Listen Up with Host Al Neely
Hi, I'm Al Neely. I've spent most of my life asking, " Why do people behave a certain way? Why don't people understand that most everyone wants basically the same thing? Most everyone wants their fundamental need for peace of mind, nourishment, shelter and safety."
What I have learned is that because of an unwillingness to open one's mind to see that some of the people you come in contact with may have those same desires as you do. We prejudge, isolate ourselves, and can be hesitant to interact, and sometimes we can be belligerent towards one another. This is caused by learned behavior that may have repeated itself for generations in our families.
What I hope to do with this podcast is to introduce as many people with as many various cultures, backgrounds, and practices as possible. The thought is that I can help to bring different perspectives by discussing various views from my guests that are willing to talk about their personal experiences.
Hopefully we all will learn something new. We may even learn that most of us share the same desire for our fundamental needs. We may just simply try to obtain it differently.
Sit back, learn, and enjoy!
Listen Up with Host Al Neely
Why Our Children's Education Demands More Than Just Schools
Dr. Karen Underwood opens a window into education's past, present, and uncertain future in this thought-provoking conversation. Drawing from three decades of teaching experience across multiple states, she offers rare and valuable insights into how our educational systems function—or dysfunction—across different cultural and geographical contexts.
The stark contrast between New York City's education system and those in southern states reveals how politics infiltrates classrooms. In New York, administrators could "move education forward without stumbling blocks," while southern school boards often include members who "have never been inside a school system," creating barriers to effective teaching and learning.
Her multicultural experience in New York—where she celebrated holidays with Jewish families, received homemade wine from Italian parents, and enjoyed meals prepared by Latino families—stands in stark contrast to the cultural limitations she's encountered in southern schools. "I feel culturally deprived in a sense being here," she admits, highlighting education's critical cultural dimension.
Most alarming is Dr. Underwood's assessment of today's students' mental health. Where classrooms once routinely held 30+ students without issue, today's generation struggles with unprecedented anxiety and social challenges. "It's unbelievable," she says, describing the dramatic increase in diagnoses from bipolar disorder to various social anxieties that weren't present when she began teaching.
Beyond diagnosis, Dr. Underwood points to technology's isolating effects, social media pressures, and the loss of community support systems. "You can't say anything to anyone nowadays because there's not that sense of community any longer," she explains, remembering when neighbors helped discipline neighborhood children.
Her parting wisdom carries urgency: "You can't depend on the education system to take care of your kids." Parents must invest more time and effort as educational systems face growing political pressure and curriculum restrictions. For anyone concerned about education's future, this conversation offers essential perspective from someone who's witnessed its evolution firsthand.
Do us a favor and like, comment, share, and subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes.
Reach out to us on our socials and hit us up with any questions!
Email: Info@listenup.biz
Instagram: ListenUp4U
Facebook: Let's Talk About It - Listen Up
Twitter: ListenUp@Listenup4U
Website: listenup.biz
If you enjoyed today's episode, I'm going to ask you to click on the links below follow, subscribe, become part of the conversation and remember, listen up. Hello, I'm Al Neely with Listen Up Podcast, and today we have Dr Karen Underwood. Dr Underwood has been an educator for 30 years. Yes, and she's received her Bachelor's of Science degree from SUNY Bingham, binghamton, binghamton University in upstate New York. Yes, okay, and she received her master's degree from City College of New York. Yes, and that one's actually pretty well known.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then her doctorate degree. She came south and went to Liberty University to study to receive her doctorate degree. Correct and education.
Speaker 2:Yes, curriculum and instruction, awesome, okay.
Speaker 1:So you've been in the educational field for 30 years now. Did you start in New York City? Yes, I did, okay. So let's talk about what you've seen over the years. And you worked in New York, you worked in Portsmouth and now you're in Virginia Beach, correct, right? So what has been some of the differences that you've seen with the education in a city like New York? And then Portsmouth is on a much smaller scale, I'd imagine. It's a city that doesn't have a lot of vast amount of tax revenue.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So there's some, some differences, so let's just start there, okay? So people can get an idea.
Speaker 2:Well, coming from New York City, the biggest difference is that in New York City the school board members really do not have a major role in what happens in the educational setting. That's a huge difference and that allows the superintendents and the powers that be to really move the school forward without politics.
Speaker 2:So really yeah, without that type of politics, dealing with acquiescing to a school board, listening to a school board, having them make decisions for people. That has been in the school system and a large amount of school board members have never been inside a school system, have not taught in a classroom, do not understand what the full gamut of what teachers actually go through In the city of New York. Yeah, was that population? So we don't have us. We have school board members, but they don't have the control. So, stepping outside of New York City, we have all these school board systems here and I'm referring more so to the school boards outside of New York City, so you're really able to really move education forward without stumbling blocks and everything more so is for the best interests of children in New York. Stepping away from that, I've worked in Long Island, I've worked in Maryland and then I've come down here. So, stepping away from New York City, every other educational system has a school board that's elected. One way or the other. They're elected, they petition, they get on the school board. But again, those people some of them are from educational settings, some of them truly do understand education. Some school board members really have a heart for what's happening inside the school system and they do have an understanding, a good pulse. But then you have some people that do not have a good pulse of what's happening inside the school system. So that by itself is a big difference between being in New York City and stepping out of the realm of New York City and dealing with the politics inside the school system.
Speaker 2:Coming down to Portsmouth is very interesting, very, very interesting, because I'm used to. In New York we have a diverse population. In New York we have a diverse population. We have we. I've worked basically with black and Latino children my entire career urban title one, whatever you want to call it. But in New York City the teaching staff, the admin, the different people you come in contact with are more open to have relationships. So I mean, I've had my Latino parents always cooking me food, bringing me food. I've had my Italian population making wine for me and coming over, or my Jewish population going over and breaking bread with them and celebrating, you know, the different holidays with them and just recognizing the different cultures. It's just, it was a culture shock for me to come down here to. It was not one way or the other, that's it. There's no really in between. I didn't see and I haven't felt that here, so I feel like culturally deprived in a sense being here.
Speaker 1:How long were you in Maryland, because Maryland is actually considered the North.
Speaker 2:Yes, Okay, yeah, well, is actually considered the north. Yes, okay, yeah, well, it's considered the south actually for us. But it's, you know, the Mason-Dixon line and you cross that, you're in Maryland. But Maryland was excellent, excellent, but my father got sick, so I wind up going back to New York City, okay, okay, and dealing with that. I end up going back to New York City, okay, okay and dealing with that.
Speaker 1:But Maryland, I really like I understand that you did some staff development. Where was that mostly?
Speaker 2:Mainly in New York City. I've done most of my staff development. I pretty much work with multicultural education so I did a lot of staff development and three credit courses for staff members, for teachers to. You have to. In the school system you have to have a certain amount of credits each year that goes towards your license. So the three credit course would go towards a teacher's license.
Speaker 1:Gotcha.
Speaker 2:So I've done that. I've worked with testing population and just doing professional development with the testing population, and I created a resource center in multicultural, multilingual education and so therefore, I had purchased a whole bunch of resources and things like that to share with the community that they the teachers could take out, borrow from this library and use in their classroom. In New York you don't have as much resources, and so a lot of teachers do have to spend their own money for certain things inside the school system, but I created a way whereas you could borrow it was a borrowing library of things that you needed at the time. Yeah, because it's important to have the resources. It's important when you're dealing with teaching, you're dealing with writing curriculum, you're writing lesson plans, you're planning out the entire lesson. You shouldn't always have to spend your money as well to make sure kids have what they need, but as educators, that's just something that we do. We're just so used to doing that.
Speaker 1:I think it requires a certain passion. So where would you say you, what gave you the thought okay, I want to be a teacher. Was it inspiration from someone? Do you have family members that are teachers?
Speaker 2:Well, my story is a little unique. I grew up in the Bronx and, as I think back to it, I used to take the kids in the neighborhood on neighborhood walks, so we would go outside of the community and grew up on 141st Street, st Vincent, cypress, so you had Hunts Point behind us, you had the docks back there and if you didn't go past the Brooklyn Expressway you did not know that was there. So I used to have kids and just travel around the neighborhood with them.
Speaker 1:So my large black and Latino community where you are Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I remember that is correct and I think that gave me the incentive to really work with the kids, because everything that I do now is academically sound but it's also cultural, whereas kids get a chance to see different things, go on trips, go to the museum, go to the library, just learn and see other ways of living. Because sometimes you know, when you talk about Black and Latino population, you are confined to your area, you only know that little block of that radius, of that area, and sometimes you have to step outside to see something different in order to know that there's a different life and you can aspire towards something different.
Speaker 1:Big city living. Yeah, I'm familiar with it. So, okay, I wanted to. Just, I wanted to just. You're an entrepreneur, so let's talk about. Let's talk about what you've been associated with, what you've developed. Let's go a little bit into what you've created, dr Underwood.
Speaker 2:I created a center that's called Rams Youth Academic and Culture Enrichment Center.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So working with Rams Youth, what I was doing and on kids' academics, starting with the academics, making sure that I had a summer camp program and after school program, just making sure that we look at the academics. Education is something that no one can ever take away from you, so it's important to have it. And then, once we had the academics down pack, we would go into cultural arts. So what? My typical summer camp program consists of reading, math and journaling, writing. That was the morning aspect. Then they would go into a sports aspect, have lunch and then in the afternoon it was all cultural arts and the students had a choice of whether praise, dancing a still drum um, we created powerpoints, um, website they actually website design and learning how to actually hold your hands on the keyboard and things like that, um so, and drawing art. So children had a chance to say, well, I want to do this twice a week and I'm going to do something else twice a week. So they would do something.
Speaker 2:So my program basically all summer long. For the six weeks they would work on, the students would work on academics as well as the cultural arts. At the end of the six weeks we put on a performance for the parents. So the parents got a chance to actually see their children hands-on. They saw the multiple papers that they did inside the school the reading and math because what happens inside the school system is that when kids go on summer break, most of the time they forget the information they learned all year. So my program makes sure to address that that they stayed abreast and they were ready to go into the next grade. So everything was age appropriate, everything was related to Virginia standards, sols, and it was short enough, hit the topic, make sure they remember. So therefore they were better off.
Speaker 2:The celebration at the end gave parents a chance to see everything that the kids worked on in the six weeks. They had a chance to see their children's artwork that was displayed, their PowerPoint presentation, just the steel band, just playing music and dancing and everything. So it was like really a good program. And then we had COVID and that pretty much put a monkey wrench in what I was doing in a sense that I stopped. But during COVID I decided to work on my doctorate and so by coming out of COVID working on my doctorate, I really didn't jump back into the full thrust of my program. I did have a summer program. About two years ago I had a summer program in Portsmouth and now that I will be retiring soon, I'm looking at just changing the model a little bit, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you'll have time, huh, yes. Yes, you have a book. Yes, I would like to get it.
Speaker 2:I apologize for not bringing it with me we'll get on here.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about your book. What is the name and what is the topic?
Speaker 2:Okay, the book is called I'm Behind you and what it's about is a book that I wrote to my daughter and I had it on the shelf for a long time because actually I used it as a project in school and I received an A for this project and I've always had this book. So the topic of the book is introducing a child through dreams to different affluent African-American people like Diane Carroll, Ella Fitzgerald, Shirley Chisholm. So all these dynamic women that a lot of our children do not know have any idea who they may be, that they're groundbreakers. This was a story where the mother used to tell her child every night before she would go to bed, a bedtime story about one of these African-American women, and at the end of the story she would say that no matter where you go in life, no matter how big you dream, I want you to know that I'm behind you. So the mother is supporting her child through all, encouraging her to be the best that she could be, and she's not putting limitations.
Speaker 2:And I want you to be a doctor? She's like no, her job is to introduce her daughter to the world and let her daughter make a choice, and so that goes back to my program. My job is really to introduce our kids to the diverse nature of this world. I'm not telling them what to do, but I want them to know that there's something else beside their neighborhood. There's something else that they can do. They just have to be able to see it, touch it, feel it and then understand that they can go beyond their circumstance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think something like that goes a long way in their development and giving them a vision as to what and where they can go.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Okay, so your work primarily not primarily, but you work. A lot of your work has been in the black and Latino communities. Talk about you address some of the challenges, but talk about the challenges that are faced, that you've seen in those communities over the years.
Speaker 2:Well, it all comes back to where the money goes. Some schools had more money and resources than others and if that's the case, then our students are sometimes deprived of STEM classes or tutoring sessions and just that extracurricular activities that will help promote them and move them further. That has been the biggest problem Coming down here. I know Portsmouth have really tried to do some really good things by having they have an arrow base and they try to introduce the students to technology. Well, the arrow base, the dynamics of science and everything. So they do some things, but you have to really search for certain resources. Okay, I see.
Speaker 1:Now you're teaching in the Virginia Beach School System and you're associated with a program as individual student. Alternative educational plan. What is that?
Speaker 2:It's an ISEEP program. Basically it's through ISEEP Okay, that's what we call it. It's a GED program for the high school students. It's an alternative pathway for students to obtain a GED high school equivalency diploma. Not all children are equipped to go through these large high schools. A lot of these children have anxieties, don't like these high schools. There's bullying, there's all type of social things that's going on. That's pushing these kids further and further back. And so what you see, manifest in the high schools are the kids are not going to school. They're cutting classes, they're choosing not to go to school, they're falling, you know, they're dropping out. So this is a pathway that they can achieve a high school, at least a high school diploma. For some kids that's the only diploma they're going to achieve. For others they're going to go on to college and continue on.
Speaker 2:So our program we work with all the kids here in Virginia Beach. They have to apply to come into the program. They have to test to come into the program. They must have at least an eighth grade reading level in order to enter the program, which is really good because it sets the standards up a little high, because some deficits are really severe in some of the children. And you know the program is located in Renaissance Academy and just by looking at some of the kids in Renaissance and one kid in particular was really trying to get into the program but the deficits are there and the deficits at a high school level, where you're not really reading the way you should be, at least on the eighth grade level, that's problematic.
Speaker 2:So by having this ISA program, it is absolutely wonderful. It's sponsored by the Virginia Department of Education and we had to write a grant. I didn't write the grant, we helped with the grant, but it's grant funded and it's truly a blessing to some of these kids. We just had our graduation last Thursday and between the parents and the kids and the emotions and everyone crying and excited and just to see the whole gamut that goes with these babes, I mean it's wonderful, it's just so wonderful. It's a rewarding program.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you just said something about some of the challenges that you had. The children, the students are having now social issues, anxiety issues. You started 30 years ago. Was it something that was present then?
Speaker 2:No, okay, what is happening right now? It's unbelievable, even within. I've been at the school for three years now. From when I first started to now, it has been totally different. The amount of anxieties, oh my goodness, just all of the socialization issues and concerns that these kids have between bipolar, and there's just so many. It's not even a OCD or ADHD, it's beyond that. You're looking at bipolar disorder, you're? There's just so many diagnosis out there that it's really mind boggling. So, starting 30 years ago, did we have this? No, we did not. I remember a story. When I first started teaching a student, he was in the fourth grade. I had a fourth grade class and at that time we had 30 kids in our classroom teaching.
Speaker 1:Isn't that a lot?
Speaker 2:No, we managed that. It is a lot now because of what's happening, but back then that was just the norm 30 kids you can go up to 36 kids in a class and you taught and you had structure, you had discipline. Everything was there. Today is a different day, but the young man he grew up in a project and I had the kids write something about.
Speaker 2:If they had one wish, what would it be? This young man simply said I would like to be able to go to the bathroom and not be disturbed. So in his household there were nine people living in his household. He couldn't just go to the bathroom because somebody else was always knocking on the door trying to get in. And what have you? Go to the bathroom because somebody else was always knocking on the door trying to get in, and what have you? So anxiety. I would think that would cause more anxiety than anything else. But the realities are. They dealt with the situation. We all dealt with the situation. I'm coming from a single mother household, so I mean there wasn't this anxiety that's going on. It's like where is it coming from?
Speaker 1:What's happening.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's a good question, trying to see and understand what's happening. I do know technology definitely has something to do with it. I had shown a TED Talk for the kids and one of the 14-year-old girls from the Midwest and she was saying due to the bullying, due to the socialization, everyone's trying to keep up with their peers, everyone's trying to be the socialite and they're really not. So that's causing a lot of anxiety inside the school system. It would be good to really sit back and do a study because it's getting really bad. It's very scary what I'm seeing. It's really scary.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sounds like system overload for them and I guess when you're at that age, when you're still in school, you're still developing. You don't know how to put things in places and as we get older, we have to go work and do everything. We have families learn that. Ok, that's needs to stay there. Maybe they I don't know if they can do it.
Speaker 2:I don't know if they can do it. I don't, I don't. I think they have so much and it's such a fast society now that everyone's head is engaged in their phones. They're looking at their phone. They're not building a socialization skills, which is something I mandate in our program. You have to talk, we get to know each other, we do have these conversations and things like that. They're not really having these conversations. I don't think. And I definitely think.
Speaker 2:Well, if you did, as I was working on my doctorate, I was looking at the research on technology and what they were saying. This is actually designed to have children to be isolated, because the way the world is moving, it's more technology driven and they need kids to focus and be isolated, so not really kind of communicate with each other. So, like the pandemic was a push even faster to get kids in that shift, that mind shift dealing with technology. So it's all part of the design and so but, looking at that, not all children can handle it, not all children can handle the isolation and not all children can move at such a fast pace.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, yeah, definitely, growing up, you had to go talk to. If you like the girl, you actually go talk to her and break the ice. Now you can do it on your phone. But one of the things I've seen is that a lot of young men they're not dating and they have an idea that they can't keep up with some of the women that they're seeing online Because they're looking at these women like man.
Speaker 1:I can't afford look at what she has on Because they're looking at these women like man. I can't afford look at what she has on. And then she's dating a ballplayer and she's like and I saw one, was this guy, this likeness? So if you're in college and you're playing sports and you're pretty popular, the school makes money off of your likeness. So now they're paying the students. So you know, student athletes actually have money now and these guys like we have to compete with. Don't worry about what that athlete has. That's not the woman for you in the first place. But I guess if they're not actually doing that, they can't relate that I should go talk to somebody.
Speaker 1:It's pretty interesting. So yeah, I'm trying to delve into it myself because I think it's really really interesting. Pandemic had a lot to do with it. I don't know if I just sped everything up, exacerbated the issue with the socialization and the phones it did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, research tells you it did. And again, like I said, it was designed to be that way.
Speaker 1:And the pandemic just opened it up. Yeah, yeah. So over the last 30 years you're working in the educational field. What cultural practices have you seen primarily? Growing up, you've seen a lot of Black and Latinos teaching. What are the cultural practices that have had the most influence in the Black community, would you say In those communities with education, so to speak?
Speaker 2:That's interesting, Culture-wise.
Speaker 1:That's interesting because I think I don't want to cut you off. I'm looking at it and what made me think about it is I have friends and family that, of course, are black I grew up in there but I actually have some friends that are from Harlem right, and they're Latina. So, of course, being in the barrio, one of the things that they would like to do, they would always want to go to the Bronx to go shopping, and I don't, and so when we were there, we would have to go to the Bronx to go shopping, and it was cool because you get a few different things there. But I was just thinking about that culture, you know, and being close to it and some of the things that I saw. So how do you see how it's affected?
Speaker 2:It's it's interesting, it's life, it's just really life in our neighborhoods in the Bronx in New York. It's just life. You, you know you experience that in your neighborhood. But when you go into the school setting you learned different history. You learned certain history. You didn't learn everything that you needed to know about yourself.
Speaker 1:Do you think history is taught for? Is there a Latino history that's taught there? I know they teach you American history.
Speaker 2:Right, and that's what I was going to say. It's not Latino history, it's American history and you know different cultures are woven in through American history. But sometimes you also have to look at that history through the eyes of the person. You know that's telling it, yeah, so you have to look at that history through the eyes of the person. You know that's telling it, yeah, so you have to look at it that way. I think, down here it's it's still american history and actually the history in the thai water community is very rich. It's very interesting, yes, it is. It's very dynamic, um, and it gives you a sense of understanding the trials and tribulations of being African-American, being brought here as a slave.
Speaker 1:Renaissance Academy.
Speaker 2:Go to the first floor and you can learn about how everything got started with the museum that's there, yes, yes, it's absolutely beautiful just to walk in there and look at it. It's not huge but it's a very nice story to give you some information of what happened in this particular area. But even if you walk downtown Norfolk near the mall area, they have different things up that tells you about the history and the trades and everything else. It's just very rich, very rich culture. But at the same time there's a sense of what do we do with that culture inside the school. So you're learning this and it's good to understand, because then you get snippets of it. You don't have the totality of what has happened because there's so much more, but you do have an understanding. I think right now, with this new change and getting rid of the eye and trying to eliminate the cultures, trying to make it my next question that, yeah, that that's just.
Speaker 2:You know. You can't separate a person from their culture. You can't separate a person from their history. But if you're going to start mandating a certain curriculum be taught and the kids are going to be tested on that knowledge, what are we doing? That's where the problem will come in. So, in terms of the cultures in the school we are, who was in the school? They recognized us, they celebrated us. If you look at James Bank, james Banks always talked about not just having an additive approach, but sometimes an additive approach is all that was given. It's more going into the socialization and changing, and that's where a lot of the different politics and changes in the school system and the people who's running the school system was in Down here. It's a little interesting.
Speaker 1:So once they're going to try to remove a lot of things, so once they've I think it's kind of a gray area what they can remove, area what they? Can remove and you know, just you know, some of the meetings that we've been in, doubling the double the NAACP. They've talked about it. Um, how can? I don't see how they can get it all removed. They can't to to whitewash it and get the narrative told. But how do you think it's going to end up?
Speaker 2:Well, if you look at DeSantis in Florida, talking about slavery was a choice and was an economic opportunity Right a choice and it was an economic opportunity Right. Things like that is just absolutely ridiculous.
Speaker 1:And as a history major, I probably said it on too many episodes. One of the things I do know is about Florida's history and it's probably people don't realize it and you tend to think of how bad things are. You tend to think of like Mississippi or whatever. Florida is probably the probably has the worst history with dealing with people. They've dealt with just the atrocities with the Indians, with the Spanish people and the black folks, that the Africans that came there. I think it's amongst the worst. So they're not teaching. I don't know if they're teaching. He's going to allow to be taught there.
Speaker 2:It's. It's interesting what's happening, that change in the language, change in the narrative, banning books at the college level, now saying that certain courses, yes, you can take at the high school level, you can take a Black history course, but you're not going to receive any credit for it. All these little things is what they're trying to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The realities are. We know our history. We do Some of us do, I should say, because not everyone, some of us do really know our history and know what has happened. I think that when I was the multicultural coordinator in the Bronx, we were celebrating Black History Month and I had showed a film where, you know, the blacks was being hosed down and they let the dogs loose and what have you? And I heard commentary for a Hispanic woman. She's like that didn't really happen. I'm showing you this right there in black and white, but that didn't happen. So some people are totally removed from it. When was this? This was years ago, years ago, years ago.
Speaker 1:Well, it's almost at that point for them right now.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. That's what's happening now. So you're seeing all this happening. I'm just hoping that, out of all this chaos, people understand that we're human, we all have a story, we all have history, and the only way this is going to work as a society is if we work together. We got to stop all this nonsense, these fractions and these divisions and all this other kind of stuff that takes away from moving forward.
Speaker 1:so so when you say that, do you think assimilation is the solution, or do you think being able to express and tell your story and then have people accept your story is more like a solution?
Speaker 2:I think that's OK. Assimilation I am. I was never really into the assimilation aspect. Um, I see how trying to walk in someone else's shoes, thinking that that was better than your own, was a problem it's been tried.
Speaker 1:It's been, and with the black it's been tried for hundreds of years and it's almost impossible the way people look at people with African roots. They're not going to assimilate, society's not going to allow them. So that's what I've learned.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's very problematic In my study.
Speaker 1:But I didn't mean to cut you off.
Speaker 2:No, that's fine. That's absolutely fine, because I see the same thing. I didn't think that was the answer. I think that the people are scared of us and us getting united and moving forward together because we don't really need a lot, but we are resilient people.
Speaker 1:Hundreds of years of things happening the way it's happening now. Yes, it's Renaissance Academy that museums. They started to school because no one else would allow them to go to school in their community.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So that's a prime example of what you know the black folks had to do. They've been doing for generations. So one of the things that I wanted to talk about, too, was I wanted to ask you I see it, but I never experienced it and I've heard stories Do you feel that the negative pejorative and stigma have affected the willingness of young black males to want to embrace education? Because it doesn't seem. It seems like when it comes from a certain, when young men come from a certain family structure where, like a single parent structure, and they don't embrace education, I don't know if they're seen or they don't see the benefit of it. So can we talk a little bit about what you've seen over the years of how that's affected the black male?
Speaker 2:I don't think it's that they don't embrace education. I think there's such. There is a whole host of problems that's in our community and I think that, okay, you have some who have to take care of their family. Well, their family, home life is not structured properly. There's a demise and you're just making ends meet and they, they are. They see money being exchanged and things like that. So you've come from a generation where maybe it's a quick ways to do something illegal that you wasn't supposed to do, to bring that in. That does not mean I don't like education. That means I have to survive. So I don't think that goes against education. It's just that I can't do that because I have to take care of my family. I need this, we need this. You know the lights is cut off, the water's cold and things of that nature, so it comes in a survival mode. You see that, with the Latino culture as well, a lot of them will work to take care of their household four or five, six people in the house just to take care of that. They'll drop out of school quicker to do to work, to take care of their home or to send money home. And so it doesn't mean that you do not value education, okay. Then you have some people who have never matured, never grown up, never see reality. They look for handouts, they don't really value much of anything, whether it's education, their life, the system, what have you? You have that going on. Then you have people who do value education, who are put in these boxes and they're not educated and they're reprimanded and they're demoralized in the school system or they're told something that's very negative and not really treated correctly. That's happening, okay. So you have that.
Speaker 2:Who gets all upset because my grandson, he goes to school in Chesapeake. I'm getting ready to come after a teacher inside there. I want school ended yesterday, but now I'm writing this teacher up because I watched him over the year from my grandson loved wearing braids. Then one day he came on didn't want braid. He didn't want grandma to braid his hair. I'm like what's going on here? And it went from that to talking politics in the school, to him saying I hate school, to him hearing what the teacher said over the course. I'm like, okay, I'm going to deal with this and I will. You know, but he's the type of teacher that would have reprimanded him or did something else. So I said, let me let this school year in. So you have kids who are demoralized, who are made fun of, who are saying that they're not enough or they are not a good enough, they're not going to make it. That's a whole nother piece. Then you have kids who are thrown into special education.
Speaker 2:Now I'm going to tell you no child left behind was the best thing for special education, because prior to that kids who were in special ed was not being educated Right, no child left behind. I don't care how all these states complained about the rigor was too hard and everything else. It was needed because kids were not given a fair shot and that a lot kind of somewhat even the playing field, that a lot kind of somewhat even the playing field.
Speaker 2:Okay Now, with what's happening now, I don't know if it's going to demolish the playing field in terms of special education, because what you see is you can look at special education kids who don't finish school, who drop out of school. A lot of them are special ed kids because they don't have the foundational skills the reading, the math. They can't do it. And if you look at it, I did some studies in Portsmouth in terms of the crime rate attributed to kids coming out of the special education population because they don't have the skills. So they go back to the street life taking care of their basic needs. So all of that is relative. So, again, you do look at education, but we have this whole host of issues and concerns that's going on that I think, the kids who don't value education. Sometimes they come. I look at the kids in the school that I'm in and I'm like what happened?
Speaker 1:You don't have a male role model. I think that's family structure yes right, yeah a lot of them.
Speaker 2:Like what happened? I didn't. I've never seen that. We've always grown up with a sense of pride. You wore your Sunday best to church on Sunday. There was this sense of pride. Your grooming was always neat. Growing up you didn't have much. You may have had one pair of pants, but you was always neat and clean. There's just a total shift in what's happening.
Speaker 1:And where you're getting the message from is different. I was thinking about in the eliminated, with Denzel was telling that kid miles, that's fast money miles. It's fast money, you need long money, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2:That's why I push education, academics. If you have your education, no one can take that away from you at all.
Speaker 1:Right, so I'm going to go back. Sounds to me like economic structure has a lot to do with it, and I like to think of it as if you don't focus, and you can't focus because you're hungry and you don't know where things are going to come from. Things are really expensive. Quote another movie straw. I don't know if you saw yes, I did.
Speaker 1:Yes, I did. It's hard. Being poor is expensive. It is, it's very expensive. Thanks, tyler, for that. That is true, maybe because growing up, I guess we were in situations where we knew people that were poor if we weren't poor, but it was a different type of poor. Maybe you still have food to eat.
Speaker 2:I think it comes down to respect. I think it's the respect factor is gone Because, yes, that structure is totally gone, because you've always had single mother household. You've always had. My mother was a single mom, but we had respect the neighborhood if any one of the Underwood children did anything my mother knew and your neighbor would reprimand you.
Speaker 1:Your mom's closest neighbor would reprimand you Exactly.
Speaker 2:You can't say anything to anyone nowadays because there's not that sense of community any longer. Yeah, and so there's a demise there. That respect factor, it's a major demise. You know it's bad. Yeah, it's bad.
Speaker 1:Okay, any final thoughts you want to leave us with? You gave us a lot to chew on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just think, given the climate that we have now, you can't depend on the education system to take care of your kids. You're really going to have to invest more time and effort. I think parents have to really invest time and effort into their children, right, because there is going to be a part in other ways those who are taking care of business and moving forward and those who's just not. And this president is not playing when he's talking about martial law and all this other kind of stuff that they put in place. I don't think we've seen. We haven't seen what's coming.
Speaker 1:We're six months in.
Speaker 2:We're six months in. We got three years Right.
Speaker 2:Right, and you keep talking about immigration, immigration and these immigration camps and what have you. It's not just for the immigrants and I think people need to really understand what is happening. This is all of us that's involved with this nonsense that's happening in our country and it's not when it affects one person, one group. Trust and belief is going to the next group and he's setting the stage to make sure you don't know your history, you're not educated, you are hungry, so you cannot focus in school. You know, and that the cops will have the right to put you in jail without even a trial. So all these things are manifesting around us and it's sad. It's like we don't have time for a lot of the nonsense. You really need to look at what's happening around us and be prepared. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's changed a lot too Right, because I think probably us growing up we were coming out of the civil rights movement, so a lot of that spilled over to us when we were growing up. We were coming out of the civil rights movement, so a lot of that spilled over to us when we were growing up, so I don't think they, these last two generations, understand that they do not.
Speaker 1:So they don't know what went into it. So it's interesting, went into it, so it's interesting. So usually if you're over 40 or so, you may have some idea what's about to take place.
Speaker 2:I can't even say that because I don't even think it's an age number, because I think it's what you're spending your time watching and reading and looking at makes a difference, because you have some 40 year olds who are clueless and then you have some very 20 year, 20 year olds who are very on point on point. A lot of the people that spoke at the school board meeting for Virginia Beach young people on point. Yeah, I was so impressed with their conversations and the way they handled themselves. It's like it's not even an age thing anymore.
Speaker 1:Gotcha All right, I see, so thank you for coming in and talking with us.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. I appreciate this.
Speaker 1:You're going to have to bring that book back.
Speaker 2:Yes, I will, definitely, I will Thanks, all right.
