Profiles of an American Classroom: The One Who Changed Everything
part 2
From age 3 to 13, Corey was raised in a rough Detroit neighborhood. He does not remember a single happy moment during this period of his life. Domestic violence was common and occasionally resulted in the late-night arrest of his father… or, at the very least, a visit from police. Corey lived in constant fear, fear of the wrath and anger of his alcoholic, pot-smoking father. He often sought refuge from the chaos by walking to the home of his grandmother and Aunt Gail. In another effort to escape, Corey frequently roamed the streets of what was commonly referred to as “the crack house neighborhood”; this was where he lived. Violence around every corner was commonplace. He recalls one very specific incident where he watched a man get shot and killed over an innocent neighborhood game gone bad. When police arrived on the scene, he remembers his mom telling him, in no uncertain terms, to get away from the windows and to never speak of what he had seen. She undoubtedly wanted her young son to avoid falling victim to retaliation; he was only 10.
School always felt uncomfortable to Corey. As he looks back today, at the age of 28, he believes his chaotic, unpredictable home life severely damaged any chance of a positive self-esteem. Seared in Corey’s heart are expletive-filled statements he heard his father spew about him, while his quiet, 4-year-old-self sat merely ten feet away. You can still sense and feel the brokenness cultivated by those “f-Corey” proclamations even 24 years later. The beliefs Corey held about his academic abilities were also confirmed by his struggles in school. As one can only imagine, he found himself living out a father-fulfilling prophecy. He recalls one friendly first grade teacher, Ms. Raydoo, who made school feel like a safe place to enjoy learning; but she was shortly followed by what he remembers as a mean second grade teacher. This elementary educator exacerbated feelings of shame and humiliation by publicly ridiculing him for not quickly grasping ‘simple’ math concepts. Lack of self-confidence followed Corey from this point forward.
Corey remembers his first experience with bullying in the 4th grade; he feels it was most likely due to the fact he was quiet and different. By “different”, he didn’t drink alcohol, smoke pot, or do other drugs so culturally acceptable in his pocket of Detroit. It felt like drugs were readily available in almost every neighborhood household. He had access to everything from pot to PCP to multiple other drug combinations. Corey found friendship in some immigrant students from Bangladesh because they were less likely to engage in drugs and other illegal activities.
On his second day of high school in Detroit, there was a shooting on campus. Later that same week there was a police chase. This was Corey’s school norm, which was not all that different from his neighborhood norm. Simply put, he was desensitized to violence. When his mom put him on that greyhound bus in early January 2006, Corey was alone and scared. Yes, this 13-year-old kid from intercity Detroit was on a southbound bus, all by himself, with little money in his pocket and a suitcase in his hand. He was scared… scared he might not even make it to the right city. He was more scared than he had felt in school, which by this time found him skipping more frequently. He was more scared than he had felt walking the streets of “the crack house neighborhood”, which by this time, found him breaking into a home with friends to steal some weight equipment. His mom believed she was sending her son to a better environment and possibly greater educational opportunities. While she had high hopes for Corey… he, on the other hand, had no idea what to expect in the unknown world of Tulsa, Oklahoma. On that cold, snow covered day, while sitting at the bus station awkwardly waiting on an aunt he barely knew, Corey had no way of knowing his journey was taking a sharp right on a path forever altered from his past. It might not have been a linear path; but after all, whose path is?
COPYRIGHT © August 26, 2019. Wendi Vassiliou. All rights reserved.