Imagining a Better Future For "At Risk" Children

Imagine no injustice

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

It’s time to take a stand

Imagine all the children learning hand in hand

You may say I'm a dreamer,

but I'm not the only one . . .

[my apologies to John Lennon J]

Today I’m thinking about the awesome power of imagination and I love how our reading by Maxine Greene (Imagination, Community and the School) stretched my thinking about applying this to education in new and powerful ways.  We’ve been learning a lot about current issues of social injustice in education and our readings are helping me to imagine a better future for all children.  The trouble is that there is a huge number of families so weighed down in their daily struggles, and facing such high obstacles to success, that they cannot imagine a better future for their children.  Their children are at risk of falling between the cracks of our educational system, dooming them to a future as bleak as their current reality.  “The American Dream” has become “The Impossible Dream.”  As teachers, we can invite these “at risk” children to dream the impossible dream by exposing them to the fulfilled dreams of others.  We can teach them about major historical figures like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. but we must also be sure to include the stories of people just like them, like Dr. Donna Beegle whose article on poverty we will discuss in class next week.  We must do everything in our power to stir their “wide-awakeness” to the “possibilities of things being otherwise” – allowing them to imagine their own future potential.  We must prove to them that they are worthy of such a future by valuing them in their present circumstances, inviting them into the inclusive community of our classroom, listening to the stories of their lives, and loving and respecting them deeply as human beings.  We must let them share their stories and dreams in creative ways including art, singing and dance while also exposing them to the art of others which gives them a window into others’ imaginations -- and more possibilities.  I love how Greene describes Martin Luther King’s impact on a group of people he was addressing in a church, trying to empower them to fight for their civil rights:  “As they came awake to a dimension of lived life they could scarcely have predicted for themselves, they came to feel a transcendence that came from their being together in a particular way (40).”   I believe we can find a way to “be together” with at risk children in that same “particular way”.  We can provide healing, freedom and hope by helping them to imagine a better future for themselves, but we must do this from within the context of a supportive and interconnected community that believes they can break free of their current circumstances and that they are worthy of a better future.  Mostly we must be willing to help them do it – to actively join in imagining their possibility to be otherwise!