After riding the dot com wave as VP, Engineering for the fastest growing software company on NASDAQ, I decided to embrace the challenge to give back by getting my teaching credentials at San Jose State. I walked by this statue commemorating Tommie Smith and John Carlos’ brave protest at the 1968 Olympics on my way to classes every day. I wondered about the empty 2nd place podium and years later came upon this writeup: Peter Norman, the White Man in That Photo. My first teaching assignment also found me as the lone white person in the room.

My first assignment was to help a teacher with a class of students with “learning issues“. When I showed up, the principal informed me the teacher had quit. He asked if I’d be willing to still lead the class. I also learned these were 8th graders that other teachers had given up on. The students came from very tough backgrounds and were hard to manage. My students all later confided in me that everyone of them was in a gang. They said they’d be lucky to live to the age of 18. Hence, education wasn’t a big priority for them – and education beyond high school was beyond their wildest dreams. They saw no reason to embrace the challenges of getting a good education.

It was a school district where the kids spoke 56 different languages at home. The police told me they would connect with a language identifier before requesting a translator. It was imply too hard for them to engage with the community otherwise. When I showed up, my students definitely did not see me as being like them or being able to relate to them. I relied on my premise whenever starting with a new group: Start with Trust.

Embrace the Challenge – Growing Roses from Concrete

Leveraging a mentor’s tip helped me embrace the challenges. I remembered a book a professor had suggested that she used when she taught at juvenile hall. It was Tupac Shakur‘s book of poetry The Rose That Grew From Concrete.

I bought enough used copies of the book so each student could have one to keep as their own. The students were surprised that I even knew who Tupac was and that I knew lots of his material, but they were really surprised that I had bought them this book for them to keep. They didn’t know that Pac wrote poetry, they had really not expected me to be showing them something from Pac they hadn’t know about. When I next saw them, most of these 8th graders told me it was the first book they ever read. They were proud to carry it around with them, and they had selected their favorite poem. Some had also been inspired to write their first poem after reading it. I could not read any of their poems without tears coming to my eyes – pretty amazing stuff.

Some pointed out that this was cool, and the only other reading of poetry some previous teachers had tried to foist on them was some junk by Shakespeare. I pointed out that Shakespeare grew up in a different time, in another country and on another type of “concrete”. That tweaked their curiosity, and now a door was open to expand their horizons and awareness.

Knowing your audience and finding a connection provides context to start any dialog. Recognize that everyone is naturally creative, resourceful and whole. Help them recognize that as well in themselves and each other. Embrace the challenge, help where you can and enjoy watching roses grow from concrete.

CD

Did you hear about the rose that grew
from a crack in the concrete?
Proving nature’s law is wrong it
learned to walk without having feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams,
it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew from concrete
when no one else ever cared.

https://allpoetry.com/The-Rose-That-Grew-From-Concrete

Embracing the Challenge of Enabling other Roses

Being a fan disrupting old ways of doing things and empowering underdogs, I decided to join Prosper Marketplace to provide access to capital for individual. After helping tens of thousands of customers not default on loans during Covid, I decided to join Hum Capital. Most startups receive funding through connections to the bi-coastal venture community. Also, most startups now manage their finances through online systems. Live connected data shows how a company is doing over time. By quickly bringing financial help to companies based on financial performance, Hum helps companies and their employees to sprout up as roses when they may have otherwise struggled. My brief time with CARE in Tanzania taught me helping people in need revolves around, Education, Health and access to funding (e.g. microloans). There are many roses in concrete out there that have the potential to thrive with just some sunlight and a little water.

See Also

• 25iq – Lessons for Business Founders from Tupac Shakur
• The Struggle by Ben Horowitz
• The Rose that grew from Concrete-Tupac interview
• Survival Mode Entrepreneurs: A Concrete Rose vs A Dream Deferred
• PA’s First black-owned winery–A Concrete Rose Book Bar
• 82 Black founders and investors to watch in 2023
• The Solomon Tention Podcast – The Rose That Grew From Concrete, By Tupac Shakur (Part I)