The Audacity of Youth

Everyone knows how fond I am of the students I teach. I still maintain contact with students I taught many moons ago and I still enjoy them calling me, telling me about their progress:
"I'm working now Miss".
"I'm engaged Miss".
"I've got my own place now Miss."
"I got into Uni Miss"(That's one of my favourites!)
They tell me as they know the encouragement will still be forthcoming although they have long left my care.
Also, I live in the same area that my old college is in so it is nothing unusual to bump into any one of them, so I wasn't at all surprised that once again I bump into-let's call him Adrian. I taught 'Adrain' in 2001 or thereabouts.

my ORIGIN

Yesterday evening I took my son to a group called ORIGIN; A Rites of Passage Program for young men of African decent. We waded through the rush hour traffic on train and tube and at 6.50 we entered a building right at the end of Willington Road. He didn't want to go, my son. He would rather spend his evenings moving from kitchen to lounge to kitchen to bedroom. From Ps3 to msn to PS bleeding 3. But as his mother, of course, I know what's best. Plus, his older brother done the program years ago and it benefited him so immensely I cannot say. The program was available to us at a time when he was at an emotional low, and needed strong male role models and the cushion of love and support that the program mentors provide.