“ gritty optimism” that trains kids to struggle well, fostering the kind of growth and perseverance they will need for life.
Let’ s start by visiting two different learning environments— a detention center and a community-oriented school— considering what each one reveals about various mindsets around struggling.
Entering a prison, even as a visitor, is a sobering experience. Clouds skittered freely across the sky as two colleagues and I visited a juvenile detention center surrounded by high fences topped with razor wire. After making our way through security and numerous locked doors, we reached the dormitories housing violent youth offenders. Several kids were permitted to come out of their cells only while wearing shackles. Others were educated inside their rooms, which looked more like prison cells than dorm rooms. which he immediately spat out.
“ We lose about 90 % of the produce to instant gratification,” a teacher supervising the garden shared.“ Kids impulsively pull up plants or try to eat the fruits and vegetables before they are ripe. It’ s a generational issue.”
We went on to visit other classes with Ms. Parks, one of which consisted of only one student. At age 13, he was the youngest student at the detention center, and he was the only student in each of his classes.
He shared with Ms. Parks that he was refusing to do things in detention. When she asked why, he explained,“ I like it here better than‘ out in the free’ [ the incarcerated students’ term for anything outside the detention center ]. If I stay here long enough, I can get out and just get a job.”
In the block for less violent offenders, we entered an English classroom, where seven boys wearing beige pants and gray sweatshirts shuffled into class. After their teacher, Ms. Parks, led a fifteen-minute discussion about agriculture, we exited the classroom with a bodyguard to go to a garden on site.
Clearly happy to be outside, the students used a tiller, hoes, and other tools to weed the rows of potatoes, onions, watermelons, radishes, and cucumbers. One student found a barely emerging cucumber, and, succumbing to his desire for instant gratification, took a bite—
I cannot imagine how bad life“ in the free” must have been for this student. But it seemed to me that the best thing he could bring to life outside was naïve optimism— which, as we’ ll see soon, could only take him so far.
How do parents and educators create opportunities for young people to struggle well so they don’ t end up going to school behind razor wire?
Another school I visited in Memphis, Tennessee, has some answers.
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