When I retired in 2017 and finally got settled back in Michigan around 2019, I decided to try something new — teaching. I earned my interim certificate and took a job in what turned out to be one of the poorest counties in the state, measured by home values and income. You could see the poverty in the houses, the roads, and, more than anything, the expectations kids had for themselves.
After about six months, I started asking my students about their goals. One young man told me, “I’m gonna try to join the Army, but if that doesn’t work, I’ll just go on welfare. That’s what everyone in my family does.” He wasn’t joking. That was his plan. I didn’t judge him — I just felt this deep frustration that nobody had shown him there were other options. His world was small because no one had ever opened the door wider.
That’s when it hit me: poverty isn’t just about money. It’s about mindset. When kids grow up surrounded by low expectations, it becomes normal. Getting by becomes the goal. Trying something hard feels risky. It’s a cycle that feeds itself, and it’s brutal to watch up close.
Meanwhile, I made a hard choice as a parent. Because of Michigan’s school-of-choice system, I drove my own kids 22 miles each way to a different school. It cost me in gas, time, and sleep, but the payoff was real. The difference wasn’t test scores — it was culture. At that school, success was expected. Kids talked about what they could do, not what they couldn’t.
That experience taught me that the real divide in education isn’t between rich and poor schools — it’s between places that expect excellence and places that quietly accept failure. COVID only widened that gap. Too many kids lost their sense of structure and purpose, and some never got it back.
I’m not writing this to bash anyone. I’m writing it because I’ve seen what happens when people stop believing things can get better. The answer isn’t more slogans or programs — it’s one adult at a time showing a young person that they’re capable of more than survival.
If we want to break the cycle, we start there. Not with blame. Not with policy. Just with belief — and the work it takes to prove that belief true.
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