Among The Best and Brightest

Posted by Darrell Dawsey Tuesday, April 27, 2010 at 1:00 pm

3 Comments • Detroit, Education, Media, Urban Affairs , Detroit Public Schools, TIME 11

Got a chance to hang out yesterday with some journalism students from Renaissance High, including a couple of the TIME 11. (Thumbs up, Rokeyta and Joshua.)

Along with getting a chance to talk with them about the future of media, I got an opportunity to wander a bit around one of the best high schools in Detroit and, trust me when I say, it's pretty apparent that Detroit Renaissance High is a cut above a whole lot of its peers...and I certainly don't mean just within the Detroit public school system either.

The building is spacious, well-designed, well-lit, clean. The hallways--as boisterous as any I've been in while the students shuttle to and from classes--were dead quiet while classes were in session.

And the kids were just great.

As I watched them in the halls, there certainly weren't many noticeable differences between these kids and any others in this city. The boys still bopped around with their fresh haircuts and slightly sagging khaki pants, their shirts partially untucked, their gym shoes crisp. The girls slid along in ballet slippers and flip-flops, giggling with each other, chewing gum and feigning disinterest in the boys passing by.

But I also got glimpses of them in their classrooms, where they sat rapt as their teachers spoke or engaged vigorously with one another on group projects. And it wasn't just about the "smart" kids excelling. From what I saw, nearly all of the students were engaged and attentive. Nobody seemed to want to get left behind or be left out.

None of this is surprising to me, of course. I've known students like this at even the worst schools in this city. But to see the sort of rigor and intellectual curiosity I saw on display yesterday reminds me yet again of why, despite some harsh realities in this city, Detroiters should remain hopeful, committed.

I hear a lot of stories about children in Detroit, about how they misbehave and disrespect adults and act violently. I hear how they are lazy and shallow, how the black and brown children among them have all but surrendered intellectual pursuits to whites. And I know first-hand that there are children who, sadly, do indeed fit some of these descriptions.

But there are also these young men and women from Renaissance—and their counterparts at less-heralded schools, too. These are the children unafraid to think, to challenge your ideas, to proudly show off their own. These are the kids who devour calculus and comic books alike, the star athletes who want to go Ivy League, the pimply-faced math whizzes determined to be the next generation of dotcom billionaires.

I've written at length about crappy test scores in Detroit and disengaged parents and buffoonish bureaucrats who hamstring our educational system even as they rob it blind. And as aggravating and depressing as all this can be, it is what is, the hand we've (been) dealt.

But these teenagers at places like Renaissance, they're a Detroit reality also. And, thankfully, they aren't just the here and now. They're also our future, our potential "truth," the architects of new possibilities for the city.

They are what they are, too--and, even better, they have what it takes to be so much more.