Teacher, Do You Know Where I Come From?
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About the Book
My new book, Teacher, Do You Know Where I Come From is about us reaching out to all of our young people through education. It is also about making available to them the best that we have to offer as educators, parents, and as community role models. We must extend to all of our young people access to teaching and knowledge that is unbiased, colorless, knowledge that will help them through the educational system that sometimes may appear unfair, biased and selective. All of our young people in America deserve the right and the access to education through the public school system that seeks to raise the bar of expectation.
When we play down our expectations, we allow mediocrity, low self-esteem and a lack of respect for learning to create an empty space between teacher, parent and student. We can no longer afford to teach students in a system that first requires them to submit to our particular style, or that they submit to our assimilation in order to receive what we have as teachers and parents to offer them in regard to education.
We must prepare (starting now) to offer all young people, a “view” from all angles and not just our angle.
Our exploring where it is that kids come from offers, unlimited possibility of finding out exactly who they are and how we can best reach and teach them. Once we begin to do that, we begin to create a better cultural climate in our building and in our classrooms.
About the Author
A word from the Author
Lamar R. Thomas, Sr.
Hi, my name is Lamar R. Thomas, Sr. I am the only child of the late Rebecca Wiley of Clarksdale (and Leland ) Mississippi. My mother passed away in October of 1999. Her death was a great loss for my family and I. It has been a long seven years of adjusting and re-positioning my thoughts about life, love and living. This book reflects my thoughts on what I believe (based on what she taught me as she raised me) we need to do to help young people through this life.
In my job as Director of Student Support Services and SCEAP (Student Community Enrichment Activity Program) here at Pocono Mountain School District in Swiftwater, Pennsylvania I am responsible for the nurturing and leadership of hundreds of students yearly, through co-curricular and cross-cultural Performing Arts Programs. Their well-being and their future in the world is most important to me as my well-being and my future was to my mother. Our young people require leadership, focus, discipline, compassion; understanding and always, our respect and "the benefit of the doubt" for the world we live in can be cruel, cold, hard and unforgiving for them without people who care about them. My mother spent time with me, all the time. What she gave to me, I try each day, to pass on to the young people that I work with. My mother was a guiding light for me. Our young people need a guiding light. Teachers, real teachers, can be that guiding light and that beacon of hope that our young people need and look for in us as adult role models.
Teacher, Do You Know Where I Come From? comes from my first hand experience in working with young people in an educational environment at the Pocono Mountain School District for the past twelve years. And while I am the leader of this most successful student-based program, I cannot claim ownership of any educational teaching degrees although I did complete several years of college studies. I did not study the fundamentals of the Performing Arts but our program (SCEAP) is the most successful High School program of its kind in the state of Pennsylvania (maybe the Country). I ask you to read this book and to use the things contained in this book, to reach just one student and to change one negative thought. Should you need to know who I am and should you need my resume you can contact me at:
Lamar R. Thomas, Sr.
Email: lthomas@pmsd.org
Director of Student Support Services/Student Community Enrichment Activity Program (SCEAP)