A Homewood celebration (with video)
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A group of prospective artists, professional basketball and football players, businesspeople and politicians gathered at Faison Intermediate Academy last night to celebrate being celebrated, as former Faison teacher Laurie Marshall returned to the school to give students copies of her book, "Homewood's Healing Angels." [ View video ]The book is a collection of portraits by Ms. Marshall, in which the students see winged versions of themselves, together with their own descriptions of their dreams for their lives, and how they hope to achieve them.
For instance, Tatche (the children's last names are not given), who appears to be crowned with sepia flames, in the midst of which sits a cathedral, says "My dream is to be a football player and then I want to be an architect....To reach my goal, I'll keep up my A's and B's and change my C's to B's."
"And change my C's to B's." He's challenging himself to rise above the average all across the board.
None of the kids say, "I just want to muddle through." And certainly none of them say, "I want to get pregnant at 14." Or, "I want to buy and sell drugs and build up an arms collection to protect my turf."
They want to excel. They want to be angels to others. Where Tatche's portrait has a cathedral, Michael's shows part of a $20 bill. He says, "My dream is to become rich." That's common enough. But check out his reason: "I have this dream because if I am rich I can donate money to charity and help homeless people."
I can't add anything to that.
First Published October 5, 2007 1:23 pm
