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For him it was peer pressure. He held on to the perception that in order to be accepted by his peers, he needed to under-perform and be defiant in school to build up his street credibility. Since he was a teenager, he also resented his parents being involved in his day to day at school. He had some additional challenges but that was the breadth of what was going on. While working with him, my goal was to try to make sure he didn't go too far down the wrong path and end up at a point where he couldn't turn around.
This happens far too often in the black community, sadly.
How many schools do you know of in the DC area where shootings and stabbings occur on the regular? How many schools in the DMV do you know of that had rioting inside of the school in the past few years? That's right, rioting. How many colleges in the DMV riot like they do every year at the University of Md? The reality is Prince Georges County is not a climate for learning, its a climate of violence. Central High had a fight that encompassed most of the school to include parents who responded to join the fray as well. Wasn't it Dr. Wise High school last year was featured because the ENTIRE SCHOOL was fighting? Let's not forget those awesome football game stands fights that are always featured on video. And of course the fight that broke out last year at a basketball game where the officer was overwhelmed and forced to pepper spray the animals fighting. Bowie state had a murder on campus, roomates killing each other over music. Even a kid who was incarcerated murdered his teacher at cheltenham. Its to my understanding that the school police and county officers who are assigned to the schools are frequently overwhelmed, just like the sheriffs were. Fights between warring streetgangs consume parkinglots after school on the regular. Yea, on the path to greatness.
National Harbor is a sinking ship. I've already seen the garbage running loose down there. Yea I've seen the usual gang related neighborhood trash filming their gangster rap music videos on the piers and watching dudes rockin all red arguing with the rent a cops. I've seen cadillac ranch get out of control weekly. Its simply an extension of College Parks fight club bars. I've seen that geek a thon that goes on yearly get absolutely wild with all sorts of mayhem from people smashing TV's and throwing things at the helpless cops to running amuck wrecking that classy hotel.
The police are overwhelmed and mismanaged. Criminals run free because the police have no power. They can't chase you if you run. They wont beat you no more if your a badguy. They are poorly equiped from what I've seen, driving old vehicles, and simply "providing a presence." Once again, even if your arrested, the odds of you serving jailtime for your offense is slim in Prince Georges County. Being poorly equipped and managed will not only leave them unable to deal with comon criminals but also international terrorists who seek to destroy major american attractions like casinos etc. I think the most they can do is take a report. The private security that patrols the harbor is a joke. They don't even carry jumper cables, much less have arrest powers. The criminals are armed better than the county police and the security that patrols. So with both of those entities really unable to respond to and deal with the existing crime that occurs in the county, what makes you think they can control a casino? I sure hope MGM hires some machine gun toting goons who dress well in suits and carry a big stick because its become clear the other groups that patrol NH are overwhelmed as it is.
Priorities in Prince Georges County should be
1. Improving the school security situation.
2. Improving the readiness of the police and sheriffs and giving back the ability to deal with the criminal element. If this cannot be done, im in favor of disbanding and relinquishing control to MSP to see what they can do with the area.
3. Once crime is under control and schools are better, bring quality business to the county.
I've lived in Camp Springs for 25 years and have seen some crime but nothing on the scale of a modern day video game. I have had a vehicle stolen and my shed broken into and that was near 20 years ago. As for violent crime, an elderly lady down the road was attacked and stabbed by her next door neighbor's adult son who was hitting up all the adjoining neighbors to support his crack addiction. That was at least 15 years ago and she lived for years afterwards. My next door neighbor and another guy down the street found their GMC SUVs on cinder blocks because some knuckleheads wanted the wheels off them.
Most of that crime can be had in many neighborhoods in most cities across the country regardless of locale.
The closest HS to me is Crossland but I don't know much of it. Some of the kids around here attend that school but if anything really bad were to happen there it would be on the tongue of everyone around.
Crime is not that rampant here and I live in an area some might think questionable until they actually see the neighborhood. I have a bunch of neighbors who would shoot first if the widespread mayhem described in these posts suggests broke out so I doubt it will happen anytime soon.
I can't immediately side with what COULD happen over at NH but it would have to be on the scale of 1930s mobsters riding around rather brazenly for that kind of violence to occur. It would have to be in the planning stages as of this time and I doubt it is. From what I have read on this site in the past, the entirety of Waldorf is worse than this area.
Derailing potential Business, Economic, and Revenue Growth by using the County's little short comings is an agenda to keep Suburban Maryland depressed under Northern Virginia so that Northern Virginia continues to out perform Suurban Maryland in Business, Economic, and Revenue Growth.......
By your theory there is a huge conspiracy transpiring in the midst of the nation's capital and right under the nose of the sitting POTUS who would seemingly have an investigation into it.
Can you cite any viable sources to back your claim?
For him it was peer pressure. He held on to the perception that in order to be accepted by his peers, he needed to under-perform and be defiant in school to build up his street credibility. Since he was a teenager, he also resented his parents being involved in his day to day at school. He had some additional challenges but that was the breadth of what was going on. While working with him, my goal was to try to make sure he didn't go too far down the wrong path and end up at a point where he couldn't turn around.
That's very sad. I had a couple of mentees that lived with just their mother (no father) and they never thought doing homework was important or doing well in school. All they cared about was being popular, getting girls and nothing else. Telling them to do well in school was like a foreign concept to them. I really tried to encourage them to do well academically. These guys were 7th and 8th graders and I was the first person to ever talk to them about college. My point with all that said is, as a mentor, no matter how much we do, it all comes back to what's being reinforced at home. Unfortunately it's a job that a mother has a difficult time doing and realistically father's have the best chance of reaching them. As mentors you only see those kids for 1 hour out of the week. It's hard to change their mindset in that time if their parents are saying the same things.
So true. Parents have do have difficult time because of the standards of society, but I think that is why you are beginning to see more creative forms of punishment. Ultimately though, kids don't get to the point of thinking schools isn't for them unless it is be reinforced some where. It doesn't necessarily have to be the parents, but as a parent you have to recognize when your child is being negatively influenced and counteract it. Kids are like sponges. If you put them in a certain environment, they will pick things up pretty quickly. I could be wrong, but it sounds like the kid your were mentoring may have somebody in his ear telling him that his parents don't care about him because of xyz. Parents have to pay more attention, kids got itchy ears and the people out on the streets and in the neighborhoods who are up to no good will scratch them.
I am a military brat and learned by my father's large hand that school was not a place to act up. My siblings and I were raised in a "children should be seen and not heard" atmosphere which meant we had to be on our best behavior at all times. My mother and father were adamant about school attendance and performance. I had to watch my step outside of school as well.
When I lived in south Texas the schools employed corporal punishment (spanking) for students who were unruly. Suspension/expulsion were for the very worst and suspension was only used once or twice before being expelled. I was paddled a few times and then got my a$$ kicked when I got home; that was how parents raised their kids in the 60s. All of my friends down there can tell you the same thing. I was suspended once in HS because my hair was too long on the first day of school but that was a good laugh at the house. My dad was displeased with the school more than with me. If I was ever suspended because of ill behavior I might as well have left home at a very early age. Was anyone else raised by a military drill instructor?
From what I have seen in schools, a very liberal policy has taken the ability from the school administration/staff to correct behavioral problems as they happen which forces the schools to turn a blind eye towards the problems. Parents aren't going to correct the problem, as evidenced, and the kids grow up to be great people. I saw it happen in my daughter's school down in Charles county. She lived with her mom who didn't supervise any of her homework or her school attendance. Her mother is nuts and my daughter learned she could claim to suffer from the same imaginary mental disorders so she could skip her way through school. I had no legal rights in it. She is a 25 year old unwed mother of two kids now and her life is not getting better. She might as well be on Jerry Springer.
I put most of it on a national public education stance that does not have checks and balances for the sake of the students. I have no idea what the federal government agenda is concerning public schools but it is sorely lacking. They performed much better when the individual states oversaw them. Public school has become little more than free daycare and some of them have free daycare for students who have children.
This is a nationwide problem and not just in PGC.
That's very sad. I had a couple of mentees that lived with just their mother (no father) and they never thought doing homework was important or doing well in school. All they cared about was being popular, getting girls and nothing else. Telling them to do well in school was like a foreign concept to them. I really tried to encourage them to do well academically. These guys were 7th and 8th graders and I was the first person to ever talk to them about college. My point with all that said is, as a mentor, no matter how much we do, it all comes back to what's being reinforced at home. Unfortunately it's a job that a mother has a difficult time doing and realistically father's have the best chance of reaching them. As mentors you only see those kids for 1 hour out of the week. It's hard to change their mindset in that time if their parents are saying the same things.
That's true but the interesting thing about mine is that college was something that was reinforced at home and to talk to him going to college was in his plan but the day to day did not correspond with the long term goal. He couldn't comprehend that what he was doing today was going to negatively impact whatever his future plans were.
I am a military brat and learned by my father's large hand that school was not a place to act up. My siblings and I were raised in a "children should be seen and not heard" atmosphere which meant we had to be on our best behavior at all times. My mother and father were adamant about school attendance and performance. I had to watch my step outside of school as well.
When I lived in south Texas the schools employed corporal punishment (spanking) for students who were unruly. Suspension/expulsion were for the very worst and suspension was only used once or twice before being expelled. I was paddled a few times and then got my a$$ kicked when I got home; that was how parents raised their kids in the 60s. All of my friends down there can tell you the same thing. I was suspended once in HS because my hair was too long on the first day of school but that was a good laugh at the house. My dad was displeased with the school more than with me. If I was ever suspended because of ill behavior I might as well have left home at a very early age. Was anyone else raised by a military drill instructor?
From what I have seen in schools, a very liberal policy has taken the ability from the school administration/staff to correct behavioral problems as they happen which forces the schools to turn a blind eye towards the problems. Parents aren't going to correct the problem, as evidenced, and the kids grow up to be great people. I saw it happen in my daughter's school down in Charles county. She lived with her mom who didn't supervise any of her homework or her school attendance. Her mother is nuts and my daughter learned she could claim to suffer from the same imaginary mental disorders so she could skip her way through school. I had no legal rights in it. She is a 25 year old unwed mother of two kids now and her life is not getting better. She might as well be on Jerry Springer.
I put most of it on a national public education stance that does not have checks and balances for the sake of the students. I have no idea what the federal government agenda is concerning public schools but it is sorely lacking. They performed much better when the individual states oversaw them. Public school has become little more than free daycare and some of them have free daycare for students who have children.
This is a nationwide problem and not just in PGC.
I was raised in a southern African-American family so I can relate to the military style upbringing. Talking back to adults, cursing, using improper language etc. were not tolerated (and we lived in the hood). My parents ingrained such a deep level of structure that it took me two weeks to break my curfew when I went off to college. Fast forward to the generation after me. I have a cousin who had 6 kids by the time she was 25.
I am a military brat and learned by my father's large hand that school was not a place to act up. My siblings and I were raised in a "children should be seen and not heard" atmosphere which meant we had to be on our best behavior at all times. My mother and father were adamant about school attendance and performance. I had to watch my step outside of school as well.
When I lived in south Texas the schools employed corporal punishment (spanking) for students who were unruly. Suspension/expulsion were for the very worst and suspension was only used once or twice before being expelled. I was paddled a few times and then got my a$$ kicked when I got home; that was how parents raised their kids in the 60s. All of my friends down there can tell you the same thing. I was suspended once in HS because my hair was too long on the first day of school but that was a good laugh at the house. My dad was displeased with the school more than with me. If I was ever suspended because of ill behavior I might as well have left home at a very early age. Was anyone else raised by a military drill instructor?
From what I have seen in schools, a very liberal policy has taken the ability from the school administration/staff to correct behavioral problems as they happen which forces the schools to turn a blind eye towards the problems. Parents aren't going to correct the problem, as evidenced, and the kids grow up to be great people. I saw it happen in my daughter's school down in Charles county. She lived with her mom who didn't supervise any of her homework or her school attendance. Her mother is nuts and my daughter learned she could claim to suffer from the same imaginary mental disorders so she could skip her way through school. I had no legal rights in it. She is a 25 year old unwed mother of two kids now and her life is not getting better. She might as well be on Jerry Springer.
I put most of it on a national public education stance that does not have checks and balances for the sake of the students. I have no idea what the federal government agenda is concerning public schools but it is sorely lacking. They performed much better when the individual states oversaw them. Public school has become little more than free daycare and some of them have free daycare for students who have children.
This is a nationwide problem and not just in PGC.
Those are some good points and bringing this all back to the main topic, the last thing you said, is a reason why we shouldn't cast our hopes in revenue from a casino improving our school system. Our school systems are broken because of people who have no clue about schools making decisions for it. Money isn't the issue, we spend more money than most school systems in this region, we just lack the right people and right policies to make it effective.
That's true but the interesting thing about mine is that college was something that was reinforced at home and to talk to him going to college was in his plan but the day to day did not correspond with the long term goal. He couldn't comprehend that what he was doing today was going to negatively impact whatever his future plans were.
Very sad.
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