The education of Desmine Cathey (U of Memphis)

[Harry Blackwell]

Not sure where to post this, but thought some of you might be interested in this article.

The education of Dasmine Cathey, Football player, University of Memphis.

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Edu...asmine/132065/

He hid them in a shoebox under his bed. "My own little secret," he said.

Inside the box, he kept 10 thin paperbacks he was given as a child. For years he didn't touch them. But as he reached 19, they became a lifeline.

Each night after dinner, he closed his dorm-room door, reached under his bed, and opened the box. Resting his head against the blanket his grandmother had made him, he pulled out the books: "First Grade, Level 1, Ages 6-7."

Quietly, so none of his teammates would hear, he read aloud, moving his finger across the page.

***

The words are tattooed on his arms: "Family First." But 23-year-old Dasmine Cathey looks after far more people than that. A buddy who just spent four years in jail. A local gang leader looking to join a church. A friend of a friend who had lost a brother. They all remind him a little bit of himself: abandoned at some point by family or friends,....

[DanvIllini]

It makes you wonder how many Dasmines there are in the world of collegiate sports. Most of the posters on here that are bashing kids have no understanding of what life is like for most of these student-athletes.

[Sure Shot]

Wow, so much to digest there. It's like a collage of everything that's broken in America right now, but one thing sticks in my head more than any other:

There are thousands of people going tens-of-thousands of dollars into federally-backed student loan debt to get the same kind of "college education" that Dasmine Cathey has gotten.

Read this sentence again: "This is a beginning class where we try to get students to discover the media and start expressing themselves in writing," Ms. Justice says. "If this had been a writing class, I'm sure he wouldn't have passed because spelling and words are so much more important there."

[DanvIllini]

Originally Posted by Sure Shot

Read this sentence again: "This is a beginning class where we try to get students to discover the media and start expressing themselves in writing," Ms. Justice says. "If this had been a writing class, I'm sure he wouldn't have passed because spelling and words are so much more important there."

As an educator, I can understand this line of thinking in elementary and middle grades. In college not so much.

[Sure Shot]

Originally Posted by DanvIllini

As an educator, I can understand this line of thinking in elementary and middle grades. In college not so much.

Just hearing a college professor say "start expressing themselves in writing" is absolutely horrifying.

[jackman404]

Hard life or not, nobody who can't read deserves a college degree....

[DanvIllini]

Originally Posted by jackman404

Hard life or not, nobody who can't read deserves a college degree....

Did you do that on purpose?