by A. Raheem Ballard
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world,” said Nelson Mandela (1918-2013). The word ‘Education’ is derived from the Latin word ‘Educere,’ which means: “to rear, to lead forth.”
In other words, it is something used to move and propel one forward. With this in mind, one might ask his or her self the question: What is it that leads me forward today? What drives me to think, act, and respond the way I do?
As a young kid growing up on the streets of East San Jose, I never really asked myself this question, nor did I take education seriously. Honestly, as long as I was good at being a criminal, who needed education? I could make hundreds of dollars a week living a life of crime, and I didn’t need a degree for that. So, looking back, being a thug is what motivated me. That’s what propelled me.
“You got to get yourself a trade or something boy. You got to get in school or you’re gonna get left behind,” my father would say. But, being the knuckle head that I was, it fell on deaf ears. I was whole heatedly convinced that my criminal behavior would fulfill all my dreams, just like it did for the mobsters in the movies. I was wrong!
In November of 2002, these dreams and my criminal lifestyle came to a screeching halt. I was arrested and hauled off to Santa Clara County Jail for a warrant. After hours of sitting on a hard bench in a stinky holding tank, I played back all the events of my life. I thought about my father’s advice, the offers I had to play football at a local junior college, my girlfriend, and a “life sentence” that was inevitable. At this point, there was absolutely no way out, or was there?
After a few weeks went by on the fourth floor of the new county jail, I found out that I could order books. I was miserable and stuck in a cell for twenty-three hours a day. What else did I have to do besides push-ups, write letters, and sleep? A few months went by. The more I began to read and learn, the more I found out how much I didn’t know about myself or the rest of the world. As challenging as it was, I relearned English grammar, studied science, history, philosophy, and Islam.
Before I knew it, a year had rolled by, and the man I previously knew in the mirror was slowly disappearing. I reinvented myself through hours of reading and thousands of pages.
The way I previously thought was now replaced with the ideas from some of the greatest thinkers and authors of our time: People like Caesar Chavez, Huey P. Newton, Malcolm-X, Carter G. Woodson, and William Cooper.
Years later, this interest in books and various subjects led me to college. I started with one class, then two, and sometimes three. Throughout the lockdowns and time in between work I would read and continue to learn even tutoring others when I could. After years of cultivating this new-found joy, I can happily say that I’m now a few classes away from graduating college.
I’m still incarcerated, but who would have ever thought that a 1.9 GPA in high school would lead to this? Certainly not the 28-year-old thug who showed up in a San Jose County Jail nearly sixteen years ago. Nor my peers, who figured I had all but given up.
Remember, I started this piece off by defining education and that something that propels one and moves him or her forward. I’ve since come to realize that it was learning and education that catapulted me forward, pushing me out into an intellectual world without boundaries or walls. As a result, life looks a lot different for me now.
So, whether you’re free, or sitting on top of a hard steel bunk like I am, I ask you the following: what will you chose to propel you forward in life? Will it be the image that others have created for you, or the image you want to create for yourself? Will it be a life of crime that only leads to more pain and hard time? Will it be the hidden potential that we all have but fail to realize till it’s too late?
Wherever you draw the strength from to move forward, think about the place that it’s coming from, and those who will be affected the most by it. Don’t let it take a ‘Life’ sentence for you to figure it out.
When people tell you that education is a game changer, they’re telling you that because they’re in the game, and you’re on the bench. If you can invest in new shoes, cars, phones, and jewelry, you can certainly invest in a future for yourself. Education is the best investment I have ever made, and I’m positive that it will pay off for you too.