HE:ED Interview (Joe Champion) : STEM education and black youth

HE:ED is trying something a little different...letting you have the spotlight. This is the first of a series of interviews which will feature various takes on youth, education and health-care in America. This post is an interview with Joe Champion, author of the blog The Power of Pao. Joe is a technology professional, blogger and speaker that we thought would be an excellent "firestarter" for this interview series. Below are our questions and Joe's responses.

What role does STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) play in the education of black youth today?

I'm not an educator so I can't accurately judge the role of STEM in the education of black youth today. It is my opinion that given the globalization of the world’s economies, driven by corporations' constant desire for lower costs and higher profits, STEM education is a necessity for personal, group and national competitiveness, If our youth can't compete academically, particularly in the STEM fields, with the youth from other nations, we all face a future of lower standards of living, higher incarceration rates, and less and less control over our personal and national destiny.

What role did STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) play in your education?

My education in technology played the primary role in determining my career direction and in enabling me to progress from childhood poverty to a comfortable economic status.

What led you to your career in information technology?

Actually, it wasn't something I consciously chose. After a couple of years of college, I still wasn't sure what direction I wanted to focus on. I dropped out and was working some entry-level jobs, not making much money, and was forced to live with my parents because I couldn't afford my own place. My childhood best friend had joined the Air Force after high school and he was telling me what a great time he was having, traveling the world and meeting all kinds of great, interesting people. That

sounded a whole lot better than working for minimum wage and living with your parents, so I went to the recruiting office and signed up. I took the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) test and it identified my primary strengths in the Verbal field, and next in Mechanical, which I found surprising since I never was a hands-on kind of person, The recruiter advised me to go into the electronics field in the Air Force, even though my higher verbal scores pointed towards the administrative field, because he said it would be easier to get a job in technology once I got out. I took his advice and the rest is history.

Why do you think (racial) education disparities exist in America? (Ex. the difference in math and reading scores of white male youth vs. black male youth)

I think the answer to that is pretty simple: Economics. Children who grow up with more money have more opportunities. They eat better, they have better schools, they have more extracurricular choices, and they feel safer, more self-confident, more optimistic, and more loved. It is not all about money, but it is the major factor that determines opportunities.

Despite the fact that minority, and particularly black youth, are disproportionately at economic disadvantage compared to white youths, this shouldn't excuse them and their parents from competing. Countless cases throughout history show people who grew up poor, in bad areas with bad schools, with little or no parental guidance, and who became successful financially and productive members of society, demonstrating that environment can be overcome. Is it easier to make it when you have all the advantages that money brings in our world? Absolutely. But the evidence is there that it's not money that determines success. It's the adults in a community deciding that the care and nurturing of the youth is the most important factor in ensuring the viability and survival of that community.

What input do you have regarding the argument that blacks are "where they are" because they are lazy?

It's always been a strategy of victimizers and exploiters to diminish, demean, dehumanize and blame the victims of their exploitation. Whether it is been religious establishments justifying imperialism by labeling targets of imperialism as 'Infidels' or 'Savages ', regimes such as the Nazis or Rwandan Hutus portraying Jews or Tutsis as nonhuman devils to justify genocide ,or the modern Republican / Tea Party blaming the economic collapse on "sub-prime" borrowers (i.e., the blacks and illegal aliens), blaming the least powerful to excuse discrimination, exploitation and violence is as old as humankind. If blacks are portrayed as mostly "lazy and shiftless'; it justifies discrimination in the mind of an employer or bank against a qualified black job or loan applicant. 'Hey, you know if you hired one they would always be late, or if you gave them a loan they wouldn't pay it back, right?'.

Blacks are no lazier than any other group of people, and most people know this. We are still coping with the effects of hundreds of years of slavery, terrorism, apartheid, discrimination and media assaults on our collective psyches and economic resources. Just because we have not progressed as a group as far and fast as we would have liked, or others tell us we should have, we should never accept others or ourselves characterizing us as 'lazy' and therefore less deserving of the good things in life.

What do you think we should do?

I read an article last year in a magazine called YES!, called 'Why is Costa Rica Smiling?', which describes a study by the New Economics Foundation, called the Happy Planet Index, which ranks countries ''based on their environmental impact and the health and happiness of their citizens ". Costa Rica ranked No. 1. The United States was No. 114. Costa Ricans live longer than Americans and "there is little difference in life expectancy across income levels, unlike in the United States". The article points out that the reasons that Costa Ricans are much happier and content than Americans is because they receive free or very inexpensive ($200 a year for college tuition!) education and health care, they spend a lot of time with family, friends and community, and, since Costa Rica abolished its military in 1948, it has more to spend on health and education.

What does this mean for the challenges facing blacks in the United States regarding education and achievement? It points out the importance of priorities. To paraphrase Malcolm X," We've been bamboozled, we've been hoodwinked, we've been led astray". When we embraced the so-called American dream that was pushed to us by corporations through the media, the dream that told us that things are more valuable than people, that the individual is more important than the group, that he who dies with the most toys wins, that we deserve more than others because we are America and God blesses America more 'cause we’re God's favorite, we did not realize that chasing that dream was just a trap to impoverish the majority of us and imprison, physically and psychically, the rest of us (See the current economic depression as proof that short-term thinking and shallowness always leads to ruin).

What should we do? To quote brother Malcolm again," Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today". Look at our priorities. A college education should be a right. All education should be a right. Health care should be a right. Having enough to eat should be a right. This is all easily attainable. Guns or Butter? Profits or People. Fear or Courage. We just have to look at our priorities.