A Quote by Octavia Spencer
City Year resonated with me because when I grew up, we were poor - and an education is a way out of poverty. It's a way out of the current situation that can seem isolating and hopeless for some kids.
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My mom grew up in poverty in Oklahoma - like Dust Bowl, nine people in one room kind of place - and the way she got out of poverty was through education. My dad grew up without a dad, with very little and he also made his way out through education.
Make your kids go out and play. Kids ought to grow up the way you and I grew up and we grew up fifty years apart or maybe more. But we did the same things. Now who's out playing in the afternoon? Nobody.
It was a way out of poverty. It was a way to success. It was a way to education. And it was a way to a brighter day for me.
If we're going to get this country out of its current energy situation, we can't just conserve our way out; we can't just drill our way out; we can't bomb our way out. We're going to do it the old-fashioned American way, we're going to invent our way out, working together.
If we're going to get this country out of its current energy situation, we can't just conserve our way out. We can't just drill our way out. We can't bomb our way out. We're going to do it the old-fashioned, American way. We're going to invent our way out, working together.
I think people assume that because I talk the way that I talk that I grew up with money, and then I've had to say, 'No, I grew up poor.' And then I was like, 'Why do I have to play this game where the only black experience that's authentic is the one where you grew up in poverty?' I mean, it's ridiculous.
I grew up when people were afraid to 'come out' as gay. If you asked me how many gay kids I grew up with or went to school with, I would have said none - which of course could not have been true. The truth is I have no idea how many confused and frightened kids I grew up with. They are still out there.
To me, education is the way out of poverty. And it is the only way.
I grew up in a very modest house. We were poor-we lived on the poverty level. We all got jobs as young kids.
On both sides of my family, my grandparents grew up in total poverty and came to California during the Great Depression. The only way they were able to work their way out of that was by joining the military, which is how they both went on to be able to go to college.
When I was at university, there was such a strong delineation between city kids and those who had grown up the suburbs. City kids were so at home in the world, in a way that suburban kids take years to catch up, if indeed they ever can.
I grew up playing with kids who were the kids of people my parents grew up playing with, and they know me like nobody else. I thought everybody was that way when I was growing up, and then I left to go to college, and I realised that the world is full of strangers.
I think it goes back to whether or not race and class - that is, race and poverty - is not becoming even more of a constraint. Because with the failing public schools, I worry that the way that my grandparents got out of poverty, the way that my parents became educated, is just not going to be there for a whole bunch of kids.
My parents came from a poor background and worked their way up because of education. They saw it as a way to succeed. So they cared about me getting straight A grades when I was growing up.
If you are born into poverty, the chances are good that your children will be born into poverty. Find a way to give poor kids the same cognitive stimulus that rich kids receive, and they should end up with the same tools for success.
It is a game of chess with this city. We'll have to see how it is going to play out. The city goes back and forth trying to figure out what programs to cut and what they have funding for. What I would love to see is for the city to step up and run the rink 10 months out of the year so kids can play in the summer and we can have camps here in Glenwood.
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