and most people who even don't have kids. So wouldn't it be good to find out from the source the more recent version, the newer model than the older model of that? Because I was kicked out of kindergarten I mean pre-K, which is, believe it is possible. You can be kicked out of pre-kindergarten, and so there is something in the subconsciousness of people that I find interestingly ironic that you mentioned that you as a child gained popularity for negativity. But I'm saying that people gain popularity for negativity when somebody wants to get clicks. They need to take their clothes off and rip somebody.
Speaker 2:Say something real foul about them and it's about being single and when you are being seen good or bad man, when you come from situations like I come from. When you look at ACEs at first childhood experiences and you see what research say about ACEs in the ACE score, my ACE score was a nine.
Speaker 1:Everybody knows, aces is the state test in Mississippi.
Speaker 2:So when you do the state, when you add up the numbers, mine was a nine. So research showed that I was going to already perform low, poor academic outcomes. But you know what my love language become at that point when I come from trauma situations words of affirmation. So when you have words of affirmation over me and you're telling me, oh, you dissing you that, good or bad, I want that attention. Good or bad, because when I look in the mirror at that time I never was getting that good attention. So if I'm keeping hearing, he's a troublemaker. What you think I'm going to continue doing?
Speaker 1:It's hard not to answer to what you're called. So when did you stop answering to what you were being called?
Speaker 2:When I found out who I was as a person and that came later it was times where, man, I could not go in the room with certain people, Like I always felt like people were smarter than me. I always felt a certain kind of way. But now let me let you understand me from my perspective. In order to leave me out, you got to enter my world now. You can't shift a kid's perspective until you can understand it first. If you want to know what's important to those kids now, look at what they value, Like right now. I can learn so much about you, doc, Just if I spent time with you and I learned what you value. Every day I'm going to find out. It's nine times out of 10. It's your family, it's just goals. It's your kids, it's everything. Find out what they value, Because once you start asking questions like man, how do you just throw his life away like that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you don't understand. He don't value it like that. He told you he'll ride and die for him. So let me show you where my value is laid. Listen to him. He'll tell you how much he's going to ride and die for that neighborhood. How, him running in your pockets, running in your house doing x, y and z, why that's important to him. So when you ask questions like man, I can't believe he just threw his life away. He didn't value it the way you did.
Speaker 2:From your perspective, you see me as a genius. You see me as possibilities because you're at that point where you see me through a certain lens. But how do I see myself coming from an environment where they call me an animal because of my socioeconomics? Man, that's not true. Poverty. The definition makes it seem so bad. Man, Like it's real successful people there. But I'm showing you why I act a certain way. Why do I even feel like the only three things I can do in this world is rap, play sports or sell drugs? You telling me I can be a lawyer and a doctor, but you showing me different. Do you see who's saying next door to me? Not a teacher saying next door to me, Not a superintendent saying next door to me, Not a lawyer or doctor saying next door to me. The best thing you can ever give me is vision and hope. What happens when we get successful and we get a certain amount of money? What do we usually do? We move. So when you tell me I can be an astronaut man. I'm 36 years old. I've never seen an astronaut a day in my life. But you got to keep telling me that I can be this and that. But I need you to understand why I can't see myself being that. But I know the guy that rap. Are you listening to the lyrics?
Speaker 2:The objective is the one they get out of the neighborhood. Well, how did you get out? Even if you had to rob to get out, you got out the way. You're a comer. I'm forced to game. Now, Like I told you, the worst thing you can make me feel like is I'm bestie, it right. So my mentality now is hustling. You know the worst state of mind that ever being in survival mode. I never want to be in survival mode because survival mode is at any means necessary. I don't want to work at any means. You know what I would do, at any means necessary. But that's the perspective of our young kids. Because, listen, successful people don't rob, Look, look. Successful people don't steal Like. Let's be totally honest, doc, the one and I'm going to go out on a limb and say this the ones that in the prisons, that I go see the young men, they are not the ones that perform academically. The ones that perform academically are not the ones that's robbing and stealing and going to prison. So who are we talking about?
Speaker 1:The kid that's the boy, the boy. Yeah, the data's really clear on that. That ain't a limb, that's not. So you're standing on solid ground right there.
Speaker 2:So now ask me, why? Why am I so? When you say, when people like you got to understand that about me, my first advice to educators or people, it's to understand them first. Understanding his grades is not a reflection of his true genius. We are not even talking about ability, we're talking about effort. Nine times out of 10, he got the genius in him, but you got to understand me first, though.
Speaker 2:You got to see why don't I feel like why equals Mx must be even matter to my life? Dude, I just told you I'm in survival mode. I'm thinking about tomorrow. I'm thinking about how I'm going to provide or do something in his household. My mom told me I'm the man of the house. I'm speaking about that young kid. You know that's kind of dangerous for an adult to tell a kid. You, the man of the house man, you know I'm the man of the house, and how tough that could be. And this kid 13, he 12, and you wonder why we communicate the way we communicate. When I'm in school I'm talking like I'm an adult, but you know I got real adult responsibilities. But now you throwing the why equals Mx plus B at me. You throwing the four method, the distributed property, all of these things, man, I'm not focused on that.
Speaker 1:It's not that I don't have the genius in me, though you give them fan talk, I do, I do, and so one of the things I want you to help us to understand is, when you stopped answering to what you were being called, there had to be something that clicked. You talked a lot about how so often our children, when you make somebody feel less than and let me just take a pause here Very often we have conversations like this we're talking about children because children are easier to talk about, but there's nothing that I'm saying that doesn't apply to all the grown people watching.
Speaker 1:Somebody makes you feel like you ain't nothing, you don't want to be around them. Somebody makes you feel less than you don't want to be around them. It's just that children don't have the providence, the control over their environment to dip, so what they get to do when they feel that way is just wild out. You can't walk away from a conversation with a parent who's telling you there ain't gonna be nothing, but for so far. So what was it inside you? Was it a longing that you heard, that you listened for? Or did somebody come to you where there are a couple people? Was it an organization? Was it a pastor, a mom? Talk us through your process. So and I want to make sure, before you go to, I want to make sure you understand the distance traveled is not that you have degrees. It sounds to me like the distance you travel has more to do with who you are. Yeah, it was interesting. So I want to tell you one thing.
Speaker 2:It was interesting. My wake up call came and I got shot my senior year in high school. Now I have an amazing mom and dad man. One thing I can tell you about them my mom and dad. I had an education, pass middle school, but they are the smartest people I ever met in my life. They know how to take less and get more out of it. My dad would tell me over and over and I tell you I got a good dad. It was me. I wasn't listening. The bub cut on when I got shot my senior year in high school. Now let me take you back. I was kicked out of 10 schools. I repeated 8th grade. I was a standout basketball player, so basketball brought me that thing. That gave me that ego. And I hear people say, man, leave your ego outside. Why? My ego is what got me here. I'm not leaving that ego in myself.
Speaker 1:Your ego will save your ass more than a few times, man. My ego is the thing that will make you. When that person says you ain't going to be nothing, and you don't have any proof that they're wrong, all you got is ego.
Speaker 2:That right there. You asking me to humble myself like I'm humble already. I think I can lose what I got now if I mess up. Listen, that ain't the problem. But you tell me to leave my ego. My ego is what got me here. It was times where I had to look in that mirror and face my own soul. So that competitive edge that you see, it was built in basketball. Tell a basketball player that you can't man, you can't guard me what I got on short sunday here. So my ego and it transferred for me. So when I got shot my senior year in high school, I had a 1.8 GPA man. I was a standout ball player, ranked in the country, getting recruited by all these colleges in the world. I had a 14 on my ACT. I had a 1.8 GPA man. I got shot second period. So I got shot second period.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I got you now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I got shot my senior year in high school. That ball came on because when I heard the doctor tell me now that basketball is over for you now I'm your senior year man, I got shot second period 10 o'clock in the same foot that I jumped off. I skipped school, went to the neighborhood with my homeboys, we sitting on the car. Now. I didn't give my family nothing else to be happy for but basketball. I'm sitting on the car, man. This bullet changed my life. Though, when I tell you that bullet was the best thing that ever happened to me in life, if I wouldn't have never got shot my senior year in high school, I would not be the man that I am now, because all I would have just been thinking about is NBA, nba. You going to the league, you doing this, I wouldn't be thinking about academics when I got shot, man, it was the worst day ever, but it was the best day ever. I just heard boom and I couldn't even move.
Speaker 1:I looked at his pants leg.
Speaker 2:He had a gun in his pocket and it ripped through his pants and hit me in the same foot that I jumped off. Same guy that I smoked with, the same guy that I do everything with, put a bullet in me. The worst day ever. And I'm a standout ball player, man, listen, I pivot off my left leg. I'm right handed. I got shot in my left foot. All my scholarships got revoked. Man, when I tell you this is a real story, man, I had a 1.8, so it proved to you. I wasn't academically there already. But when I got shot and the doctor told me that man, I laid on that bed and I cried. And I cried, man, because I said it took a lifetime to build, but it took me one second to destroy it. It took me a lifetime to build, but one second. When I laid on that bed and I seen that nobody came to visit me, man, when I finally got back on the court, my mentality went to this in order to get something you never had.
Speaker 2:Tommy, you got to do something you never did and become a person you never been. When I beat that, I met actor Tommy Ford. Let me explain something to you. God is good man. I watched this guy on Martin every day and besides the pastors that like like I don't want to discredit all the coaches that was in my life the coach, the basketball coaches, the male figures but you got to be in position to be mentored. What I mean by that? You can offer me everything that you have, from economics to resources, but if I'm not in a position to receive it, if my mentality is not ready for you, doc, and you give me all these resources, I won't even use them. So you got a person, got to be in position to be mentored. That's like putting a rehab ability center in the night in the hood. Yeah, that's the beautiful thing.
Speaker 1:But how are you going to get them there? Something even simpler than that. It's like why so many kids don't listen to their parents Six oaks Because they're not in a position. Something is as simple as that. Somebody who knows better. If you're not in a position to hear, then the words become Charlie Brown. So one.
Speaker 2:But that's why I always say keep going, keep talking to him, don't give up on them. The worst thing you can do is give up on them. But when I met after Tommy Ford listen I watched a Martin show. Every day. I'm from Jackson Mississippi to see somebody like that come to my high school.
Speaker 2:My principal said can you please talk to this young man? This young man, a standout ball player. He just got shot. Tommy asked him well, what's his name? And he said tell me, man, I got to talk to that dude. That man told me. He said never use a situation around you for any excuse not to succeed. Man, I don't know how to everything he said out his mouth, because I was telling him man, my dad, this man, my neighborhood, this, my mom. He said man, do not make excuses for yourself and do not use a situation around you for an excuse not to succeed. It was me talking to Tommy every day, almost on the phone, and give me that confidence in him. Tell me, like man, you got it. Man, keep going, you're going to be special. Man, you wonder how words of affirmation work. The best thing you can give me is exposure. Now you brought that right around me, and I'm seeing somebody that I'm watching on TV every day and I'm like man.
Speaker 2:I want to be a speaker now. You know what I'm saying. Like I started seeing because I had basketball grit like basketball. Like you lucky he played football. You lucky he played basketball. Because if they didn't have those coping mechanisms they would have tore that neighborhood up a long time ago. So when you think about what basketball did for me, it taught me how to cope. It taught me resilience, the ability to bounce back when you're down. It taught me communication skills. Now I just had to make it come growing. I had to learn now how to use it in the real world.
Speaker 1:You said something that I want to go back to. You said that they didn't have basketball in the football. They tore that neighborhood down a long time ago. I need you to go deeper into that. I don't think that a lot of people talk about. I've been finding myself talking to moms who said, well, he ain't gonna play basketball today. And I said I don't know if that's the answer, mom, he ain't listening to me. Oh sis, if you take that from you ain't got nothing left.
Speaker 2:Pick your battles, pick your battles. And as a parent, it took me to understand this. I remember coming in a room one day and my stepson, my real son. I raised him since he was nine and he was playing the game. He kept playing the game, playing the game. And it's like two in the morning and I went in there and I told him man, cut that game. But then I stopped. I'm like man, you lucky he in the house playing the game. Go and pick your battles, man, because for you it was basketball, for him it's playing the video game. That's coping too, because he could be anywhere right now. He could be in a game. But he playing the game. Two different spirits, two different spellings, so why would you take that away from him? And now they making that a sport Now, like gaming, is the new thing.
Speaker 2:You got to be able to adjust, that's even in the real world to stay in business. Sometimes you got to rebrand, you got to be able to adjust with the market. So if you take his, only thing that gives him confidence is basketball, you taking sports away from him. What kind of activities do you think he's now going to get into? And it's going to be sad because now he's going to arrive, he's going to take if this guy have a gift, if this kid can do, I don't care. If this kid can draw.
Speaker 2:You got to activate the end educate. It's called activation over education. For me, you got to activate the end educate, meaning this when you get a debit card in the middle, no matter how much money you got in the bank, you can't use it until you do what with it. No matter how much potential a kid got inside, he can't be used until he's activated first. And what activate him? His self-esteem. That man, that drive in that sport, would wake me up every day. Because if it wasn't for basketball look, dude, when I skip school, when kids skip class, where do they usually go To the gym? Why? He? Going to his comfort zone. Man, you know what basketball did for me? It gave me a V-Hill going to get out of the neighborhood.
Speaker 1:What was the difference? And I want to excuse me. I really want to break this down because I don't not.
Speaker 1:Everybody loves sports, right, and a lot of people who end up teaching didn't play sports. They just didn't. It's just not that thing. A lot of people who get into education may have loved writing or math or whatever the subject it is that they teach, and the kids who tend to struggle the most are the boys who are black, who identify with sports. What's happening in the sports experience, which also takes place in the school, that is so vastly different than what's happening in the classroom? Because you got to learn math and play any sport, I think it's easy to overlook just how much statistics goes into the most basic basketball player. So what is happening on a basketball court or a football field or a sport that is so vastly different for young brothers like you than in a classroom?
Speaker 2:I can give you two or three reasons. One of them good at it. I'm not good in that classroom, not right now, I don't think I am but people are going to revert back to what they're good at. I'll give you an example and I'll lead into it. If you locked me up right now and you locked me up and you put me in there and you give me 23 hours of lockdown, one hour of rent and I don't get no correction because it's called correction facility for a reason I'm in there to be corrected, right.
Speaker 2:But if I'm just in there just going by the motion, getting the day going, landing that cut, and then you put me back out in the real world and you think that I'm just going to change instant, if I don't make it in that, in this world, that you're paying for me, what am I most likely to do next? Revert back to what I'm good at. So I'm not running away from what I'm good at. I'm good at that sport and I don't have to read. I don't have to read eight paragraphs. I'm in there with my peers, I'm operating in a spirit that I can't get in that classroom.
Speaker 2:I can get it in that classroom if I'm getting validated, the same way in the classroom that I get validated on the court. Do you know what I tell teachers around this world when I go speak to them Just show up at his game. You want him to be phenomenal when he's jersey to the game, because now that their relationship that you're going to build with him, when he see all his teachers on the front row, because half time his mom is working, let's show you a research, say is a single moment, and I don't like painting this, but this is the truth, but mom is working. So who going to the games? The valid as a teacher? You do it, you're going. You were in his jerseys. What's how that relationship bill? Now you can. Now you to reach myself a scene. Now you get into my trust. I can transfer that same energy into the classroom. But you got to make it make sense to me in the classroom. Oh, let me do his job.
Speaker 2:I went in. I was going to professional development out of town and I'm going to make this statement on congruent with what you asked me. I was going to professional development and I went into this coach classroom and he was teaching them the Y intercept. He was teaching them how to rise over run and none of them was engaged. I said, coach, you got all football players in your class. Be innovative. They in the neighborhood doing this, drawing plays. I said, teach them how to go up to X or the Y exit, cut across the Y, like if it's a positive slope, that's five yards. I said, coach, be innovative. Within five minutes it was players and they're like coach, catch me on the fire, catch me on a, catch me on the team is a positive game. I said, coach, you got it. I said you want them to learn a way that you teach, instead of teaching the way that they learn. You want them to learn a way that you teach and, instead of teaching the way that they learn, make it make sense to them, make it make it fun.
Speaker 2:Food should not feel like I was sentenced to 12 years in education. Like like, listen, I didn't feel like I was sentenced to 12 years in education. You want my effort right, dude, because I'm present every day. Don't mean my effort is there. You want me to take. The two things that I felt like was forced on me growing up was church and school. But I'm going to show up because I had to put my effort. Don't come with me, but how do you get my effort there? But that's the distinguishing factor between the basketball court for me now for basketball in the classroom.
Speaker 1:I was the man, I would add to that. I would add to that, though, is something that you, you start to talk about, because everybody who plays sports isn't good at it, but what everybody who does in love, love it, loves the camaraderie of the experience and the validation of the experience, and the joint effort of the experience, the, the connection of the experience, and you know, if you want to see a young man in particular truly emote in a way, in the most guttural way, he will cry his eyes out at a win or a loss. You want to see him a static, in ways in which he has never been a static, come to a win or a loss. And then in what moves that? That doesn't often happen in the classroom is the person in the front knows that he needs them all to work together to win, and he needs all of them to believe in their role in the victory versus. I just need y'all listen to me, I just need y'all sit down, I just need y'all do your homework.
Speaker 1:It's an us versus we, right, so it's we. I mean, it's us versus them, and in us in this case, is we the team, we the team. What excites us so often is that we create these opportunities for ourselves to build teams. And when we look at the best coaches, the best band leaders, the best, dina pledges that whoever it is that's leading a group of young women or men, they find a way to make it. We and the worst teachers, band leaders, coaches make it about you. You need, y'all need to do this, y'all need to do that, y'all need to do that, and there's something inherent in that and for young men, is the same reason why so many joined gangs. They joined gangs because his brother says I would die with, or you after you and he's not lying.
Speaker 1:Now he may not have met the opportunity to die just yet, so it may not be a lie, it's just an unchested truth.
Speaker 2:but the promise of it under that cover, in which you and like it's. When we went out that house, we both said if we get pulled over, we going together. Man, that's love to me. Like I feel love that that moment now, like man, you're going to do what for me, you'll give your life for me. We ain't leaving this party.
Speaker 1:I'm not leaving this party till you. Get in this car.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Whatever, whatever's going on here, you know that if something jumps off, you ain't gonna call him like yo. Where's the man he left while ago? Yeah?
Speaker 2:So watch this, like I love what you just said. Now, watch, if the teacher told me, I'm not leaving this class until you learn it, I'm not you passing you alone, man. Like I'm gonna catch you. I'm you're gonna leave better than you came. Like I'm gonna catch you where you at now, but when you leave here, you're gonna be proficient. They gonna come back to me and start wondering why this young kid learning her sight words so early, and they gonna come and thank me. They gonna wonder why this kid is writing proficient at that level. They gonna come back and thank me.
Speaker 2:But when you take that kind of pride as a teacher, though, and you come in that building saying, when you get me, you get support. When you get me, you get another like, who have the advantage because of your presence. So so, as a kid coming into that classroom, I love how you made that, that correlation, because if I have that mentality as a teacher, you do not leave my classroom until I give you everything that I got inside of me, and I'm going to make sure I got your back. I don't care what the world say about you. When you come into my classroom, I'm giving you the best version of me. But that gotta be back to your statement. It's not a team, is one band, one sound.
Speaker 2:Because you know what usually happens first block she allowed me to lay in. Come in with my shirt, tell us, you allow me to go to sleep. She allowed me to put my headphones on. She allowed me to not be engaged. But then when I get the second block, she played. By no means she want me sitting up straight, she want me engaged. But now is a disconnect because kids do what you allowed him to do. So when I get to your office, doc, what do I normally tell you about that one teacher? She's picking on me, but it does seem like she picking on me because why every other teacher didn't say that? Like when I look at culture and climbing in that building, when I do that assessment, culture is personality, climate is how the temperature around this building. Everybody in the building should be following one objective to make sure these kids get it. The person should be getting pushed back every time you try to implement something. Only time you get pushed back is when everybody's not on the same page.
Speaker 1:Children of light water. They take on the form of the container they are in. They take on the temperature of that which warms them or cools them. They are as clean as the things you take out of them was dirty as the things you put into them. They are beautiful beyond measure and can be pretty destructive. What separates one glass of water from the other glass of water is the person who puts the water in the cup and manages what's in there.
Speaker 1:And so many people like coach, just a baby sitting that water. They don't want to make it too hot so it evaporates. They don't want to make it too cold so it freezes. They constantly working. Great teachers do the same thing. Great teachers, not people who we pay because I have my share, but people who say, like the football coach, we ain't going home Until y'all get this play right. So I will cut the lights on the cars and we will run out here in the dark until you get it done. When a child knows that you're not playing with them, I'm not leaving until you do this. So you, you can cry. You call your mother, you call whoever you want to call. You call Jesus. A miracle might happen.
Speaker 1:Your ass ain't leaving until we figure out the main idea to start. Ego is what kicks in for that child. Ego is what makes that child feel like if he's speaking to something, the ego will hear what it needs to hear, what it needs to hear to feel whole. When did you hear what you needed to hear and how did you hear what you needed to hear?
Speaker 2:So I heard a lot of times with coaches. I spent a lot of time with coaches and I tell anybody you wonder why coaches got the biggest influence on kids and buildings. They see kids at the house. They ask them how your weekend go, how this, and they see me when I'm in my vulnerable moments, my good moments, when I'm down, I'm out. I had a lot of coaches who gave me that, that, that feel they see it because they look forward to it.
Speaker 1:That's the difference. They don't just see my happenstance.
Speaker 2:That's a different spirit. Wait, say that again because they look, because they look because they look for the coach.
Speaker 1:The coach knows Feeling right, not just because he's dropped you off at your house every night for the past week, but because he is looking to see how, like you sit here in the car like this yeah, you sit in class like that too Correct.
Speaker 2:Or you don't like to change.
Speaker 1:You're doing the same thing. The coach or the teacher sees what they're looking for. They want to see. If they truly want to see what you need, they'll find it. Kids ain't got as many secrets as we think Kids will tell you. Kids will tell you a whole entire story. No, no, no dog. No, no, no.
Speaker 2:I don't need that.
Speaker 1:I don't need to know what your mom did. I don't need to know who came over. I don't need to know what you heard. No, no, no, they weren't fighting in that bedroom. Kids will go to war for you. So the coaches that engage you wanted to see you. They wanted to see you and you wanted to be seen. What did they see?
Speaker 2:They saw something that I didn't see, though, because I used to think coaches just getting on me, man, they just getting on me, man, he don't love me, man, he think I'm garbage. And then I used to have coaches that make that statement, like if I didn't get on you, if I didn't love you, if I didn't think you could be good, I wouldn't be so tough on you. But this is where my problem lies, and I need to see your opinion on this. I honestly feel if we give the teachers the same autonomy that coaches give, then you might can see that.
Speaker 2:I made a post one day and it said and this almost went viral and I don't want you to miss the content of this I said how is it that and I've been a coach before, I love them I said how is it that a coach could curse a kid out all game to win a game, to win a game, but the moment a teacher say one thing to that kid, it's a problem. Now, I'm not asking the teachers to curse the kids I'm not on offense about neither but the autonomy of when teachers get on kids. Parents run up to the school building. You see them in your, I know you see them in your. She raised her voice at my kid, she this and that, and I tell the parents you should be the teacher biggest advocate. She raising your kid.
Speaker 1:So let me get you something on that. Let me get you something on that. A lot of I hear a lot of what you're saying. Let me give you another perspective. They're teachers who will, straight up, cuss a kid out and the kid won't say nothing. They're teachers who will just look at the child and child will crumble. What makes the child respond in the way that they do is the relationship and trust you have with them. The kids will kick the bench on the way off the floor, cuss them out, take their jersey off. Just because he's a coach doesn't mean that they ain't going to act in the entire food. So it's the relationship.
Speaker 2:What I would do when I was in the school system. And you're right, when it's certain kids in that kind of building relationships, I knew it was certain kids I can go there with. But I would use another kid for an example just to get my pawn across to that one kid. I can see three kids over there in the same group but there's one kid that's raising all these hell in the classroom. But I know if I get on him too much he about to mess my instruction up or he about to mess. But what I would do is the person sit next to him. I know the report. That meant I can be talking to him. But I'm talking directly to you. But that becomes because, like you said earlier, I know the relationship but if I don't, take it to the right.
Speaker 1:So the autonomy is there? Yeah, so the autonomy is there, but real talk.
Speaker 2:Do you feel like it's there? Okay, so that's, and I get you from that perspective. But overall, from a holistic point of view, do you think that teachers have the real autonomy in today's time? I do so you feel like they have you.
Speaker 1:Let me tell you why. Let me tell you why 45, 50, 90 minutes.
Speaker 1:Rare is the occasion somebody's gonna come in there and flex on you. You got that child, those children, five days a week and nothing stops you from going to the football game, going to the quince, going to somebody's home going. Nothing stops you from stopping by the crib nothing, nothing, because no one at any school that's going to tell you. You know, I gain visibility because I used to pick kids up before I went to school. No one said that you can or can't. They needed to get to school and they needed to get in class because they needed to get their grades up. So I mean, the mother wasn't going to bring them 82 minutes to school and you're like, well, I'm just leaving that way.
Speaker 1:No, I live by where they live. I drove 20 minutes in the direction came back. The point I'm making to you is, today, a teacher who is looking for those relationships, who wants to build those kids will ride for that.
Speaker 2:So you distinguish it All, right, okay, I'm on your side on that, because you're saying the ones that want to build, they could have, they have the term, I don't want, the other I don't want to build the ones who don't want to build.
Speaker 1:I don't want them to have autonomy.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no, no. Direct supervision. Often and always, somebody needs to be watching them because they're going to say something reckless. And let me just say, as somebody runs in Star Schools, the last thing I want somebody doing who doesn't have relationships with kids is to try, I think like no dog here. Here is your curriculum. You read that because you gonna mess around and say something stupid and then that mother's gonna come down here and she's going with your ass and everybody from the parking lot all the way till she gets to you and nobody need that. So you just read this curriculum, because you have not proven yourself to be worthy to have the freedom to be playing in other children's, people's children's lives. People ask for things that they don't deserve. If you have it in, you can't nobody take it from you. I guarantee you. I put you in a classroom four minutes by time I came back. Kids be locked like this. I can't take that from you. I can't say don't you go and build that relationship with them?
Speaker 2:That's a beautiful perspective of it, and perspective is beautiful because it's not a right or wrong. I may see the glass have empty, you see the glass has full, but I agree with you because on that, because I remember seeing the situation that went viral with this young lady and this teacher. She took her cell phone from her and the teacher hit her I mean the student hit her in the face and did all the above and what I was telling myself I said now, when I was in the school, I could have done that and it would have been no problems. Why? Because of the relationship. So when you distinguish because it's a lot of things when you build relationships with kids, you can tell them that that's okay. Tell that kid or the math teacher probably can't, but you can take that same situation, that same behavior and you can change it.
Speaker 1:Let me get something. Let me get something right there and we near the top and I know I'm holding you long, I want to take it. I want to say this point for a second when you're a teacher who can really teach and I mean really teach let's say you sick the next day, you can't come. Your kids got the routines down so tight. They're like, like Dr Marbury said, that y'all better not be in here playing because we ain't dealing with him tomorrow. Y'all ain't gonna do this to me. We don't want to hear his mouth.
Speaker 1:And in the same way, you have seen it, I've seen it. You seen the same little dude five foot nothing. No, he ain't gonna be in the league, but he'll dive into the stands for a loose ball. Dive into the stands for a loose ball. Meanwhile you bring his behind back in the classroom and it seems like he's a Tasmanian double.
Speaker 1:That coach has somehow connected to him in the way in which you said people connected to you throughout your life. Which is to say, I see something in you and in the kids, like you see something in me, what you see in me, what you see, man, I see you hard working, I'm hard working. You think so yeah, yeah, yeah. How many times have you seen Young Brothers down in Jackson? It's hot, it's like all year and football there's no cool time to play football and you up under 150 degrees, with the heat in the helmet. How many of these young brothers standing straight as an arrow in that burning heat, about to run and do just because a volunteer who ain't been certified in nothing told him I believe in you.
Speaker 2:We gonna win.
Speaker 1:We gonna beat this other team just because they got a different color on them? We do, we gonna beat them.
Speaker 2:And I'm gonna do it, and I'm gonna do it exhausted.
Speaker 1:Exhausted.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna give you every bit of the blood that's in me. Sweat equity. You get everything because, first of all, I know you care, coach you doing this for free. I love the correlation.
Speaker 1:Like, say that and say that and say that and say that. And then the other part is this child. He is shutting down, physically breaking down, and he's working beyond his capacity just to perform these intricate physical movements against another person who's trying to hurt him and his brothers. That same child, you tell me you can't keep him asleep. Wake in class. A lot of hair you can't, you can't get that. That level of motivation. That person right there, you can't. That person who can't do that does not deserve autonomy. They're lucky they still in the classroom. They're lucky that there's a teacher shortage. If you want the real, stop blaming the kids Like they're lucky. They're lucky that the circumstances are not such that we can only get the people who arrive to die, who say to a child I've told you one time and I'm telling you one time only, don't come here with your shirt on talked again. And I mean it.
Speaker 1:I've seen teachers in one of our buildings and the sister of the name is Dr Johnson. I seen kids outside her classroom hustling for belts. You know she ain't gonna let us in there. Like going into other teacher's classrooms to get children's belts because they couldn't go into her class without a belt. That doesn't make me feel good about the other people I employ, but it does make the point. The same child knows what the expectations are and children rise to high expectations because when they internalize high expectations, they think that you love them. And I finish here One of the reasons why their young brothers out right now in New Haven and it's freezing cold, it's like 30 degrees and going down they standing outside right now because of my children.
Speaker 1:They love them. They stand outside not because they're homeless, because they have to hustling and they can say it's to put food on my table. No, no, no. It's because this brother said he loves you and he would die for you. And they are out there freezing like this because somebody said I see something in you and we can build something together. It's all the same thing. A coach who says we build them for us, say championship. A teacher who says I ain't leaving until we learn this and a drug dealer who says we got something. It's that belief that's so beautiful.
Speaker 2:They got me pumped and they don't know, but that's the reason I wanted to be, that's why I went back to be a teacher and that's why it pushed me into this speaking world, man, the way that I'm in it now I'm over a decade in because I felt like I knew the formula, like I knew what was missing for me In the build of those kind of relationships. I feel like all those kids out there have genius in them, like you see, man, do you see the resilience this kid have already, the way he performing on the field? You mean to tell me he don't have the ability to bounce back? Yes, do you see the grit and the persistence that this kid already showing you day in and day out? But do we have the academic rigor? Is he performing academically? Probably not. But do we have it in them? Yes, but it's those teachers who see that. You got to see it in me before I see it in myself.
Speaker 1:But that's I don't want to see it. You got to want to see it.
Speaker 2:I don't want to see that though that's every morning, you get the best part from me.
Speaker 1:If you ever have a teenage boy around you, you ask him to go find something, First thing you say what? I can't find it. And what's the first thing you say is because you ain't Because you're not looking.
Speaker 2:Because you're not trying.
Speaker 1:You ain't trying. You want to be easy with her, but you can find everything that he wants. You know that game console is, though that don't ever get lost, brother. I appreciate you. Tell folks some of the things you're working on right now. Really enjoyed the time together. Tell some folks what you're working on right now.
Speaker 2:So for the ones that just joined, and give you a quick rundown, my name is Dr Tommy Maybrough. I was kicked out of 10 schools. I repeated 8th grade. I was arrested for breaking and entering my fifth grade year I repeated 8th grade. I was shot. My senior year in high school I had a 1.8 GPA. I have a bachelor's degree in education. Now I got a master's degree in early childhood. I have my PhD in executive leadership and higher education From Jackson State University. I've published four books. I'm working.
Speaker 2:I travel the country daily giving those kids that hope and making my life be a demonstration for them, because I feel like they got to see it first. They got to see a kid who looked just like them that made it in something other than sports. But if he can make it in sports, support him, get behind him. But I wanted to show that you got real genes. We can sit at the same table with the execs. That's a lady asked me. She said why are you gonna get the PhD? You was already successful speaking. Ma'am, if I go get a PhD, do you know what that says to that young kid that looked just like me, that came from that same environment? I'm wide in the stream. It's a paradigm switch. Now he can see possibilities.
Speaker 2:So my life I just wanted to serve as a demonstration and this is not just talk, man. You can go back on my timeline, google. I've been doing this same work since I was 20 years old, man. I used to reach out to you like your team. Man. I've been following your work for a long time. First off, and I want to say I really appreciate the opportunity to even have this dialogue. Man, I've been following your work for a long time. When I was 21, 22 years old, I've been doing this same work consistently for over a decade. Now you can go back and watch how committed I am. I'm not just talking for the camera. Go back to my first picture and see how young I was doing this work. Look, everything I do is for the next generation.
Speaker 2:So, man, I'm working now. I'm in New York right now. I just spoke in San Diego yesterday and now I'm in Syracuse. I have to give it to a group of kids and educators in the morning. So that's my platform, man. The next thing I'm working on I wrote the movie script to my life story. I'm hoping that God going to bring me the right people to connect the dots, man, I'm trying to build, the next step is in God's hand. So, listen, I appreciate you for having me. You see, I'm always excited about this moment, man, because that's why I'm, as a person.
Speaker 1:Well, I appreciate you, but I genuinely appreciate you. You are our ancestors while the streams. And I hate his worst nightmares, so you keep doing what you're doing, brother, mr Tugalu, come on, mr Tugalu, mr Tugalu.
Speaker 1:The king of the college is the king of the, mr Tugalu. I really appreciate you and what you represent. You've given a lot of people hope tonight. A couple of folks were asking questions and again I'm sorry I couldn't ask the question. Forgive me, but I'll talk to my little brother here and I'm happy to see that he's doing well. Folks, for me the smartest person in the room is not the one with the best answers, it's the one who asks the questions, and so I encourage you to keep asking questions so that we all can learn and be smarter. I know some questions about finding the truth that we all need and for the Marbury, you truly are an inspiration to me and you keep on keeping on because you've inspired me to do the same. Thank you so much. Have yourself a good evening. I appreciate it. All right.
Speaker 2:Peace.