On Tuesday Mt. Vernon HS not only placed Rai Benjamin on its Wall of Fame, it named its outdoor track after him. Rai, who graduated in 2015, was gracious enough to take a picture with me and his 4x400m teammate Cody Housen. Cody is now a member of the local police department, and he was the 3rd leg of that spectacular relay. Cody would rip a 49 second relay split indoors, 48 outdoors, and then pass the baton to Rai, who would decimate the competition. Those were good times.
Here’s the NBC video of Rai winning the Olympic Gold in the 400m Hurdles. They make you watch in the youtube app or on its site. Because they have reasons:
On the other hand, I have a student who is in his second year who cannot read. He admitted as much to his counselor, who is moving heaven and earth to get him in the correct placement. I asked the same question you did: How did this young man make it to second year of high school when he’s illiterate? How did he get out of middle school? The system is broken in so many ways it isn’t even funny.
This was week one. It’s easy to only discuss the failure and doom. I get more hits, clicks, and downloads for those posts, but it’s not all bad. Mr. Benjamin (aptly named seeing his success these past few years) personifies what is possible when you practice and accentuate your God given gifts.
We will see if we can get this other young man off of the failure track.
As I work on Internet Sales and Marketing, here’s a new banner for TFT:
This Week in Schule: Incredible Success and Abject Failure