Scott Brinton

What I learned at Hempstead High

Posted

On my first day in Hempstead, I watched a man get arrested. I was driving by. There he was, on the sidewalk, a police officer leading him away in handcuffs. As a journalist, I’ve been to many crime scenes. Strangely, I had never witnessed an arrest in person.

It was unnerving. It’s a scene that is played out all too often in Hempstead, a low-income, primarily African-American and Hispanic community of 53,000 in the heart of Nassau County.

This fall I taught community journalism at Hofstra University, where I’m an adjunct professor in the Herbert School of Communication. For six weeks I brought a group of six graduate journalism students –– Sakeenah Benjamin, Kimberly Charles, Nakeem Grant, Joié Johnson-Walker, Rohanie Parbhoo and Weina Shan –– to Hempstead High School, off Peninsula Boulevard, south of Hempstead Town Hall. Each week my students taught their high school protégés about how to produce a newspaper. The program encourages high school students of color to consider journalism careers. Newsroom diversity is sorely lacking, if not downright pathetic, across the country.

In spending even a small amount of time in Hempstead, you quickly understand the monumental obstacles that students there face in simply graduating from high school. From the moment they’re born, too many Hempstead students have significantly less than their counterparts in middle class and wealthy school districts. Year after year, they fall just a little –– or a lot –– further behind in the race toward college, and the dream of a university education and a better life becomes increasingly distant.

At Hempstead High, I met some of the most dedicated and fearless educators I’ve ever known –– and I know a lot of educators. Day in, day out, they carry on, despite seemingly insurmountable odds. They do not give up and give in. They learn to manage their expectations. Small victories are celebrated.

A recent Hempstead valedictorian is now studying at Columbia University. She is revered by Hempstead’s top students. They aspire to be her. And they can be. They’re smart. They work hard. They’re friendly and polite. They smile and laugh. They are kind to one another. They support one another. They’re good kids –– really good kids.

Page 1 / 3