DAY 1: PREP INSTITUTE2

WELCOME to the PREP INSTITUTE 

Our Preamble for this year is as follows:

We will live with greater authority over our own lives. We will seek knowledge to challenge ourselves to reject dependency. We will write to canvas our humanity.

During Week 1 of the PREP INSTITUTE, you will write text that takes your inside of your self. As you write and think about the texts we read, I want you to consider the following poem below:

Standing Ovation
A.W. Tatum
10/2/17
5:44 am

If I can convince others that you are a monster

I can destroy you.

Others will applaud.

Standing ovation

For the Destroyer.

If I can convince you that you are not a monster

Others will applaud.

Standing ovation

For You.

The PREP INSTITUTE will focus on knowledge and self-examination. Both are critical as you shape the life you want to live. As I mentioned on day 1, I enjoy working with you because the world needs you. More importantly, you must become convinced that the world needs you. Your writings indicate that there is a distance to travel. Let's travel it together during the next 8 weeks. Two of the first steps are defining self and establishing an agenda. Therefore, I asked you to write about both. Your written pieces are below:

Day 1 Writings:

S1

I am Nobody

I don’t have an agenda

S2

I am a loving human being

To make it somewhere in Life and have my own business

S3

I am a young-Black man that came from nothing. 

S4

Who am I? I am a young man with no good guidance. What is my agenda? To find good and positive guidance to better myself to become a man.

S5

In my eyes, I’m just a young boy trying to survive. In other peoples’ eyes I’m just a low-life. they think my only purpose in life is to terrorize but they don’t know that I pray every night and ask god to change my life.

S6

I am who I want to be, Not who they say I am. My struggles formed who I was growing up and who I will become….

Myself. I’m going to college after I graduate from high school.

Finish shipping and receiving training program so I can get my ocean certification in order to drive a forklift so I can be able to work in a warehouse.