What is one of the root causes of violence and crime in our community? It is the failure of families.
In the summer of 2001, a group of local citizens decided to see what would happen if we took 12 underperforming youth and their parents and established a model home for parents to observe the difference that structure, order, and mentorship would make in their lives of their sons.
We called the project Jump Start. Its goal was to change the academic performance and behavior of the 12 elementary school boys in the program with the goal of helping them become honor students for the first time.
With the assistance of the late Henry Bonner, Jr. and Director Frank Wilcox we were given a four-bedroom apartment on Bonner drive, rent, and utility free. We recruited 12 students, both black and white, from Berg Jones, Madison Foster, and Carver Elementary Schools and enrolled them in the nine-month experiment.
Parents gave the group permission to act as their children’s parents in all matters relating to their education four days of the week. They agreed to observe what was done and spend at least one night a week in the Bonner Drive unit as house mothers. There were two parents who stayed each night on a schedule.
The project only enrolled students from the Housing Authority. The goal was to set up a model home using only resources available to any Housing Authority parent. We bought used washers and dryers, bunk beds, provided like-new clothing from Goodwill, and had copies of all textbooks they used in school on site.
Parents observed that each day the boys went to school dressed for success. They wore white shirts and ties and came to school with all lessons prepared. In the evening, we showed parents how to tap free tutors for their children from ULM and to use the services provided by agencies that were free to all parents.
Daily the boys were tutored by assigned mentors provided free through Hampco, Inc. a program devised by Rep. Willie Hunter and Senator Charles Jones. For entertainment, they listened to music 30 minutes each evening: Rap, Gospel, Country and Western, Classics, R and B, Jazz, etc. They also took turns reading novels read aloud during reading time. They analyzed words and phrases and discussed passages read.
They ate the evening meal together at the table, in a Thanksgiving-style setting, along with house parents. They sang, played educational games such as Monopoly and Scrabble, and cracked jokes. They enjoyed themselves.
They washed the dishes, swept the floors, pressed their shirts and hung them on hangers, showered, and prepared for the next day.
They closed out each day with group prayer and were in bed by 9 p.m.
In the mornings they rose, dressed in shirt and ties, had prayer before leaving and caught school buses to their respective schools.
There was no television or radio. They focused only on completing school assignments, reading, and enjoying each other. They began to like Beethoven, and listened to voices of “Three Mo Tenors.”
We had a few teachers who volunteered: Janet Davis, Constance Snowden, and LaToya Jackson helped tremendously.
The most difficult part of the program was teaching parents how to be parents. It was easier to teach the boys. We were cussed out by one or two parents, another just didn’t have time to spent helping with homework. One parent thought it was cruel to keep children from having fun in the neighborhood after a day of school work. Another parent resented us telling her that she couldn’t watch porn on her big screen TV in the presence of her elementary-aged kids.
However, the parents didn’t remove their kids and some changed their parenting approaches.
By the end of the school year, nine of the twelve boys were honor students. The other three were greatly improved and just fractions of points away.
We carried the boys to the city school board and gave the board the results of our study. We challenged them to duplicate it using paid staff rather than volunteers. The challenge was to change their approach and begin educating parents as well as students. Our experiment showed model homes would help improve parenting skills in a hands-on situation, instill high expectations in students, and reinforce the importance of structure and discipline in the home.
The school board applauded the boys, complimented our year-long experiment, and then moved on to other, more important business.
The idea died, but we were convinced that a “model home” approach would be an effective tool to decrease violence and increase the academic performance of at-risk youth. If youth are walking the street at 2 a.m. in the morning without supervision, that’s a parenting problem.
If youth are carrying weapons, fighting, and shooting each other, that indicates a parenting problem.
The dysfunctional family is the 800-pound gorilla in the room that is routinely ignored.
…and the violence continues.
