Public Schools and Their Impact on Our Youth
In our Voices of Baltimore podcast, our Strength Ambassadors discuss the many challenges that students are faced with in inner-city public schools. Public schools offer access to education, social mobility, and community development, making them an invaluable resource to our youth. Access to education can often be the tool that children from disadvantaged backgrounds use to improve their prospects. It has a significant impact on a child’s future, and that’s why we need to look at our public schools with a critical eye and talk about areas where our young people deserve improvement.
What Our Public Schools Do for Us
As we discussed with our Strength Ambassadors, having the ability to go to school opens gateways for our young people so that they can set themselves up for success when looking forward to the career paths of their choice. An educational environment allows them to grow and realize new talents and passions that they might not have found otherwise. Their school is also a place for community, where students can come together for extracurricular activities and hone their social and athletic skills while sharpening their minds. Our public schools can be bastions for intellectual and social development, opening doors for students to explore where they’d like to go in life, and allowing them the social mobility to reach those heights.
What our Students Still Need
While they are here to offer such support, our schools often fall short of what our students need when striving for success. Our schools notoriously focus on STEM subjects, but our students also need a chance to grow creatively. They also need access to learning in practical subjects like financial literacy and life skills like time management and public speaking.
The quality of their time spent in a learning environment is important. If the students do not feel comfortable in clean, healthy surroundings, or feel they cannot eat school lunches, they aren’t going to be able to perform to their fullest potential. Not to mention the psychological effects of walking through metal detectors every single day. The same can be said for a widening achievement gap. This may be the biggest struggle for many kids trying to keep up in secondary school, after coming from a public school versus a private school, or a public school in a more affluent neighborhood. Their educational experience doesn’t always stack up to the background they’re expected to have once they’ve graduated to this next level of schooling, and it can put them at a disadvantage, making them work twice as hard to keep up with the other students. Visit our podcast to hear more on what our youth have to say.
Strengthen Baltimore’s Youth with MissionFit!
At MissionFit, we recognize the fact that community, family, and healthy social relationships are essential to setting goals. We are highly dedicated to strengthening Baltimore youth through classes and an open gym. It’s our goal to encourage positive traits, like respect and teamwork, and provide children with a place to gain self-confidence and enjoy some exercise. To learn more about our classes or donate to support our mission, visit our website. We’re making health a possibility and a priority for Baltimore’s youth and helping to foster more black leaders from Baltimore. If you want to support youth programs in Baltimore, here are two easy ways to do so through MissionFit:
- Donate here if you believe community, family, and relationships impact health!
- You can put your online shopping to good use by donating a percentage of your purchase with AmazonSmile! To get started, sign in here, search for “MissionFit” and select us as your charity of choice.
