This is a sampling of comments made by students in Seeds of Change about their own lives. They were compiled over the course of several meetings by staff and organized into topics. At the students' request, their names and any identifying information were removed.
Seeds of Change Interview Categories:
Taught to be hard:
Student A
Last year I never stayed after cause I’m too prideful cause I want to think I can do
anything on my own. I don’t like to ask for help. Asking someone to do something for you is different, like reference letters, that’s okay. I remember one time I stayed up til 2:30 in the morning trying to figure out this one algebra thing. The next morning I got a zero out of a hundred and I did all the questions. I don’t know. I think if you ask for help it shows that you are weak and the one thing I can’t be is weak.
Study habits:
Student D
Well, for me it’s like, I can do my homework but not in certain surroundings. If I am around people doing homework influencing me to do homework, I am gonna do it. But with my home boys if they are like don’t do homework, I want to do it but I say I am gonna do it later. At Central if everybody was in a study group, I think there would be way more people doing their homework instead of doing something they are not supposed to be doing after school.
Q: What could the school or teachers do to help you when you are in those decision making modes about whether or not I should do my homework?
Reasonable amount of homework, not reading chapters 1-14 in a day, something reasonable, not all kids read at the speed of light.
The wrong clothes, the wrong color:
Student F
I grew up with my grandma cause I only see my mom once a year. We would cry everyday cause we missed each other. I was a good kid but at the same time I had a smart mouth. I would cuss at them, steal from my grandpa for attention. We went to this camp and people were talking about my grandma and I wasn’t appreciating it. I got made fun of and I didn’t do nothing. They would punk me out and tease me because of who I am. I didn’t fight back because I looked up to MLK when I was a kid. He was nonviolent and I wanted to be that way.
I had only a few friends, really no friends at all. The white kids ain’t my race. They would pick on me and they never knew me. They would throw spitballs and call me names. They weren’t helping us at all. There was only one black teacher in the whole entire school.
Student I
For junior high I went to OMITEDand it’s a suburb. I’m out here wearing Fubu and out there they were Abercrombie & Fitch, even black folks are. I felt really, really outcast. I don’t know if that’s a word. I felt like an outcast. They just...I didn’t feel welcome. Everyone out there acted so different. Everyone perceived me that I came from the streets. I was nothing but a street person. I was there to start trouble or ruin something.
My parents don’t believe me:
Student I
It was good up until 3rd grade when I had to go home to a verbally abusive stepdad. He didn’t like me. He made my life hell from there on. Made me get report cards and put me on punishment for no reason. I became bad because I didn’t know another way out. I can’t do nothing at home. I can’t clown with friends or play video games or be social with friends. All the anger that built up at home. I couldn’t say nothing back because I was afraid of him. I would get in fights at school and my mom would come get me and I would get in trouble from him. He would torture me like a probation officer or something. He made me get report cards every Thursday about my behavior and my teacher, I felt like them two were siding with each other. I always got bad reports and I don’t remember doing stuff. My home affected my school. I was being treated like crap and under a lot of pressure and I couldn’t concentrate on school. I did blame part of it on him but now that I think about it, I could have found alternative ways to get passed it. My mom didn’t believe me until they were close to getting a divorce. You know, sometimes they think kids are over reacting but I was always telling my mom and I went to tell my grandparents. I could have been held back forthe first time. I was getting held back a grade.
I wanted to give up cause no one gave a care:
Student H
My 6th grade year, my mom had a baby girl, my little sister, which two weeks after, died. Ever since then I just didn’t care much about anything. That’s basically when I started getting into trouble through 6th, 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th. It just got worse. I didn’t care about anything. My mom and I got into more fights, get into it all the time. Fight about simple things, like she tells me to clean my room, basically I really didn’t care.
Q: Did you ever tell anyone in school about your baby sister?
I don’t talk to anyone. My personal life is my personal life. I don’t talk to anyone about it unless I really want to talk about it. If I don’t want to talk about it, I’m not going to talk about it. If someone asks me what’s the problem then maybe I will tell you.
Student F
I had a rough year 1stgrade through 8th grade. I held everything inside and I couldn’t take it anymore. I was one of those kids who thought about suicide. I wanted to give up because no one gave a care. I look back and I had a friend who committed suicide. He didn’t know how many people cared about him. His mom was hurting and crying for a year in depressed mode. Freshman year I start off good. Sophomore year intermediate. And now in CTT I found something I love to do. Me and OMITTED got close. When we can connect to friends, it makes it easier.
Student C
When I did my first play, it was like a Greek play and I was the lead role and since then I want to be in the spotlight. And I remember that play, and I remember this kid coming up to me at recess and I didn’t really know I influenced kids. And ever since then I want to be an actor. And now I’ve been nominated as class clown and I’m proud of that. And I’m cool with my teachers and that makes me smile when I see people acknowledging me and remembering me.
What really kinda hurts me, even with this recording, I know what I’m saying is not gonna change what’s for me. I was talking to a teacher and they still won’t let me ... As of now it’s not gonna change for me. I can talk to teachers all day and it hurts me a bit. It’s not gonna change.
Dumbing down:
Student A
Starting in preschool I was always separated from the other kids cause they said I was smarter than the others. In preschool I was only with other kids for like an hour a day. I only really had one friend and he wasn’t really my friend. I started having behavior problems in 2ndgrade. I dumbed myself down to be with the other kids. My mom put me in the gifted and talented school but I was doing the same stuff and was bored. And that’s where there was problems. I had one black teacher in enrichment the whole time. I had my first male teacher in 5th grade and that’s when school became fun. I was set aside from everyone else and I had better research skills. In 5thgrade he made sure we all were on the same level. He didn’t make me feel higher or lower than anyone else. He would put things on the board and gave incentives. He made learning fun.
On the move:
Student D
I moved back up here to MN and went to charter school in downtown Minneapolis. And we didn’t know, me and my mom, it was like an ALC. And I wasn’t doing bad it was the only school that was really open. I went there and fell off the edge. I went there and since everyone else was doing bad I went all down hill. Freshman year I did bad and everything I did bad. I learned and every year I do something bad I learned and next year I won’t do it. As far as senior year and now, some other people who have done bad, they motivate me and show me what to do. Groups such as this, Seeds of Change, motivates me to do plenty of different stuff, like a whole lot of stuff.
How is this applicable to my life?:
Student G
All I wanted to do was music. It was like, if I want to do music, why do I need to get good grades? Then I realized I have to graduate first.
Student E
I was more open to learning [in elementary school]. I didn’t know much about anything and I was always willing to learn more but it’s getting harder because it’s getting confusing, cause do we really need to know about x and w and matrixes?
The racism:
Student H
In 2nd grade, after lunch you get play time. Not to be racist or nothing, but this one white kid came and built a tunnel and my mom teach me not to put my hands on nobody. I don’t fight nobody unless you put your hands on me. In this one incident right, he built a tunnel and there was two black kids in our class. And every time we tried to go up there he stopped us at first. I’m sitting there trying to go up underneath and he stops me. I walk away and my mom is like, what you doing? In 2nd grade I was a cry baby. I cry over everything. I wasn’t no punk. My mom says, what you crying about? She is watching the boy and he is keeping everyone away except the white kids and she says, you gonna let that boy do that to you? So I go back over there but this time he push me, only that time I wasn’t taking it and I pushed him back and I completely destroyed the tunnel. The 2nd grade teacher sitting right there sees it all. And when I go over there and knock over the tunnel she goes over there and picks me up. I wasn’t bad in second grade, I wasn’t bad, but I did some bad things.
Student B
My mom explained to me once, it’s a catholic school, so I am thinking everyone’s catholic. But then I saw people wearing the thing that Jewish people wear and I thought we were supposed to wear it and I got in trouble because I touched it. When I went for communion and I went up there and took the bread thing and we weren’t supposed to do that and I go to detention again. But when a white girl did it she didn’t get in trouble.
Breaking the cycle:
Student H
My older brother, during 9th grade, I was visiting him in Chicago, it was 7th and 8th, I started to turn around when we were up there. It was two weeks after I got up there, he got locked up with some stupid stuff. Then I am like, he can do stupid stuff, so can I. Basically I looked up to my older brother. He was the person I looked up to over any other person in my family. When he got in trouble, I thought it would be okay for me to get in trouble.
Student B
I’ve been a tomboy all my life and hang out with black men and half the dudes I hang out with are all students who go to school for an hour and then sell drugs. Just to know people will give up education just to get money kind of hurts a little bit. Especially when it is my cousins and best friends, people I used to play with. They are walking around with a gun in their pants. My cousin does so many different drugs and he looked at me saying oh my gosh it’s you, he was trying to sell me drugs. Yeah, you’re messed up, it kinda sucks. It hurts. I have a lot of family and friends who chose drugs and gang life. My brother dropped out of high school, it sucks more to see the men go down and you see the women on their side do what they want to be successful and we have no successful black men that I know of except the kids who come to school and they are like, shut up, you’re a black woman, you been put on a pedastal since you were little. You been a part of stuff since elementary school. They put in pass because I couldn’t sit still. It hurts to know you are about to become an adult and what are friends and cousin doing, selling drugs. What they gonna do, have kids get shot? They gonna follow the same path. It sucks. You have to change for yourself.
I just want to...
Student H
I dream of opening my own business in real estate, and become a professional footballplayer, so I’d have to balance those. Just get out of college and get the basics down for my business.
Student F
I have to do something in the arts. If I don’t do arts I’ll be bored with life. I also want to do ministry. I may go to divinity school. I see myself with family. Hopefully my brother will do good too. He will be in junior high or high school then. Hopefully he start off good. I don’t want to see him doing same things I’m doing.
Student B
Becoming successful and taking care of my mom with my success. I’ve always wanted to have her quit work. She is supporting the whole family off her. If I become successful enough, I will get her a house right by mine and she won’t have to go to a nursing home or nothing and I could support my brother and sister if they don’t have a job. They have always taken care of me and I want to return the favor.
Student K
Raise a family, take care of my parents. I don’t care what I do as long as its successful. I really want to be a surgeon but I don’t care. I want to pursue my passion in writing.
Student J
Help people, specifically people in adoption. I want to be a psychologist, take care of myself and my family. Least amount of worries as possible.
Student E
I want to be at University Madison Wisconsin doing the First Wave program. [Spoken word program?] Yeah. They came and talked to our class and talked about the sort of learning I would like to learn which is more artistic and more hands on than sitting in a desk.
Student D
I see myself finishing up college and basically trying to start my own family.