Revere High students break down essays in online webinar

REVERE – When Revere High School junior Alfredo Martinez was little he always thought he and his friends were equal in terms of opportunities.”Eventually I figured out that where we come from, how our culture differs and how we are raised affects our opportunities and goals,” he wrote in an essay about being a young man of color. “I feel as if being of color makes things harder than people not of color. We have to work harder for what we want.”That essay won Martinez national attention he never expected.Martinez along with classmate Jose Padilla and seniors Rawlings Toglan and William Truong became “distinguished panelists” and published authors as a result of essays they each wrote that focused on the challenges of being young men of color for Nancy Barile’s Advanced Placement English class.View statistics on young men of colorBarile said that The College Board Advocacy & Policy Center and National Office for School Counselor Advocacy (NOSCA) put out a request for such essays to English teachers across the nation.”So I made it a writing assignment,” she said. “Our kids were so good they only published Revere High School essays.”Barile was referring to a report put out by the two organizations that used the essays to highlight the focus on “Transforming The Educational Experience of Young Men of Color.”Wednesday the students took part in an online webinar attended via computer by over 400 college professors, secondary and elementary school teachers, and school counselors from across the country where they were the only featured panelist.During the webinar the students read excerpts from their essays and talked about the pressures they face, paths to success and support.Padilla struggles in school academically and with feelings that life and lifestyle comes easier to some students than others.Even as a child Truong knew how much his parents, who both escaped war-torn lives in Cambodia and Vietnam, sacrificed for him and he worried that he would let them down.”I could not put my parents’ sacrifice to waste,” he said. “All they ask of my brother and me is that we be successful.”Stats on young men of color
51 percent of Hispanics males, 45 percent of African American males, 42 percent of Native American males and 33 percent of Asian American males ages 15-24 are unemployed, incarcerated or dead.
Only 26 percent of African American males, 24 percent of Native Americans/Pacific Islanders and 18 percent of Hispanic minority males hold an associates degree or higher.
Percentage of 12th-graders scoring at or above proficient in mathematics: 36 percent Asian Americans/ Pacific Islanders; 8 percent Latinos; 6 percent Native Americans, 6 percent African Americans
Statistics from The Educational Experience of Young Men of Color, a report released by the College Board Advocacy & Policy Center in 2010
Like Truong, Toglan had a great deal of support from his parents but began to feel the pains of being a young man of color when he hit middle school and found he was often the only African American in many of his honors classes. He wrote that the fact that teachers kept commenting on how well he was doing in school became a “constant reminder that I was a rarity – that students of color tended not to do so well in school.”Martinez on the other hand does well despite receiving little support from his family, which he said largely views education as unimportant.”I’m self-supporting,” he said.Barile said she was proud of the boys and all of her students who wrote essays, and the students were clearly proud as well.”Just getting your voice heard by that many people,” Padilla said shaking his head, “it’s something.”Chris Stevens can be reached at [email protected].