The story of James and the happy bright-eyed college student

When I was in college I worked in Detroit public schools with a young man, we’ll call him James [changed his name for this story]. He was about 9 at the time I started working with him. About once a week I would go to his school, he would leave his usual class room for an hour, and we would sit and talk about career ambitions or go through his homework for the day. A lot of the time James and I just talked about life.

Talking with a 9-year-old about life will actually teach you a lot about your own life, even if you are 20 and in college.

I learned that James was a grade behind in school and was one of the few African American kids in a mostly Latino school in Detroit. His mom and dad were not living with him and had various drug issues. From what I understood, his parents were also abusive to him both mentally and physically. He lived with his grandmother instead. His brother was in jail at 20 and his sister worked at McDonalds but had good grades and was saving up for college. James lived with his grandmother in a rough part of town which frequently had drive by shootings. James didn’t care about school work, got horrible grades, yet had one of the highest performance scores in his math and english aptitude tests. When James tried at school, he did really, really well. The thing is… James rarely tried in school.

Then I came in. All bright-eyed, social justice student-esque, with my ponytail swinging high; confident I could make a change in his life. I wanted to make a positive impact and yet was overly optimistic about everything in society. I started visiting James once a week and worked with him for 3 years. I know it’s very simplistic, but in my head I saw James going one of two directions, either he was going to be like his sister and go to college or he was going to end up like his brother in jail.

Yes, in retrospect this is a highly simplistic point of view. James of course had a middle option which was neither jail, nor college. I would’ve been happy with that as well. I just knew James had a lot of potential. Of course, I wanted James to be all he could be and I knew James could be a whole lot for society if he applied himself at school.

There was a whole lot holding him back from applying himself at school. His parents used drugs and weren’t there to help him with homework. His community was frequently trafficked by drug dealers. The constant threat of violence as a 9-year-old makes those ambitions feel much farther away. James needed to worry about survival, getting food, not being beat up, then he could worry about school once those other needs were met.

I’d like to note a few things here: why did I think I had the solutions for James? Let’s be honest, I didn’t have solutions. I was just someone who cared a lot about him and thought he was a smart kid. I came from a different family structure, a different race, a different gender background, I never had to worry about being shot in the middle of the night, and I was very food secure. What I do know, is that my heart ached for James. I wanted him to succeed in the way a mother wants her son or daughter to succeed. I felt like if James succeeded the massive problems of Detroit and the Detroit Public School system could be solved by people who just cared a lot.

This is partly true and partly un-true. It’s bullshit of me to think that societal change can happen without policy makers, without government funding, proper health care, and college scholarships for kids in the same situation as James, but I also knew I had to give him my all.

The end of this story is a bit less glamorous and climactic. We worked together from when he was 9 to when he was 12. When he turned 12, we made a book of all his drawings about why he loved Detroit and what he wanted to be when he grew up. When I was about to start my senior year of college and James was going to turn the all-too-difficult age of 13, I asked him if he wanted to continue my sessions with him. He said he enjoyed his time with me, but not next year. I thought it would break me heart when he was eventually done with me, but it didn’t. I knew James needed to be with his class, he needed to be a pre-teen.

He couldn’t continue to talk about what he wanted to be when he grew up, he just needed to go out and do it.

When I think back to James I think back to the community in Detroit. The people I met there, the people who I cared a lot about, the school teachers who actually cared a lot, the parents who showed up to walk their kids home after school. When people ask me if it was hard to work in Detroit, I usually say “no, because I was working with kids and kids are always awesome.” I still stand by that. Detroit has so much possibility, so much culture, and so much love if you just give it a chance.

When you fall in love with the people, falling in love with the city is the next step.

If you ever want to see the best side of the city, the part with the most potential — work with a group of kids in that community.

I’d like to think that James is doing alright now. Maybe he’s in College, maybe he’s not. Again, if he wants me to be there, I will be there, but for now I’m hanging back and just thinking of all the wonderful things he taught me in my time with him.