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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Thank you to everyone who has shared their stories.  They are heartbreaking.  I'm curious how you all were able yo break the cycle?  How were you able to make better choices?[/quote]

Being in poverty isn't just about making better choices. Often the poor must choose between rotten choice A and horrible choice B because they have no access to halfway decent Choice C let alone Great Choice D and Best Choice E. My mom's dad died when she was in ES. Schools were she grew up were segregated by law (not just defacto) and she worked from the time she was 12. When she became very sick and her marriage fell apart, she did not have family money to fall back on to tide her over through cancer treatments and a long marital separation. She lost our house and with it all her savings.  What choices was her life supposed to teach me to make better?[/quote]

+100000000000000000000

Oh, if life were all about personal accountability and choice.

[/quote]

Exactly.  What I'd like to hear, rather than what "better choices" folks made, was who gave them a hand up?  Who was there for them?  For me it was a HS teacher who took the time to help me navigate the college admissions process, since no one in my family had gone past high school.  The time he put into helping me figure out the process, come up with a system for organizing my applications (this was before the Common App or online applications) and apply for a admissions fee waiver was such an investment in my future.  [/quote]

I'm not the person you quoted, but I agree wholeheartedly. I became a teacher because I feel like I owe "karma." The elementary school secretary begged my mom to not send me to the neighborhood junior high. She pulled strings at the last minute to get me into a magnet middle school across town. My middle school counselor refused to send off my applications to the vocational school that was essentially a last resort for juvenile offenders. Behind the scenes, she got all of my teachers to give recommendations for me to go to a really good magnet high school. In high school I nearly dropped out to work full time. Various teachers donated money, food, clothes, and put up with my sh*t. By that time I had a huge chip on my shoulder from all of the stress in my home life, but they helped me nonetheless. I'm so far from where most of my friends and family ended up. I've found a few of my teachers on Facebook and sent them detailed thank you notes. [/quote]

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