Here is the full transcript of Victor Rios’ talk titled “Help For Kids The Education System Ignores” at TED conference.
In this compelling TED talk, Victor Rios shares his personal journey from a life of poverty, crime, and loss to becoming an educator and advocate for marginalized youth. He challenges the audience to replace the label “at-risk” with “at-promise,” emphasizing the potential within each child, regardless of their background. Rios credits a pivotal teacher, Ms. Russ, for seeing beyond his troubled past and nurturing his inherent strengths, illustrating the transformative power of belief and support.
He advocates for an educational approach that values students’ stories and cultural backgrounds, urging the abandonment of deficit perspectives. Rios calls for providing adequate resources, including job training and mentoring, to empower students to learn from their mistakes rather than criminalizing their behavior.
Through the example of a successful intervention in Watts, LA, he highlights the effectiveness of restorative justice and community support in turning lives around. Rios’ message is clear: with the right support and resources, every child has the potential to overcome adversity and thrive.
TRANSCRIPT:
Understanding the School-to-Prison Pipeline
For over a decade, I have studied young people that have been pushed out of school, so-called “dropouts.” As they end up failed by the education system, they’re on the streets where they’re vulnerable to violence, police harassment, police brutality, and incarceration. I follow these young people for years at a time, across institutional settings, to try to understand what some of us call the “school-to-prison pipeline.”
When you look at a picture like this, of young people who are in my study, you might see trouble. I mean, one of the boys has a bottle of liquor in his hand, he’s 14 years old, and it’s a school day. Other people, when they see this picture, might see gangs, thugs, delinquents—criminals. But I see it differently. I see these young people through a perspective that looks at the assets that they bring to the education system.
A Call for Change
So, will you join me in changing the way we label young people from “at-risk” to “at-promise?” How do I know that these young people have the potential and the promise to change? I know this because I am one of them. You see, I grew up in dire poverty in the inner city, without a father—he abandoned me before I was even born. We were on welfare, sometimes homeless, many times hungry.
By the time I was 15 years old, I had been incarcerated in juvy three times for three felonies. My best friend had already been killed. And soon after, while I’m standing next to my uncle, he gets shot. And as I’m waiting for the ambulance to arrive for over an hour, he bleeds to death on the street. I had lost faith and hope in the world, and I had given up on the system because the system had failed me. I had nothing to offer and no one had anything to offer me. I was fatalistic.
A Teacher’s Impact
I didn’t even think I could make it to my 18th birthday. The reason I’m here today is because a teacher that cared reached out and managed to tap into my soul. This teacher, Ms. Russ, she was the kind of teacher that was always in your business. She was the kind of teacher that was like, “Victor, I’m here for you whenever you’re ready.”
I wasn’t ready. But she understood one basic principle about young people like me. We’re like oysters. We’re only going to open up when we’re ready, and if you’re not there when we’re ready, we’re going to clam back up. Ms. Russ was there for me. She was culturally relevant, she respected my community, my people, my family. I told her a story about my Uncle Ruben. He would take me to work with him because I was broke, and he knew I needed some money.
Embracing Potential
He collected glass bottles for a living. Four in the morning on a school day, we’d throw the glass bottles in the back of his van, and the bottles would break. And my hands and arms would start to bleed, and my tennis shoes and pants would get all bloody. And I was terrified and in pain, and I would stop working.
And my uncle, he would look me in the eyes and he would say to me, “Mijo, estamos buscando vida.” “We’re searching for a better life, we’re trying to make something out of nothing.” Ms. Russ listened to my story, welcomed it into the classroom and said, “Victor, this is your power. This is your potential. Your family, your culture, your community have taught you a hard-work ethic, and you will use it to empower yourself in the academic world so you can come back and empower your community.”
With Ms. Russ’s help, I ended up returning to school. I even finished my credits on time and graduated with my class.
Beyond Graduation
But Ms. Russ said to me right before graduation, “Victor, I’m so proud of you. I knew you could do it. Now it’s time to go to college.” College, me? Man, what is this teacher smoking thinking I’m going to college? I applied with the mentors and support she provided, got a letter of acceptance, and one of the paragraphs read, “You’ve been admitted under probationary status.”
I said, “Probation? I’m already on probation, that don’t matter?” It was academic probation, not criminal probation. But what do teachers like Ms. Russ do to succeed with young people like the ones I study? I propose three strategies.
Strategies for Success
The first: let’s get rid of our deficit perspective in education. “These people come from a culture of violence, a culture of poverty. These people are at-risk; these people are truant. These people are empty containers for us to fill with knowledge. They have the problems, we have the solutions.”
Number two. Let’s value the stories that young people bring to the schoolhouse.