against the odds...

I chose to talk about how the "Boys of Baraka" showed a few students who fought "against the odds" to change their lives and not become a stereotype or statistic.  The first thing that surprised me when watching this was how wise and mature a few of these boys were.  They seemed to know that if they didn't get out of that community and take advantage of this opportunity, they may not be able to go places they wanted to go later in life.  Adolescent boys aren't usually the portrait of wisdom and maturity, but I think with these few, they had experienced so many hardships and harsh realities that it brought on a premature realization of how their community functioned.  I wonder how this affected their stages of development, whether positive or negative.  I feel that the term "against the odds" also relates this film to the White Privilege article.  These boys had so little.  Their families had so little. Their schools seemed to have so little as well.  But against all the odds they were given the opportunity to step out of the codes of power and empower themselves to make their futures better.  This film was incredibly inspiring to me as well as heartbreaking.  As future educators I think we want to save every child and give them the most rich and fulfilling learning experience we can.  But I think sometimes, we have to face the reality that sometimes it just won't be possible, and that may be one of the hardest things of being an educator.