Intellects, particularly those at Ivy Leagues and other Think Tanks, always over analyze and attempt reduce a system to a singular device, when in fact it is the system that produces the desired result. The Harlem Zone is just what it declares in its name: a Zone. It is not a trick or a device. It is a systems approach that is a systematic engagement of its residents, and particularly its children on all fronts consistently. I first learned of Geoffrey Canada’s Harlem Zone three and a half years ago when CBS first reported about his “experiment”. I knew then that his passion alone would get positive results for he demands of himself and of parents, educators, donors, and community members--earnest dedication and accountability. Now, more than three years later, Anderson Cooper returns to the Harlem Zone to follow up on the story originally reported by the late Ed Bradley and reports remarkable success in closing the academic disparity between blacks and whites.
Instead of accepting the success for what it is, the intellectuals and think tanks are as usual, looking for the magic bullet, the “pill” as Harvard’s Fryer calls it, which is generating all the success. It is blatantly obvious that in any and all dealings with human behavior, and that is indeed the crux of educational success and failure, there is no one device or method of instruction that works successfully for all or some may argue even for one. Conversely, it is an all hands on deck approach that is proving to be the success behind the Harlem Zone as is the case with any other successful educational institution. There is in place a system of motivation, support, intervention, discipline, and accountability, which like our government of checks and balances, acts to keep each part of the human behavior and institutional engine working to support each other and the whole of the mission and objective.
This is the very manifestation of the African Proverb “it takes a village” in action. There is no single person or single method of instruction that can uplift ignorance. Just as history has demonstrated there is no single person or method of battle that has lifted a nation to eternal dominance. Human behavior is dynamic and therefore influencing human behavior, particularly the speed and level at which one learns, must also be dynamic. The static approaches commonly and currently in use, fail to meet the needs of a constantly evolving and technologically engaged people.
The systems approach and the advocacy for its implementation is nothing new. Accountability has become the mantra of the last four presidential administrations and yet, no enforcement or means of measuring accountability standards has been devised or implemented within any system or institution run by the bureaucracy. Excuses for failure to achieve have become the new normal. Meanwhile, children of poverty and of color, continue to be the biggest victims of the excuse game. Everyone is afraid to set the standards high in fear of emotionally damaging children when in reality the greatest emotional and intellectual damage is done by standards that are so low that children are manipulated into believing they are successes when actually they are failures. In public health, experts have long demanded the implementation of a systems approach which would correct fragmented delivery systems and employ checks and balances to improve and streamline quality of care. Yet, the selfishness, greed, and power tripping of each entity involved have muddled the sounds of those demands and resulted in the hodgepodge of care that lacks continuity, accountability, and delivers inequitable care to hundreds of millions. The same can be said for education. Too many hands in the cookie jar and too many control freaks have wreaked havoc on our most valuable assets, our children.
So while you Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford intellectuals and government and private think tanks meet and discuss ad nauseum, our children are slipping further and further into the abysmal cycle of ignorance which begets poverty and crime (you know more fodder for your analyses). Stop talking and analyzing and accept the dynamic which is and reject perpetual attempts to find and categorize the device that is not.
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