Transcript

Harvesting Our Home-Grown Talent | Patricia Melton | TEDxNewHaven

good afternoon once again I am willing to wager that most of you know my friend here by a show of hands and I can't really see you all how many of you know him oh wow that's fantastic at the count of three please go ahead and say his name not yet one two three valorax that's right this is the environmentally conscious Lorax who speaks for the trees he was the subject of a really coveted wonderful book by Dr Seuss which was turned into a movie that was that starred Taylor Swift now until a month ago believe it or not I did not know about this book how is that possible well I mostly grew up in the projects in Cleveland Ohio and I attended Tremont elementary school that's my school from grade three to six my home was not a home of books believe it or not and in fact I did not have a television in our home until I was in my early teens however oddly enough what we did have was a complete use set of the Encyclopedia Britannica now that's a very dry book I tried many times to read it and how did we get this set it was brought into our home by my father on one of his times visiting us he was in and out of The Cleveland House of Corrections can you believe that name I looked it up recently and they're actually still House of Corrections which is essentially the local jail but while my father was not in my life on a daily basis he was intermittently in my life and he was an incredibly talented man he was a wonderful singer he would sing to us and he was a fantastic storyteller and his talents were not unlike the talent of my friends who also lived in the projects whose fathers intermittently came in and out of their lives and if you know anything about the housing projects back in the day women it was mostly single women they may have been married but they weren't allowed believe it or not have those husbands and those fathers of children but we still managed to enjoy having our fathers around when they did come around so I did not grow up with the magic of the written word except for school I grew up in a rich culture of Storytelling and song that was what really boistered Us in my project neighborhood now my neighborhood was teaming with kids many of whom were curious fun incredibly talented but what we also in this neighborhood that most felt there probably wasn't a whole lot going on but there really was we also had other responsibilities and in this picture you'll see not unlike what we see in some of our neighborhoods across the city here in New Haven taking care of younger siblings playing just not a worry in the world at all it was wonderful where I grew up in my project play yard then something happened when I was 12. my mom and my older sister were in a terrible car accident my mother was in the hospital a good six weeks and unfortunately due to complications from a head injury she died I sat in my room grieving I mean if anyone has ever lost a mother at any age but certainly as you're going into adolescence it's a true tragedy and as I sat in my room depressed not really sure what was going to happen to my life I did know for sure that my mother's death changed me for a lifetime just took me on another path and I was going to have to do something I was going to have to take my life into my own hands so in a new school I was trying out for the basketball team love sports and I met a friend up here she was one year older than I was I was in the eighth grade and we were trying out for basketball he made the team believe it or not and I did not and she said Pat that was called Pat or Patty at that time I have a friend a neighbor and you should go to this school he is at well that got my attention that intrigued my imagination so we exchanged addresses and back in the day when there was snail mail we became pen pals and this friend described the place that seemed to be paradise every kid got to play basketball or Sports you could try out for fig drawing you could be in the theater you could be in the play you could it just didn't matter the resources were infinite it seemed and I was hooked I said I'm going to this school I'm I'm going to figure out what I need to get to this magical place and so as I think back uh to my 13 year old self I sent away for information about the school I realized that this was a place that actually cost a lot of money believe it or not never heard of such a thing I only knew of schools that you just showed up and then you were there and you just started going to school School I learned everything I could about this school I learned that yes indeed I would need money something called a scholarship and that this scholarship could fund me to attend this school just like the friend of my friend so I researched realized that you had to take tests all these things that you had to do you had to take tests you had to write essays you had to do an interview never never in my attending my public schools did I have to do that but there was one one hurdle that I was thinking I you know I'm gonna put all of my eggs in this basket so I have to have success no ends ifs or buts about it so I said how can I make certain that I will get this scholarship so I said wait wait a minute you know what if I write these schools a year in advance so when I was 13 I wrote the schools I had three one was in New Hampshire one was in Massachusetts and the other one was in New York state I as you know grew up and lived at the time in Cleveland and I thought if I write these schools and tell them here's my dilemma my mother died I really want to help out my family I sort of left out the fact that I really just wanted to play sports I knew that I could make that basketball team there and so I wrote them a year in advance of this scholarship application I said no my name my name is Patricia Melton my application will be coming through and I want you to know who I am because I am going to need this scholarship in other words there was a path forward there was a path forward for me there I am all smiles I did get into that school and I got into two three and I decided that yes I'm going to go my family didn't know what was happening they thought it was a fluke but I knew what I wanted which goes back to our children our young children they know what they want out of life and they start to develop those dreams very young and they need us the community to make sure that they can achieve their dreams and their hopes and their promise as a person and a human being so I ate it out story happy ending not so fast I'm smiling in that picture and I'm happy but behind that smile for many years was sadness and a disconnect it wasn't long when I went home for my first Thanksgiving and by the time I came home my sisters and my friends teased me they said you talk like a white girl I was like what are you talking about I was saying I was using different words like gross that's not a word that you use in the midwest in Cleveland I was using all sorts of different vocabulary that I was soaking it just in that six days a door closed for me and it closed to my friends and my family in other words I had to pay a very high price to realize that dream of Education I could have used a Lorax for those who know the story and now I do that Lorax head very wise wisdom speaking for the trees right and I could have used a concept like that to protect me as I went on my journey to protect my Foundation to protect my Integrity to protect my soul in my travels over the years I'm often told you're a special Pat Patricia you're different from those kids in the projects I I don't think I'm different because one of the things that I've come to understand is Talent is equally distributed I don't care if you live in new hallville if you live in East Rock if you live in India Talent is everywhere what is not is the opportunity to develop that Talent and that's something that we in this community have addressed so do I feel special now I I only felt special and that my mother died it made me a little bit more desperate in my hopes and dreams but really not different from any kid walking around this city so that's my personal story it's not really different much there are some kids in this city who have a little bit more some who have a little bit less but the common foundational fertilizing difference the value add is our community so when I came 10 years ago I said what does it look like when an entire community Embraces its young people to college through college and brings that homegrown Talent back they never left but takes that homegrown talent to help them to develop their talents in the city that they love where they concede and grow their Roots right here as deep as they want where people know their name they know who they are they've gone to school they have a whole community that loves them and that follows them we have a promise program in this city and that promise program is sort of the boundary spanning organization that connects all of those resources they can sometimes have leaky holes in them sometimes but promise follows students from pre-k well we're still following our alums and they're turning out to be 28 starting families buying homes starting a business yes we know who our lifeblood of this city is through a play-space economic intervention a tuition benefit that 12 years ago when announced parents mothers right tears of joy why because they could see that path they could have hope they could see a way as well as students there was a program that was recently announced in Chicago the Hope Scholarship and it was too much hoopla because to realize that American Dream everywhere in this country is going to require more than High School so this model is a model that had it been in my community I would be standing on a different stage in Cleveland not here in New Haven I'm glad to be here absolutely so from this tuition benefit you have to live in the city gonna be average and we expect our students to help themselves this is not an entitlement this is about students giving to their City learning who the non-profits are and the opportunities here so we have a community service requirement that takes them beyond the narrowness of their project or their block or their home so that they can learn how to navigate and engage these resources and we want these resources to engage with our students and for that they do what they're supposed to do parents making sure that their students make it to school because you can't learn unless you're there we keep it very simple the messaging is simple the dreams are big but the model is simple after 12 years we are making a huge impact we see lots of development going on with our folks here in the city multi-million dollar very expensive Apartments going up but when that development happens in an urban city it happens around Main Street give or take a couple of miles but the neighborhood the neighborhoods where there's the lifeblood of the city not so much but with this program as you see the darker means there are millions Fair Haven millions millions that are going directly into the development of our students in terms of their education at the college level today [Applause] 25 million five million dollars a year and what does it do it it's just deepening that color these kids are coming out with very little debt little to know that it's almost unheard of we've gone from a city that was down in the ranks of our Urban peers to being the leader in college attendance of our peer cities in the state of Connecticut but we're not satisfied with that we want more we want a lot more New Haven Public Schools had decreased enrollment for a good amount of time when promise was announced again the message is so simple it's hope but it's hope with some teeth in it it's not just a pipe dream it's real New Haven Public Schools went from graduation in the mid 50s 50 55 56 percent to well over 80 percent in a little under 10 years now we can't take credit for that but what we can take credit for is that our leaders came together with non-profits with the city with the world-class University with just people who care about their young people who embrace them and from that not only are parents choosing us they're choosing New Haven they're choosing to stay here but students a district that is over 80 percent bipoc those students are staying in school and we once again among our peer District have the highest graduation rate for black and brown kids [Applause] the last thing that I want to say is that return on investment we did this infographic a number of years ago and we want to know well really what is the impact what will the impact what could we envision the impact doing this was like in 2014 and as you see we projected that we would have 700 graduates we thought oh that seems like a lot we weren't really sure but guess what we have surpassed that absolutely in that by 2020 we definitely had 700 graduates and as we thought out projected out over a lifetime kind of impact will these young people have well just this little sliver over the lifetime of their earnings will contribute 1.6 billion dollars to this city and that's not the Yale endowment people that's our Capital endowment that's in our young people so what does it take what does it look like when a city Embraces its young people to and through college and brings them back and follows them and helps them and it's not cheers but everybody does know your name here it means that homegrown Talent is a new model that needs to be embraced our young people are not leaving the state so if I hear that one more time where all the young kids are leaving us no they're not our kids are here from our most recent alumni survey 85 percent of them want to they're here they want to stay here they don't want to go to Boston they don't go to want to go to New York those are all great and beautiful cities but we have a nice beautiful city here and that lifeblood which are our Scholars cultivating that Talent that's the right thing to do I come back see those beautiful faces and there are a lot of them I come back to our wise friend The Lorax his wisdom and Dr Seuss's was spot on unless someone like you cares a lot nothing is ever going to get better it's not Harvest continue to harvest our homegrown Talent thank you [Applause]