The Hosea Project Conversation

"Our children are suffering for lack of knowledge." (Hosea 4:6)

Each week a group of the young men in the A.B.L.E. Program sit down together for an hour to talk about issues that are impacting their daily lives. Over the course of the school year we have discussed what life is like for young men living in Washington, DC., We discuss students' expecations about school, friendship, and most recently the biggest challenges they are facing and their views on 'Zero Tolerance' policies in schools. Below are two brief reflections about the on-going Hosea Project conversation:

My biggest upcoming challenge is going to be getting ready for the SAT and getting ready to prepare for colleges. Studying for the SAT is going to be a major challenge in my near future because it will determine which colleges I will even have a chance at getting into depending on what I get on it. I am applying to very prestigious colleges so it I will need toe try my best in the upcoming year because it is probably the of the most important years of my high school career. I do believe that boys and girls each respond to conflicts differently because everyone is there own person so they cannot all be the exact same. This in essence says that not even people within there own gender have the same reactions since no one is the same. The "zero tolerance" rules do not work because they are not enforced and I also believe there focus on what they should be enforced on is wrong. I believe that there should be no "zero tolerance" because they7 kids should be punished but while learning what mistake they made so they will not make it again. This alternative is much better because kids may learn their mistakes and they won't forfeit there education that school. These were my answers during our enlightening conversation that took place.

J.C.


The discussion that I had was a great one. We discussed the things that are the biggest challenges in you school right now and I said that the hardest thing was peer presure. Then we talked about how our schools have no tollerance for certian things such as; fighting, drugs, and cursing. When I spoke I said that my school is very strict I also said that my school has no tolerance for anything such as; fighting, cursing, writing on the walls, and drugs. Then we talked about mistakes we have made and things we wish that we could take back and I said that when I was in my last semester in middle school and I didn't do good and I was lazy and I didn't get accepted to the school that I wanted to and i couldn't go there.

R. Short