School's Are Not The Problem, Parents Are

There has been a lot of talk lately about so called African-centred schools. I think this is a very stupid idea for one simple reason. It is not the school system nor society that is the cause of our children's problems. Bad parenting is.

I get so sick of hearing people complain and blame everybody else for the problems in our community. If you were to completely remove every other race form our community we will still have the same problems. We need to see some members of our community for what they really are, dysfunctional.

Some of our children are failing in school because their parents are failing them. Take these kids and put them in a school surrounded by black people and you will still have the same issues.

There are just to many parents in our community who lack the most basic of parenting skills. This has now become a generational problem were you have parents who had very dysfunctional childhoods now raising their kids in the same dysfunctional way they where raised.

Let's compare apples to apples. Take two black families that live in the same housing project. Both families consist of two parents and three kids. Both families have very similar incomes with both parents working. Now where these families differ is in how they view their roles as parents. Family "A" look at their kids as an extension of themselves and therefore they must protect and nurture them to be the best that they can be. They nurture by providing as much quality family time to their kids as time allows. They take an active interest in their children's education by making sure their homework gets done on a nightly basis and by making themselves available to help as much as they can. They instill in their children the need to succeed and the belief that they can achieve anything. They further re-enforce these beliefs by living by them.

Family "B" on the other hand view their children in a slightly different manner. They too would like their children to grow up and live a better life, but they fail to give them the support structure to be able to achieve success. They never take part in school activities with their kids. They never try to help with homework or even show any interest. They always claim not to have the time to spend with their kids but can find time to be in church for the whole day on Sundays. They do only the minimum as parents.

We have many family B's in our community, and it is mainly the children from these families who experience the most problems in school and in life. I have known many family B children in my life, they are as capable as any other children but lack the confidence and support to be able to succeed. They tend to be very street smart but not as developed in areas where it takes discipline to succeed. Taking these kids away from regular school and placing them in black only schools will change nothing. For more black kids to succeed we need black parents to help them by being better parents.