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Glimmer of hope.

by Rod

11. November 2008 00:48

Not too long ago, I was coming back home from work and there was a bunch of teenagers (probably 3 years younger) in front of the entry to my building.
One of them was sitting on the stoop, so excused myself politely to go in, he pardoned himself and moved out of the way.

That time I was coming back home from my internship, meaning I was wearing a suit, which probably drove him to ask me this question.
The teen asked me "I am sorry to bother you but what do you do in life? You don't have to answer but I'd say your a lawyer, but yet you look so young."
I chuckled and told him : "No no, I am just a computer science student and I'm doing an internship".
I sensed in two seconds two really opposite emotions on that person's face, one was a smile because he totally wouldn't of guessed I was still a student and the other was disappointment and sadness. This made me curious so I asked him : "what are you thinking of doing?"
He replied with an even sadder tone : "I wanted to be an engineer but it's to late for me."
I was completely chocked, hearing something like "it's to late for me " from an 11th grade kid!
I refused to hear that from him and told him it's never to late, there is his whole future in front of him and now is just the beginning.
And whoever put this into the kid's head whether its the school system or his parents , demotivating is seriously not the way to go.

When I told that kid that Einstein, Bill Gates etc.. were all average students (the same argument I used for years after giving my school report card to dad !) . School isn't always right, if they told you you can't do something , keep trying. If one university rejects you, try another one. Until you get what you want don't quit.
I didn't say a lot of words until i saw a smile back on his face, he said he will do that and keep me updated every time he sees me again coming home.

A hint of hope can sometimes turn around a whole life. People might say it's not good to give false hope, but there's no such thing as false hope; everyone can change.

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Tags: hope;

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Comments

11/11/2008 2:35:15 PM #

It saddens me when I come across someone who cannot see their vast potential, what's worse is when their inability to recognize their capacity to achieve greatness stops them from pursuing their dreams.
I have attended high school in both Canada and France and I've seen the adverse effects of the public education system. When you get to the last few years before graduation it becomes especially important to awaken this sense of potential in a person, but I feel that is more often than not, squashed by the factory line production style of trying to get every kid to graduate with as little trouble as possible. These are crucial years, but not in terms of grades; that however, is where the emphasis is placed. I know a lot of kids who graduate with poor grades and then feel that they can't really achieve much else because of what their final report card said about their person. If they don't have any other passions, like mechanics, construction, or any bizarre entrepreneurial ideas, they can spend a good part of their 20's wandering aimlessly. People eventually find something they are good at, even if it's getting girls pregnant or becoming an expert in ways to get oneself arrested, but my question is: why can't we turn high school from an institution to a place of discovery? There is no easy answer as the solution depends upon every factor of one's environment. A good teacher can make all the difference, but if they kid is demoralized at home how much we change. It has to become a social experiment.

I think I could talk forever about education, but I got to get to my own.

Good post Rod.

Emma | Reply