It's the environment. My friends cousin came over from Orlando. He's twelve years old and boasting where he lives him and all his school friends have parents who are lawyers and doctors. These children have something tangible to be used as evidence when planning for their futures.

It is scary when you think about it, huh? This is why we need a global network of businesses and organizations thatwith a strict screening process where our people could contribute to something great only if they made the conscious decision to rid themselves of their present foolishness.

BP

Please don't tar them all with the same brush..... for every black youth that is off track there is another that is totally on track and making positive plans for the future.

For every 10 youths that are on the street running around up to no good... they are another 10 that stayed behind at school to prepare and plan for 'International evening' for example.

To generalise would be to ignore the efforts of those that are trying and have good parent/s behind them pushing them in the right direction.

It is true than many of them come to school with without pens, pencils etc but that can be said for the whites as well and even the asian kids...... there are many black students that have massive great big pencil cases packed with all the equipment they need.

I believe that as Kunjufu said they need to travel outside of their negative environments and experience the outside world. They need to experience Africa to fill them with a sense of belonging and hope. If schools want to help they should forget skiing trips to the Swiss Alps for our students and think about trips to Nigeria, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, Senegal etc…… Don’t know about SA.

I teach teenage black students and I am always running to defend them as I get to see the other side of the coin which is far from the bleak picture that painted for them. Yes we have youths that are on the streets with their bad behaviour representing for ALL black youths, but this representation is misleading. Not all of them are lost.

Black Power

You know how I feel about those subhumans some refer to as "teenagers"...

Maybe that doesn't happen in every day for me but every week, hell yes that is how they are.

Today on the bus I listened to two girls in school uniforms babbling abouts so and so's babyfadda and how this one been doing a ting with that ones man for years... for years? these kids weren't 16! what "years" were they talking about and why were they doing a ting so young? It's normal man.

Ms Nellia, I have seen nothing lately to help me share your optimism. This is a young generation sinking fast.