Educational Pledge, by Coral Caporale

Life in Progress, Inside the Box

From the Puerto Rican/Latino Journal

By Alberto O. Cappas

I remember when poets were messengers of vision and information, not always positive, but always providing us a mirror to see clearly and get us to move forward… but now, all I see are evil spirits, rappers, and self-made entertainers passing as poets, penetrating their spells on the youth, and continuing to keep them inside the box.

But they never provide you answers to solutions or visions that will show you the light or guide you to your personal journey on this planet.

I don’t have all the answers, but I will try to remove some of the layers of bricks between us and see if I can leave you with some clues to your confinement inside the Box.

You should be happy to know that the box has no locks or chains. It is completely opened and you can walk or jump out any time your heart desires, and become the person you were born to be…the person you are supposed to be…..

You can do and be anything you want to be, just forward your dreams and aspirations into your hands and activate an action forward. Like Congressman Adam Clayton Powell once said:

“What’s in your hands?”
"What's in your hands?”

I want to end this article by leaving you with an educational pledge:

The EDUCATIONAL PLEDGE:

A pledge to help us become magical and powerful, able to become what we are supposed to become, based on what we want to do with our journey in life. If you can buy into this pledge, at least introduce it to our students, and to our young kids so they can begin to understand at an early age the concept of setting goals and understanding the essence of education, and finally, understanding the system of values and standards.

The Educational Pledge of Allegiance

I pledge to maintain a healthy Mind and Body

I pledge to stay away from the Evil of drugs

I pledge always to try my best to understand
The importance of Knowledge and Education

I pledge to paint a Positive picture of where
I plan to be tomorrow
Not allowing obstacles to stop the growth of my Plans

I pledge to seek Answers to Questions,
With the understanding that they
will lead to other discoveries

I pledge to work diligently
With the Awareness and Confidence
That hard work today will serve
As the seeds for my strong tree tomorrow
A tree that no one will be able to tear down

I pledge to learn proper languages,
Beginning with my Mother's
Always prepared to appreciate others

I pledge to gain a better understanding of who I am
By understanding my Cultural roots

I pledge to fully accept who I am as a spiritual and human being
A Rainbow of many cultures and colors

I pledge to overcome any Personal misfortunes
Becoming Stronger from such misfortunes
Always striving to become
A wise person.

(Revised copy 2021):

An Education and a Plan: A note for our Youth

Try always to remember that Life is a game to learn, appreciate, and complete the journey... The setbacks you experience are actual tools that try to educate you and teach you how to play the game.

By Alberto O. Cappas:

However, if you are not aware of the game of life, you will not be able to understand the value of the setbacks and they will work against you, not for you.

Once you are born and able to think for yourself, you must understand your purpose for being here.

You should be able to find clues to your purpose by thinking of your Dreams. One has many dreams, but only one is a purpose. The right dream is the one that gives you a positive picture of where you see yourself in the space of the future.

A negative dream is a distraction to your purpose. Without an education, you may not be able to understand or defeat the distraction.

However, to make the purpose and/or the Dream a reality, you must take two very critical and important steps. These are steps that would give you all the power and magic you need to make the Dream come true, but you must take the steps!

One is Education.

And the second one is a Plan.

It is very simple! All you need to make a positive dream come true is an Education and a Plan.

Education is not what many people tell you it is. For example, you don’t go to school to get an education in order to find a job or prepare for a job.

An Education is a journey! it is a lifetime trip you take as a human being. You meet new friends, friends who look different than you and think differently than you, friends with different ideas and opinions. And some dress differently and speak a different language than you.

If you keep your mind open, and if you listen to what you are hearing, and give vision to what you see, your education is on the way track! Education is a preparation for enjoying life, to open your mind to all the options available to you.

Education gives you a real vision to what you may like or not like, to prepare for a job or to prepare to have your own business or corporation; to become a consumer where you work for someone, or to become a provider where you have your own company and have people working for you. You can decide to be a worker, a supervisor, a manager, a president of your own company, and much more.

The main thing to remember is that an education introduces you to the world of possibilities and options. It gives you a realistic imagination to work with. To have an education is to have a system of values and standards, and you are not afraid to face hard and difficult challenges; as well as the ability to think and make the right choices and decisions.

With an education, you should be able to have the discipline to have a plan to navigate, step by step until you reach the realization of your Dream. The plan is a roadmap of proper choices and decisions to get to your Dream.

Life is that simple, as well as magical and fun.

Life stops being magical and fun when you bypass and ignore the dream and the plan. Without the dream and a plan, you make choices and decision that has nothing to do with your purpose. You become lost in the world.

Take a look outside the window and you can see the number of misguided and unfortunate people who made wrong choices and decisions.

An Education and a Plan provides you an opportunity to appreciate and understand the spiritual value and gift of your presence on this planet.

You are a gift to this world. Make the right choices and decisions and make the marks, leave footprints for the generation following you.

I leave you with The Education Pledge which I hope you will embrace and use as a guide in your journey. I dedicate The Educational Pledge to all the children and youth of the world:

The  Educational Pledge, An instrument to help you defeat ignorance:

DEALING WITH THE STATUS QUO IN THE INNER CITIES

AN OBSTACLE BLOCKING EDUCATIONAL AND ECONOMIC ACHIEVEMENTS

FOR YOUNG PEOPLE, ESPECIALLY IN COMMUNITIES OF COLOR
by Alberto O. Cappas

I believe that it is time to bring the “status quo” up to date, as it is now working against the growth and development of our young people, especially in communities of color.

What is the status quo? The status quo is a commonly used form of the original Latin "status quo" - literally "the state in which" - is a Latin term meaning the current or existing state of affairs. To maintain the status quo is to keep things the way they presently are. The related phrase status quo ante, literally "the state in which before", means "the state of affairs that existed previously" (from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia on the internet).

During the 1950s and 1960s, the social movement served as a classic example of the status quo being challenged. The term frequently refers to the status of a large issue, such as the current culture or social climate of an entire society or nation.

Yes, it is time to bring the “status quo” up to date, and if not, we will be condemning our young people to another generation of failure and upheaval.

Case in point:

As a national policy, the status quo directs our young people that they must go to school in order to get a job; and based on this orientation, too many young people reject the notion of education, developing an anti-education mentality.

The fact is that “job opportunities” as a rationale or promotional tool for pushing young people to pursue an education have failed miserably in our urban and inner cities. Just look or study the statistics.

We need, very desperately, to change the status quo when it comes to the concept of pursuing an education. Pursuing an education is much more than just a job waiting at the end of the process. Pursuing an education is never an end, but an on-going process. The never-ending process leads to either one of two paths: conceptional awareness or conceptional ignorance -- two major roads affecting one’s journey in life.

We need to change this orientation and mindset. We need to inform and educate our young people that they should go to school, but not to prepare for a job, but to see education and school as a “essential key” that will open doors to unlimited possibilities: meeting new acquaintances, adding new friends and colleagues, other cultures, other spoken languages, and may lead to the realization that they want more than just a job, but an opportunity to become entrepreneurs, masters of their own companies, CEOs and Presidents, and much more – graduating as a provider, and not as a consumer.

Don’t misunderstand me! There is nothing wrong with being a consumer if that is what you know you are and want to be; however, it is a different story when one is conditioned, educationally and socially, into being a consumer without any direct personal awareness or knowledge.

Unfortunately, we have too many conditioned consumers creating policies for our young people. This is very dangerous. Just take a look at the makeup of our present elected officials and all the mismanagement and corruption that they are involved in.

And take a look at many of our leading community-based organizations and leaders working together with these elected officials, in partnership, perpetuating the status quo in communities of color.

The insanity of all this is that we now have a coalition of people, that created the problem in the first place, controlling the financial resources and public policies, involved in addressing how to solve the problems that they themselves continue to perpetuate.

Yes, it is time to address the obsoleteness of the status quo and save our young people from this orientation and mindset. When we seriously address this problem, the positive outcome will be:

a. Less young people walking around with their pants below their waistline;
b. Less young people walking around as human billboards (tattoos);
c. Less youth involved in youth violence;
d. More students of color graduating from a higher education;
e. More students of color going into business; more creating their own corporations;
f. And a stronger economic base in communities of color.

Reference: From Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia on the internet: Clark Kerr is reported to have said, "The status quo is the only solution that cannot be vetoed," meaning that the status quo cannot simply be decided against; action must be taken if it is to change.

Quotations regarding the Status Quo:

1. John F. Kennedy: "Their political pledge is to the status quo, and today there is no status quo."

2. Clark Kerr: "The status quo is the only solution that cannot be vetoed."

3. Laurence J. Peter: "Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status."

4. Ronald Reagan: "Status quo, you know, that is the Latin phrase for the mess we're in."

5. George Carlin: "The status quo sucks."

6. Richard Branson: "I love taking on the status quo, and trying to turn it upside down."

7. Barach Obama: "I will not accept the status quo as a solution."

I would appreciate your feedback and help advance the movement to defeat ignorance in our lifetime.