today my students and I will start by
sharing our class data we invite the
audience to participate as well please
raise your hand if you’ve ever been
detained and questioned by police if
you’ve been detained in questioned by
police three or more times if you’ve had
an immediate family member incarcerated
for a significant period of time if
you’ve been shot at if you’ve seen
someone get shot if you’ve had a close
loved one murdered this is my tenth year
of teaching and so called at-risk youth
and I have always gravitated towards
each other but six years of watching
countless youth move steadily on a
conveyor belt to destruction led me to a
devastating realization that I despite
my best efforts had made almost zero
difference in the lives of students I
most wanted to reach zero forget turning
off the conveyor belt I couldn’t think
of a single instance where I had even
slowed it down and when I started this
survey I realized why I had been
applying my solutions to their
situations without even asking them
their situations this realization came
through my partnership with these young
men I met in my leadership class at
robert e lee high school and an effort
we call the evac movement in just over
one year and with no formal curriculum
training or funding these young men went
from being labeled as at-risk to being
recognized as at Hope youth leaders
whose accomplishments include speaking
at the White House meeting President
Obama making the front page of the New
York Times and winning first prize and a
contest sponsored by Harvard
[Applause]
that’s how I feel too despite enormous
risk factors these young men stand here
today with hope how did they get here
and how do we empower other youth to get
here too we start with their story and
here it is our story starts with Plato’s
allegory of the cave a philosophy piece
written 2500 years ago about prisoners
who’ve been chained in a cave since
birth they are unaware of their chains
over that there even in a cave until one
day a liberator descends the steps
unbinds their chains and leads them to
the light in 2013 the best teacher I
know mr. Reginald vineyard introduced me
to the cave and it’s been my first
lesson of the year ever since in 2014
these young men entered their ninth
grade year sprinkled among my six co-ed
leadership classes and that year I
started a new assignment sharing your
story students read the cave then watch
The Lion King tracing Simba journey of
grief as a model to analyze their own
difficult experiences these young men
stood out because they were among the
first to do the assignments optional
portion sharing their stories and
sharing changed them my close friend and
classroom volunteer Jay Harris one day
looked around and said to me
ami something’s happening here and it
needs a name he wrote something down
handed it to me and said what does cave
backward spell evac he said ami sharing
their stories is evacuating them from
hopelessness this is an evac movement so
my principal agreed to my request to
teach a part two leadership course with
some of these same young men and women
the next school year but in June there
is an abrupt principal change leading me
to go up to the school to get the new
principal’s approval to teach it which
he gave but with a catch due to racial
disparities in education he wanted the
course to be all african-american young
men
I said I fully support that but as a
white female I am not the right person
for this and he pushed back saying I was
the only teacher with room in my
schedule basically it was me or no class
so that fall our journey began their
sophomore year
and it was a disaster students either
didn’t know each other I didn’t like
each other they fought I cried every
single lesson I taught fell flat and in
desperation we went back to the one
thing that yet again changed everything
writing their stories and then c’mon the
only one who in ninth grade never wrote
or shared his story asked to share and
our class changed forever that day and
his bravery as he came to the front of
the room and shared that the summer
before ninth grade his brother had been
murdered and that until now he never
talked about it after his classmates
began sharing that many of them too had
lost brothers and they too didn’t know
how to deal and by the end of class they
were fighting again but this time over
who got to share next in every class for
the next two months a different student
shared and a brotherhood was formed and
soon one said to me this has been great
but when are we gonna do something about
all this so I had a great idea since
many of their stories involved traumatic
police stops I had invited local
officers in to teach them their rights
and they’d be here next class wasn’t
that great
the classroom erupted asked the police
they weren’t censored either uh I’m not
coming and then I erupted it and I said
if that’s your attitude then go ahead
and drop the class because that’s not
leadership but I will never forget when
one of them raised his hand and with
incredible grace said this out of Rio we
understand what you’re saying but you
haven’t been handcuffed face down on
concrete you haven’t had guns pulled on
you and dog sticked on you for
jaywalking he pointed to a classmate and
said you haven’t missed your mom’s
funeral
because you were illegally detained we
understand what you’re saying but this
runs deep and I was so ashamed
and just floored by my own ignorance and
I immediately said I’d cancel but they
told me not to in the next class every
single young man showed up unfortunately
the visit was essentially a lecture on
respecting Authority but the person who
set it up mr. Frank Talbot asked to come
back and address some of their
unanswered questions and he continued
not only to come back but began bringing
his colleagues it was these young men
sharing their stories and adults with
power were literally taking notes and
soon we were becoming more than a class
and we needed a name and so one said how
about cave and we laughed but then Jay
said how about evac and from there the
opportunities just escalated in April to
were chosen to go to the US Department
of Justice in DC in August for other
students presented at a national youth
summit and a few weeks later we were
asked to interview for a juvenile
justice article to our utter shock that
article ran on the front page of the New
York Times and the next day the juvenile
Law Center reached out to the student
who was featured and asked him to come
share his story on Capitol Hill
when I told Jay he said Amy sky is
clearly the limit with evac from now on
you need to start dreaming crazy and I
laughed but my mind started racing and
the next class I told them my great idea
I thought our whole class should go to
DC next week with him we need about ten
thousand dollars so we made a video we
posted it to Facebook and the next day
the Laura and John Arnold Foundation
gave us ten thousand dollars for the
trip that’s Sunday we flew out foremost
it was their first flight for many it
was their first time ever leaving
Jacksonville when we got there we spoke
at Capitol Hill and at the White House
and the trip got us thinking anything is
possible
so our first class back we made our
dream crazy list and we wrote down every
crazy goal we could think of and
throughout last year we continuously
checked items off including meeting
President Obama while he was still in
office and our last class of their
junior year they got the surprise
announcement that they had won first
prize nationwide in Harvard and the kind
schools kind schools challenge so this
fall these young men entered their
senior year with countless adults
recognizing their value and praising
their success and also requesting a
program formula so that Yvette can be
replicated citywide so today I’m sharing
the most important step needed to
replicate ‘back our story and I asked
them the most important part of our
story to share today and they said tell
them we shook hands with President Obama
and then went right back to the hood
tell them that why I checked from my
letter from the White House I got
stopped and searched by police for
looking suspicious
tell them to spend one weekend in our
neighborhood before making programs that
decide what’s best for us our real story
is about youth who are waking up every
day in a horror movie a reality that no
class no program no accomplishment
changes which is why evac is not and has
never been a program it is simply a war
for hope that we’ve chosen to fight
together through sacrificing daily
loving relentlessly and fighting
fearlessly here’s what that’s looked
like for us and what it’ll look like for
others who’d like to do the same our
story is full of countless people who
love them and their story until they’re
asked to deal with the reality of it our
reality is 2 a.m. phone calls going to
funerals baking birthday cakes at
midnight and taking personal days to go
to court hearings that end up cancelled
embracing sacrifice destroys all dreams
of being or feeling like a hero because
what you’ll most have to sacrifice is
your pride personally you’ve acts been
the most humbling experience of my life
I on a daily basis feel inadequate
disrespected and just scared I
frequently call friends sobbing that I
have to quit that I’m not built for this
that it costs too much and I’ve gotten a
lot of lectures on on boundaries and
work-life balance but y’all know those
right but what I’ve had to learn is that
those things don’t exist on the front
lines war is ugly and it costs us
something sometimes everything we win
simply by being willing to keep showing
up by far the most powerful strategy for
hope is love
their mentors and I had to teach them by
learning ourselves what real love and
loyalty looks like and it looks like
people sticking around long term even
and especially after being hurt we have
had countless ugly blowouts that should
have meant that our story was over but
love is our choice to work through them
no matter how bad one of us messes up
including me love looks like choosing to
walk through hell together it’s us
driving to graduation with our classmate
when he gets the text that his mother’s
passed away and it’s us without
hesitation canceling our lunch with the
mayor to be there with him
love is his classmate staying with him
all night so that he wasn’t alone
love is us driving an hour with roses
and Gatorades to stand beside him as the
only guests at the funeral in his own
words evac is about our love for each
other a love that leads us to do the
only thing we can in these moments stand
quietly alongside each other in the
midst of it lastly what we love we’ll
fight for two teachers program directors
and others who take the song buckle up
you are about to become the squeaky
wheel for the voiceless understand that
people who work with kids are loved
people who liberate kids are dangerous
and liberation requires persistently
following up asking hard questions and
advocating for exceptions and
institutions that value uniformity
expediency and hierarchy above our kids
you are going to annoy your boss your
colleagues you are going to be the
person that makes the meetings run over
but we can’t keep using statistics to
label kids as at-risk yet force programs
to compromise on what’s necessary to
overcome those odds those compromises
turn
our programs into shams that help the
kids who are gonna make it anyway and
they leave the very kids were supposed
to help behind to die hope is life and
death so that’s our story here’s mine
walking alongside these young men has
been my life’s greatest blessing honor
and joy they are warriors and our city’s
heroes but my daily insecurity is still
that I am not the right person for this
and in so many factual real ways I’m
truly not but by constantly bypassing
reasons to label me as at risk they
taught me the power of treating others
with hope and empowers us to fly so
today I didn’t give you a five-step plan
to recreate evac because those steps are
worthless without understanding what I
hope is now clear that you can’t create
effective programs for at Hope youth
without knowing their story and making
their story a part of yours because hope
is not a program hope is actually seeing
our youth who are courageous enough to
fight and about being willing to
courageously fight beside them even when
it costs us hope is being willing to
become a family and do what families do
which is stay at the table even when one
of you flips it over hope is about
demanding our institutions start
listening to our youth stories and end
restrictions that make it impossible to
help them ultimately our only way to
evacuate the cave is together and our
only hope to reach the light is in our
willingness to love other people’s kids
as relentlessly sacrificially and
fearlessly as we love our own
risks have margins the hope has no
boundaries follow their lead choose hope
thank you
you
sharing our class data we invite the
audience to participate as well please
raise your hand if you’ve ever been
detained and questioned by police if
you’ve been detained in questioned by
police three or more times if you’ve had
an immediate family member incarcerated
for a significant period of time if
you’ve been shot at if you’ve seen
someone get shot if you’ve had a close
loved one murdered this is my tenth year
of teaching and so called at-risk youth
and I have always gravitated towards
each other but six years of watching
countless youth move steadily on a
conveyor belt to destruction led me to a
devastating realization that I despite
my best efforts had made almost zero
difference in the lives of students I
most wanted to reach zero forget turning
off the conveyor belt I couldn’t think
of a single instance where I had even
slowed it down and when I started this
survey I realized why I had been
applying my solutions to their
situations without even asking them
their situations this realization came
through my partnership with these young
men I met in my leadership class at
robert e lee high school and an effort
we call the evac movement in just over
one year and with no formal curriculum
training or funding these young men went
from being labeled as at-risk to being
recognized as at Hope youth leaders
whose accomplishments include speaking
at the White House meeting President
Obama making the front page of the New
York Times and winning first prize and a
contest sponsored by Harvard
[Applause]
that’s how I feel too despite enormous
risk factors these young men stand here
today with hope how did they get here
and how do we empower other youth to get
here too we start with their story and
here it is our story starts with Plato’s
allegory of the cave a philosophy piece
written 2500 years ago about prisoners
who’ve been chained in a cave since
birth they are unaware of their chains
over that there even in a cave until one
day a liberator descends the steps
unbinds their chains and leads them to
the light in 2013 the best teacher I
know mr. Reginald vineyard introduced me
to the cave and it’s been my first
lesson of the year ever since in 2014
these young men entered their ninth
grade year sprinkled among my six co-ed
leadership classes and that year I
started a new assignment sharing your
story students read the cave then watch
The Lion King tracing Simba journey of
grief as a model to analyze their own
difficult experiences these young men
stood out because they were among the
first to do the assignments optional
portion sharing their stories and
sharing changed them my close friend and
classroom volunteer Jay Harris one day
looked around and said to me
ami something’s happening here and it
needs a name he wrote something down
handed it to me and said what does cave
backward spell evac he said ami sharing
their stories is evacuating them from
hopelessness this is an evac movement so
my principal agreed to my request to
teach a part two leadership course with
some of these same young men and women
the next school year but in June there
is an abrupt principal change leading me
to go up to the school to get the new
principal’s approval to teach it which
he gave but with a catch due to racial
disparities in education he wanted the
course to be all african-american young
men
I said I fully support that but as a
white female I am not the right person
for this and he pushed back saying I was
the only teacher with room in my
schedule basically it was me or no class
so that fall our journey began their
sophomore year
and it was a disaster students either
didn’t know each other I didn’t like
each other they fought I cried every
single lesson I taught fell flat and in
desperation we went back to the one
thing that yet again changed everything
writing their stories and then c’mon the
only one who in ninth grade never wrote
or shared his story asked to share and
our class changed forever that day and
his bravery as he came to the front of
the room and shared that the summer
before ninth grade his brother had been
murdered and that until now he never
talked about it after his classmates
began sharing that many of them too had
lost brothers and they too didn’t know
how to deal and by the end of class they
were fighting again but this time over
who got to share next in every class for
the next two months a different student
shared and a brotherhood was formed and
soon one said to me this has been great
but when are we gonna do something about
all this so I had a great idea since
many of their stories involved traumatic
police stops I had invited local
officers in to teach them their rights
and they’d be here next class wasn’t
that great
the classroom erupted asked the police
they weren’t censored either uh I’m not
coming and then I erupted it and I said
if that’s your attitude then go ahead
and drop the class because that’s not
leadership but I will never forget when
one of them raised his hand and with
incredible grace said this out of Rio we
understand what you’re saying but you
haven’t been handcuffed face down on
concrete you haven’t had guns pulled on
you and dog sticked on you for
jaywalking he pointed to a classmate and
said you haven’t missed your mom’s
funeral
because you were illegally detained we
understand what you’re saying but this
runs deep and I was so ashamed
and just floored by my own ignorance and
I immediately said I’d cancel but they
told me not to in the next class every
single young man showed up unfortunately
the visit was essentially a lecture on
respecting Authority but the person who
set it up mr. Frank Talbot asked to come
back and address some of their
unanswered questions and he continued
not only to come back but began bringing
his colleagues it was these young men
sharing their stories and adults with
power were literally taking notes and
soon we were becoming more than a class
and we needed a name and so one said how
about cave and we laughed but then Jay
said how about evac and from there the
opportunities just escalated in April to
were chosen to go to the US Department
of Justice in DC in August for other
students presented at a national youth
summit and a few weeks later we were
asked to interview for a juvenile
justice article to our utter shock that
article ran on the front page of the New
York Times and the next day the juvenile
Law Center reached out to the student
who was featured and asked him to come
share his story on Capitol Hill
when I told Jay he said Amy sky is
clearly the limit with evac from now on
you need to start dreaming crazy and I
laughed but my mind started racing and
the next class I told them my great idea
I thought our whole class should go to
DC next week with him we need about ten
thousand dollars so we made a video we
posted it to Facebook and the next day
the Laura and John Arnold Foundation
gave us ten thousand dollars for the
trip that’s Sunday we flew out foremost
it was their first flight for many it
was their first time ever leaving
Jacksonville when we got there we spoke
at Capitol Hill and at the White House
and the trip got us thinking anything is
possible
so our first class back we made our
dream crazy list and we wrote down every
crazy goal we could think of and
throughout last year we continuously
checked items off including meeting
President Obama while he was still in
office and our last class of their
junior year they got the surprise
announcement that they had won first
prize nationwide in Harvard and the kind
schools kind schools challenge so this
fall these young men entered their
senior year with countless adults
recognizing their value and praising
their success and also requesting a
program formula so that Yvette can be
replicated citywide so today I’m sharing
the most important step needed to
replicate ‘back our story and I asked
them the most important part of our
story to share today and they said tell
them we shook hands with President Obama
and then went right back to the hood
tell them that why I checked from my
letter from the White House I got
stopped and searched by police for
looking suspicious
tell them to spend one weekend in our
neighborhood before making programs that
decide what’s best for us our real story
is about youth who are waking up every
day in a horror movie a reality that no
class no program no accomplishment
changes which is why evac is not and has
never been a program it is simply a war
for hope that we’ve chosen to fight
together through sacrificing daily
loving relentlessly and fighting
fearlessly here’s what that’s looked
like for us and what it’ll look like for
others who’d like to do the same our
story is full of countless people who
love them and their story until they’re
asked to deal with the reality of it our
reality is 2 a.m. phone calls going to
funerals baking birthday cakes at
midnight and taking personal days to go
to court hearings that end up cancelled
embracing sacrifice destroys all dreams
of being or feeling like a hero because
what you’ll most have to sacrifice is
your pride personally you’ve acts been
the most humbling experience of my life
I on a daily basis feel inadequate
disrespected and just scared I
frequently call friends sobbing that I
have to quit that I’m not built for this
that it costs too much and I’ve gotten a
lot of lectures on on boundaries and
work-life balance but y’all know those
right but what I’ve had to learn is that
those things don’t exist on the front
lines war is ugly and it costs us
something sometimes everything we win
simply by being willing to keep showing
up by far the most powerful strategy for
hope is love
their mentors and I had to teach them by
learning ourselves what real love and
loyalty looks like and it looks like
people sticking around long term even
and especially after being hurt we have
had countless ugly blowouts that should
have meant that our story was over but
love is our choice to work through them
no matter how bad one of us messes up
including me love looks like choosing to
walk through hell together it’s us
driving to graduation with our classmate
when he gets the text that his mother’s
passed away and it’s us without
hesitation canceling our lunch with the
mayor to be there with him
love is his classmate staying with him
all night so that he wasn’t alone
love is us driving an hour with roses
and Gatorades to stand beside him as the
only guests at the funeral in his own
words evac is about our love for each
other a love that leads us to do the
only thing we can in these moments stand
quietly alongside each other in the
midst of it lastly what we love we’ll
fight for two teachers program directors
and others who take the song buckle up
you are about to become the squeaky
wheel for the voiceless understand that
people who work with kids are loved
people who liberate kids are dangerous
and liberation requires persistently
following up asking hard questions and
advocating for exceptions and
institutions that value uniformity
expediency and hierarchy above our kids
you are going to annoy your boss your
colleagues you are going to be the
person that makes the meetings run over
but we can’t keep using statistics to
label kids as at-risk yet force programs
to compromise on what’s necessary to
overcome those odds those compromises
turn
our programs into shams that help the
kids who are gonna make it anyway and
they leave the very kids were supposed
to help behind to die hope is life and
death so that’s our story here’s mine
walking alongside these young men has
been my life’s greatest blessing honor
and joy they are warriors and our city’s
heroes but my daily insecurity is still
that I am not the right person for this
and in so many factual real ways I’m
truly not but by constantly bypassing
reasons to label me as at risk they
taught me the power of treating others
with hope and empowers us to fly so
today I didn’t give you a five-step plan
to recreate evac because those steps are
worthless without understanding what I
hope is now clear that you can’t create
effective programs for at Hope youth
without knowing their story and making
their story a part of yours because hope
is not a program hope is actually seeing
our youth who are courageous enough to
fight and about being willing to
courageously fight beside them even when
it costs us hope is being willing to
become a family and do what families do
which is stay at the table even when one
of you flips it over hope is about
demanding our institutions start
listening to our youth stories and end
restrictions that make it impossible to
help them ultimately our only way to
evacuate the cave is together and our
only hope to reach the light is in our
willingness to love other people’s kids
as relentlessly sacrificially and
fearlessly as we love our own
risks have margins the hope has no
boundaries follow their lead choose hope
thank you
you
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