most people assume that ninth grade
students who have failing most of their
classes have GPAs as low as zero living
in concentrated poverty beset with drugs
and violence are simply a lost cause
that if you haven’t reached a child by
the age of five it is too late well as a
neuroscientist and after spending the
last decade of my life getting to know
the young people in Baltimore City I can
tell you that that is simply not true
threads model is unprecedented we enroll
the most academically underperforming
high school students in Baltimore City
to give you a sense of what this means
at Douglas high school the school at the
epicenter of the unrest in Baltimore
last year the average GPA of our first
cohort of students was 0.15 not 1.5 0.15
on a 4’o scale our students are
exemplary human beings that are in
extraordinary circumstances the
challenges they face outside of school
range from homelessness to having a
parent whose deceased are incarcerated
once in thread they stay with us for a
decade longer than your average American
marriage so it’s the rest of high school
and six years after we lovingly joke
it’s like a gang or a sorority however
you want to look at it once they’re in
they can’t get out once your family are
always family when enrolled each student
is given a group of volunteers up to
five volunteers for each student who do
everything from pack their lunches give
them rights to school provide tutoring
if you can imagine doing it for your own
child or your niece or your nephew we do
it for ours and it is our unique
volunteers structure that allows us to
make this enduring 10 year commitment to
all of our students so now I’m going to
tell you a story about the most
transformative relationship I have had
with a young man named Maurice and that
I’m going to tell you how that
relationship is not unique it is
actually one of hundreds of
relationships and thread that are not
only allowing our students to beat the
odds but are fundamentally changing the
odds for all students in Baltimore City
Maurice grew up in West Baltimore and is
mother a heroin addict reached a point
where when he was 13 years old she could
no longer take care of him she literally
had to abandon him on a street corner
having to figure out where to find food
where to stay how to meet his most basic
human needs
Maurice fell into a life on the streets
by the time we met during his freshman
year he was not only in danger of
dropping out or failing out he was in
danger of ending up dead or in jail so
we started with the basics I would drive
to his house and provide a ride to
school he would play basketball with my
husband at our house on the weekends and
when he sometimes didn’t have a place to
stay he would stay with us we even went
on a camping trip in the middle of
January where there was 8 inches of snow
on the ground I was much less
experienced back then to take a bunch of
teenagers camping in January but our
biggest argument between Maurice and I
was whether or not he could bring his
gun so many many rides to school many
basketball games and many overnights
later we formed a relationship of deep
trust it was difficult it took a long
time and it wasn’t easy but eventually
we found our common bonds as a result
Maurice not only graduated from high
school but this past spring he received
his college degree from Coppin State
and that’s not all he most recently
joined threads Board of Directors where
he is now officially my boss and that’s
not all it turns out that the camping
trips became a formative part of
maurices life so even once he was an
alumni he continued coming on the trips
and it was on one of the camping trips
where he met a young man named Malcolm
and offered to start driving Malcolm to
school overtime
Malcolm began to change the address that
he was being I was asking rice to pick
him up at having been homeless Maurice
understood exactly what that meant so
what did he do he asked Malcolm to move
in with him
so fast forward it’s now April 2015 and
I’m sitting in back-to-back meetings I
walk out and I looked out at my phone
and it is blown up with text messages it
says get to Douglas now it’s about to go
down hurry up there were other words in
there too which I won’t share before I
could even text Maurice back I get this
picture and it’s him it’s a selfie of
Malcolm and Maurice driving away from
Douglass high school so while other
young people were facing off with police
what did Maurice done he’d gone and
gotten Malcolm and he had mobilized
hundreds of thread staff and volunteers
to go and locate all 200 of our students
it took until 2:00 in the morning but
thanks to maurices leadership we located
all of our students and were able to
ensure not just their physical
well-being but their emotional
well-being so when you think about
Maurice is he a lost cause or is he the
pipeline of leadership for our city
is he our future and you have to ask
yourself what is the what are the
barriers that would hold someone like
Maurice is talented and as special as he
and every other young person and thread
is back I like to boil it down to the
most basic of decisions we know
statistically that students that go to
school graduate so let’s just take that
as a very simple example and let’s walk
through how the brain makes that most
basic decision am I gonna go to school
today or am I gonna do something else
maybe there’s something else is to stay
home and watch your younger siblings so
that your parent can go to work and
provide for your family
maybe this something else is for you to
actually go and work instead of go to
school to provide for your family maybe
there’s something else is a stand on a
street corner because it’s what you know
and provide for your family so how do we
influence the decision making if we want
a young person to go to school well this
is a huge oversimplification but we’re
gonna start with two things that drive
the decision-making of all of us not
just Maurice turns out we’re very much
alike the first is reward so let’s
imagine that you can sell drugs today
and earn $200 standing on a corner if
you go to high school graduate get into
college graduate get a middle-class job
maybe you can earn four hundred dollars
a day which is more well even though
four hundred is technically more than
two hundred the problem is you don’t get
the four hundred until many years in the
future so our brain discounts the value
of that four hundred dollars over time
so actually the two hundred dollars that
you’re gonna get today is more valuable
so in the decision-making process we’re
already losing when it comes to reward
the second thing that your brain looks
at is likelihood so it’s basically a
sniff test how much do I believe if I
perform that action I’m actually gonna
get the reward so if I sell drugs do I
believe I’m gonna get $200 what our
brains all do is we go back through like
a movie reel in our head and we look at
the data points that we have so how many
people have you known that have sold
drugs and gotten $200 how many people
have you known that have gone to high
school graduated gone to college
graduated and got in a middle-class job
if you have a ton of data points that
tell you it’s going to happen you’re
going to get your $200 if you sell drugs
why would you ever delay gratification
for something that’s not going to come
so you have to ask yourself is Marissa
lost cause
no more recent all of our young people
are working with the data that they have
so in thread what we work to do is we
work to change the reward we work to
change the likelihood how do we do that
once students are enrolled like I said
they have a thread family this is up to
five volunteers who do anything you
would do for your own child and they do
it over the course of a decade what does
that mean in terms of reward well when
you show up to take someone to school
you can
provide a real-time reward maybe it’s as
simple as bringing breakfast it’s a lot
easier to go to school if you are not
hungry if you have clean clothes and if
you’ve had a place to sleep sometimes
the reward could be as simple as just
looking someone in the eyes and saying I
know it was really hard for you to get
up this morning given everything that
happened in your house last night but I
see you and you matter and I appreciate
that you’ve got in this car
we also work to influence the likelihood
function so when you think about the
thread family they’re supported by what
we call thread resource teams there’s
legal health housing workforce
development academics college and career
preparation community service
these are teams that are also volunteers
who are experts so if a young person is
being evicted instead of the thread
family or their parents trying to figure
out how to prevent an eviction they just
call a thread legal resource team and
they help provide them a pro bono
attorney who will prevent that eviction
why does that matter well one it’s good
to have a place to stay but two what
happens well all of a sudden we’re in a
room and now you’ve got an attorney a
young person their family and a bunch of
volunteers now think about the data
points that young person just met
someone who went to college graduated
god of middle class or better than
middle class job so by striving together
by having a common goal the common goal
could be to prevent an eviction you
actually form a deep and meaningful
relationship and you influence the
likelihood function of everyone involved
what is this amount to well in the last
12 years and thread it has amounted to
us never losing a single student we have
retained a hundred percent of our
it is messy at some point every single
student and thread will tell you I’m not
in thread I’ve dropped out but we just
keep showing up and showing up and
showing up and building that trust over
time and eventually things change and
what is that about – well that amounts
to 92 percent of our students have
graduated from high school within five
years of joining thread these are
students who come in who people have
viewed as a lost cause in some cases
disposable 92% of them graduate from
high school so you have to ask yourself
the data is super super clear we know
that for a child to grow into a happy
healthy adult what do they need they
need one just one consistent caring
adult in their life so as a scientist I
like to run the math we have
approximately 80,000 students in the
Baltimore City public school system and
we have around four to five hundred
thousand adults in theory we should have
extra where is everybody
what’s going on well I’ll tell you
what’s going on the adults are working
with the same data set that the young
people are why would you take time away
from your family your job your spiritual
life to go drive a kid to school if
they’re gonna end up dead or in jail
anyway you wouldn’t but if you knew that
driving that student to school that’s
showing up even when they didn’t want to
see you could actually save their life
and yours you would so what has happened
is Maurice is not only providing a data
point for our younger students he’s
providing a data point for all of
Baltimore City to say that this is
possible it is happening there is not a
single child who is a lost cause in our
city what does that amounted to it is
amounted to threat has grown to this
year we will serve over 300 students and
their families with the support of over
a thousand volunteers and collaborators
and it’s just the beginning so what’s
next for thread we have worked to set
out a plan where we will eventually
reach five percent of every freshman
class in the Baltimore City public
school system the most academically
underperform
five percent that would mean reaching
three thousand students and in order to
do so we would have to weave together
relationships between 3,000 students
7,000 volunteers the adult counterparts
of our volunteers students collaborators
donors board members staff all in it
would be about 20,000 adults 20,000
adults well that’s that’s not only 5% of
every freshman class in the school
district that’s 5% of the adults in the
city
that’s a movement and we think about in
thread what was originally intended in
the civil rights movement it was to
bring about a diverse and inclusive and
equitable society how do you do that
well we bring Baltimore together every
day and thread through deep and
meaningful relationships why should you
care well you should care because it
turns out that healthy relationships
matter for all of us a study that came
out of Harvard that began in 1938 looked
at 724 men and followed them into their
80s and 90s and asked a single question
what is the number one thing that drives
whether or not these men were happy and
healthy into late adulthood it wasn’t
their race it wasn’t their job it wasn’t
their educational attainment it was the
relationships they had and it wasn’t the
quantity so it wasn’t how many friends
did they have on Facebook or how many
tweets or how many likes it was the
quality of relationships what mattered
was did they have a core group of people
that when things got really tough they
knew had their back the men who had a
group that had their back had less
cancer less heart disease less dementia
it fundamentally changed their physical
and mental and emotional well-being and
it turns out that relationships are not
just important for individual health
they’re important for our collective
health another study that came out of
Harvard looked at two towns Youngstown
and Allentown demographically they
looked quite similar they had a similar
racial breakdown class breakdown
religious preference but after they lost
their main industries what they found is
that the outcomes in those town
were quite different Allentown was
faring far better in terms of Education
crime the economy and so they wanted to
understand why what was driving that
difference and it turned out it was
something simple again in Young’s town
the town that wasn’t doing well we might
go to church together we’d also work at
the factory together and we’d go bowling
together but in Allentown the town that
was doing well we might go to church
together we would Bowl together and we
would work at the factory together
it was the diversity in the cross
connections that actually led to a
healthier City so when you think about
why has this not been done why is this
not been done in every city the answer
to that question too is simple is
because relationships are really hard
they’re not a quick fix they’re messy
they take time you have to pay attention
to them and they don’t always feel great
so how do we do this in thread its
practicing change we have found that the
key to our young people maturing into
resilient self-motivated and responsible
citizens is that the adults have to
model that change it’s not just about
success is not just defined as your
students succeeding it’s as your own
growth if we want our students to go to
school and be responsible then when we
say we’re gonna take them to school we
have to show up and take them to school
and be responsible ourselves if we want
our students to not give up on
themselves we have to not give up on
them and when we show up it’s not just
about showing up it’s how we show up are
we vulnerable do we actually share our
challenges and our burdens with them do
we show up ready to help or do we show
up ready to be helped
you know when Reese and I would take our
rides to school we’ve rarely talked
about academics mostly we would argue
over what to listen to on the radio
station although over the years we
finally figured out that we both love
Motown favorites we would talk about
everything from his complicated
relationship with his mom and my super
complicated in a relationship with my
sister when his brother died suddenly we
just sat there we didn’t talk at all and
when I finally had
breaking point overwhelmed by the fact
that I couldn’t have a child and I felt
like I could talk to absolutely no one
Maurice listened years later when I
collapsed turns out that I had an
ectopic pregnancy was bleeding
internally an emergency surgery for
blood transfusions and chemotherapy
later I awoke I awoke to Maurice I woke
to my husband I woke to all the students
volunteers collaborators my family and
friends and thread who brought me back
to life and when a few years later I
welcomed my daughter
EB grace into this world they celebrated
so we have to remember it is not just
children living in poverty that need
these deep interpersonal bonds we all do
and during these times of division and
strife we must find a way to rediscover what is most important one another
students who have failing most of their
classes have GPAs as low as zero living
in concentrated poverty beset with drugs
and violence are simply a lost cause
that if you haven’t reached a child by
the age of five it is too late well as a
neuroscientist and after spending the
last decade of my life getting to know
the young people in Baltimore City I can
tell you that that is simply not true
threads model is unprecedented we enroll
the most academically underperforming
high school students in Baltimore City
to give you a sense of what this means
at Douglas high school the school at the
epicenter of the unrest in Baltimore
last year the average GPA of our first
cohort of students was 0.15 not 1.5 0.15
on a 4’o scale our students are
exemplary human beings that are in
extraordinary circumstances the
challenges they face outside of school
range from homelessness to having a
parent whose deceased are incarcerated
once in thread they stay with us for a
decade longer than your average American
marriage so it’s the rest of high school
and six years after we lovingly joke
it’s like a gang or a sorority however
you want to look at it once they’re in
they can’t get out once your family are
always family when enrolled each student
is given a group of volunteers up to
five volunteers for each student who do
everything from pack their lunches give
them rights to school provide tutoring
if you can imagine doing it for your own
child or your niece or your nephew we do
it for ours and it is our unique
volunteers structure that allows us to
make this enduring 10 year commitment to
all of our students so now I’m going to
tell you a story about the most
transformative relationship I have had
with a young man named Maurice and that
I’m going to tell you how that
relationship is not unique it is
actually one of hundreds of
relationships and thread that are not
only allowing our students to beat the
odds but are fundamentally changing the
odds for all students in Baltimore City
Maurice grew up in West Baltimore and is
mother a heroin addict reached a point
where when he was 13 years old she could
no longer take care of him she literally
had to abandon him on a street corner
having to figure out where to find food
where to stay how to meet his most basic
human needs
Maurice fell into a life on the streets
by the time we met during his freshman
year he was not only in danger of
dropping out or failing out he was in
danger of ending up dead or in jail so
we started with the basics I would drive
to his house and provide a ride to
school he would play basketball with my
husband at our house on the weekends and
when he sometimes didn’t have a place to
stay he would stay with us we even went
on a camping trip in the middle of
January where there was 8 inches of snow
on the ground I was much less
experienced back then to take a bunch of
teenagers camping in January but our
biggest argument between Maurice and I
was whether or not he could bring his
gun so many many rides to school many
basketball games and many overnights
later we formed a relationship of deep
trust it was difficult it took a long
time and it wasn’t easy but eventually
we found our common bonds as a result
Maurice not only graduated from high
school but this past spring he received
his college degree from Coppin State
and that’s not all he most recently
joined threads Board of Directors where
he is now officially my boss and that’s
not all it turns out that the camping
trips became a formative part of
maurices life so even once he was an
alumni he continued coming on the trips
and it was on one of the camping trips
where he met a young man named Malcolm
and offered to start driving Malcolm to
school overtime
Malcolm began to change the address that
he was being I was asking rice to pick
him up at having been homeless Maurice
understood exactly what that meant so
what did he do he asked Malcolm to move
in with him
so fast forward it’s now April 2015 and
I’m sitting in back-to-back meetings I
walk out and I looked out at my phone
and it is blown up with text messages it
says get to Douglas now it’s about to go
down hurry up there were other words in
there too which I won’t share before I
could even text Maurice back I get this
picture and it’s him it’s a selfie of
Malcolm and Maurice driving away from
Douglass high school so while other
young people were facing off with police
what did Maurice done he’d gone and
gotten Malcolm and he had mobilized
hundreds of thread staff and volunteers
to go and locate all 200 of our students
it took until 2:00 in the morning but
thanks to maurices leadership we located
all of our students and were able to
ensure not just their physical
well-being but their emotional
well-being so when you think about
Maurice is he a lost cause or is he the
pipeline of leadership for our city
is he our future and you have to ask
yourself what is the what are the
barriers that would hold someone like
Maurice is talented and as special as he
and every other young person and thread
is back I like to boil it down to the
most basic of decisions we know
statistically that students that go to
school graduate so let’s just take that
as a very simple example and let’s walk
through how the brain makes that most
basic decision am I gonna go to school
today or am I gonna do something else
maybe there’s something else is to stay
home and watch your younger siblings so
that your parent can go to work and
provide for your family
maybe this something else is for you to
actually go and work instead of go to
school to provide for your family maybe
there’s something else is a stand on a
street corner because it’s what you know
and provide for your family so how do we
influence the decision making if we want
a young person to go to school well this
is a huge oversimplification but we’re
gonna start with two things that drive
the decision-making of all of us not
just Maurice turns out we’re very much
alike the first is reward so let’s
imagine that you can sell drugs today
and earn $200 standing on a corner if
you go to high school graduate get into
college graduate get a middle-class job
maybe you can earn four hundred dollars
a day which is more well even though
four hundred is technically more than
two hundred the problem is you don’t get
the four hundred until many years in the
future so our brain discounts the value
of that four hundred dollars over time
so actually the two hundred dollars that
you’re gonna get today is more valuable
so in the decision-making process we’re
already losing when it comes to reward
the second thing that your brain looks
at is likelihood so it’s basically a
sniff test how much do I believe if I
perform that action I’m actually gonna
get the reward so if I sell drugs do I
believe I’m gonna get $200 what our
brains all do is we go back through like
a movie reel in our head and we look at
the data points that we have so how many
people have you known that have sold
drugs and gotten $200 how many people
have you known that have gone to high
school graduated gone to college
graduated and got in a middle-class job
if you have a ton of data points that
tell you it’s going to happen you’re
going to get your $200 if you sell drugs
why would you ever delay gratification
for something that’s not going to come
so you have to ask yourself is Marissa
lost cause
no more recent all of our young people
are working with the data that they have
so in thread what we work to do is we
work to change the reward we work to
change the likelihood how do we do that
once students are enrolled like I said
they have a thread family this is up to
five volunteers who do anything you
would do for your own child and they do
it over the course of a decade what does
that mean in terms of reward well when
you show up to take someone to school
you can
provide a real-time reward maybe it’s as
simple as bringing breakfast it’s a lot
easier to go to school if you are not
hungry if you have clean clothes and if
you’ve had a place to sleep sometimes
the reward could be as simple as just
looking someone in the eyes and saying I
know it was really hard for you to get
up this morning given everything that
happened in your house last night but I
see you and you matter and I appreciate
that you’ve got in this car
we also work to influence the likelihood
function so when you think about the
thread family they’re supported by what
we call thread resource teams there’s
legal health housing workforce
development academics college and career
preparation community service
these are teams that are also volunteers
who are experts so if a young person is
being evicted instead of the thread
family or their parents trying to figure
out how to prevent an eviction they just
call a thread legal resource team and
they help provide them a pro bono
attorney who will prevent that eviction
why does that matter well one it’s good
to have a place to stay but two what
happens well all of a sudden we’re in a
room and now you’ve got an attorney a
young person their family and a bunch of
volunteers now think about the data
points that young person just met
someone who went to college graduated
god of middle class or better than
middle class job so by striving together
by having a common goal the common goal
could be to prevent an eviction you
actually form a deep and meaningful
relationship and you influence the
likelihood function of everyone involved
what is this amount to well in the last
12 years and thread it has amounted to
us never losing a single student we have
retained a hundred percent of our
it is messy at some point every single
student and thread will tell you I’m not
in thread I’ve dropped out but we just
keep showing up and showing up and
showing up and building that trust over
time and eventually things change and
what is that about – well that amounts
to 92 percent of our students have
graduated from high school within five
years of joining thread these are
students who come in who people have
viewed as a lost cause in some cases
disposable 92% of them graduate from
high school so you have to ask yourself
the data is super super clear we know
that for a child to grow into a happy
healthy adult what do they need they
need one just one consistent caring
adult in their life so as a scientist I
like to run the math we have
approximately 80,000 students in the
Baltimore City public school system and
we have around four to five hundred
thousand adults in theory we should have
extra where is everybody
what’s going on well I’ll tell you
what’s going on the adults are working
with the same data set that the young
people are why would you take time away
from your family your job your spiritual
life to go drive a kid to school if
they’re gonna end up dead or in jail
anyway you wouldn’t but if you knew that
driving that student to school that’s
showing up even when they didn’t want to
see you could actually save their life
and yours you would so what has happened
is Maurice is not only providing a data
point for our younger students he’s
providing a data point for all of
Baltimore City to say that this is
possible it is happening there is not a
single child who is a lost cause in our
city what does that amounted to it is
amounted to threat has grown to this
year we will serve over 300 students and
their families with the support of over
a thousand volunteers and collaborators
and it’s just the beginning so what’s
next for thread we have worked to set
out a plan where we will eventually
reach five percent of every freshman
class in the Baltimore City public
school system the most academically
underperform
five percent that would mean reaching
three thousand students and in order to
do so we would have to weave together
relationships between 3,000 students
7,000 volunteers the adult counterparts
of our volunteers students collaborators
donors board members staff all in it
would be about 20,000 adults 20,000
adults well that’s that’s not only 5% of
every freshman class in the school
district that’s 5% of the adults in the
city
that’s a movement and we think about in
thread what was originally intended in
the civil rights movement it was to
bring about a diverse and inclusive and
equitable society how do you do that
well we bring Baltimore together every
day and thread through deep and
meaningful relationships why should you
care well you should care because it
turns out that healthy relationships
matter for all of us a study that came
out of Harvard that began in 1938 looked
at 724 men and followed them into their
80s and 90s and asked a single question
what is the number one thing that drives
whether or not these men were happy and
healthy into late adulthood it wasn’t
their race it wasn’t their job it wasn’t
their educational attainment it was the
relationships they had and it wasn’t the
quantity so it wasn’t how many friends
did they have on Facebook or how many
tweets or how many likes it was the
quality of relationships what mattered
was did they have a core group of people
that when things got really tough they
knew had their back the men who had a
group that had their back had less
cancer less heart disease less dementia
it fundamentally changed their physical
and mental and emotional well-being and
it turns out that relationships are not
just important for individual health
they’re important for our collective
health another study that came out of
Harvard looked at two towns Youngstown
and Allentown demographically they
looked quite similar they had a similar
racial breakdown class breakdown
religious preference but after they lost
their main industries what they found is
that the outcomes in those town
were quite different Allentown was
faring far better in terms of Education
crime the economy and so they wanted to
understand why what was driving that
difference and it turned out it was
something simple again in Young’s town
the town that wasn’t doing well we might
go to church together we’d also work at
the factory together and we’d go bowling
together but in Allentown the town that
was doing well we might go to church
together we would Bowl together and we
would work at the factory together
it was the diversity in the cross
connections that actually led to a
healthier City so when you think about
why has this not been done why is this
not been done in every city the answer
to that question too is simple is
because relationships are really hard
they’re not a quick fix they’re messy
they take time you have to pay attention
to them and they don’t always feel great
so how do we do this in thread its
practicing change we have found that the
key to our young people maturing into
resilient self-motivated and responsible
citizens is that the adults have to
model that change it’s not just about
success is not just defined as your
students succeeding it’s as your own
growth if we want our students to go to
school and be responsible then when we
say we’re gonna take them to school we
have to show up and take them to school
and be responsible ourselves if we want
our students to not give up on
themselves we have to not give up on
them and when we show up it’s not just
about showing up it’s how we show up are
we vulnerable do we actually share our
challenges and our burdens with them do
we show up ready to help or do we show
up ready to be helped
you know when Reese and I would take our
rides to school we’ve rarely talked
about academics mostly we would argue
over what to listen to on the radio
station although over the years we
finally figured out that we both love
Motown favorites we would talk about
everything from his complicated
relationship with his mom and my super
complicated in a relationship with my
sister when his brother died suddenly we
just sat there we didn’t talk at all and
when I finally had
breaking point overwhelmed by the fact
that I couldn’t have a child and I felt
like I could talk to absolutely no one
Maurice listened years later when I
collapsed turns out that I had an
ectopic pregnancy was bleeding
internally an emergency surgery for
blood transfusions and chemotherapy
later I awoke I awoke to Maurice I woke
to my husband I woke to all the students
volunteers collaborators my family and
friends and thread who brought me back
to life and when a few years later I
welcomed my daughter
EB grace into this world they celebrated
so we have to remember it is not just
children living in poverty that need
these deep interpersonal bonds we all do
and during these times of division and
strife we must find a way to rediscover what is most important one another
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