Attitude Adjustment

He walks in late, head hanging low, low, low and I watch as the bodies in the room begin to stiffen, shift and become uncomfortably resonate. In a split second my classroom has turned from warm and inviting to shaking a cooler than cool Polaroid picture. I turn the snapshot in my hand as the dark black film slowly fades into lifeless reality and instantly faded faces don’t smile back at me.

Roosevelt Taylor. That’s his name. Don’t try to find him, you won’t. Why? Because he is just one of the million poverty-stricken young black males who just know they are gonna make it out my classroom, his high-school, and this town riding high on a rap contract or NBA draft. And I struggle daily with the question: how do I teach this young boy the only thing that will take him out of here is the one thing he is unwilling to give.

A willing attitude.

So I suck up my pride, take him out in the hall, humble myself before him and ask him how I can help him. Turns out, he doesn't want to go to the NBA or the gansta rappers hall of fame, he just wants to go and see his counselor to find out how he got placed in the wrong classes. Funny, and I thought the one who needed the attitude adjustment was him, turns out it was me all along.