Miracles Can Happen At School
All week long, The Early Show has been profiling unsung heroes as chosen by People magazine. Wednesday, meet a teacher who helps troubled youngsters in Los Angeles. However, he'd be the first to tell you that he is not a hero — his students are. Co-anchor Harry Smith reports.
Paul White sports a shirt that says "Miracles Happen," and miracles happen every day at the West Valley Leadership Academy in Los Angeles. That's because this teacher gives his students equal doses of reading, writing and respect.
"Schools like mine are set up for kids for whom the traditional system has not worked," White says. "Everything from chronic truants to repeat offenders, gang members, criminals, students who've had trouble with drugs or alcohol addiction, we get every child you could say is 'at-risk.' "
To one of his students he asks: "What do you feel is keeping you down? Keeping you from jumping out of your chair — your figurative chair, you might say — and flying?"
"Finding myself face to face with a gang member from the gang that I used to be from," the student says.
Students in White's classroom learn life's lessons in all kinds of ways. They're required to have a job, and take college level classes.
"There's a great saying," White tells his class. "It says, 'You're always given enough light to take the next step. Don't stop walking till the light gives out.' You don't have to know what you're going to do on the 10th step. You just got to know, you just got to know this one."
White's students find their power and purpose both inside and outside the classroom. Not only are the walls adorned with inspirational phrases, students do charity work — everything from forming a street clean-up crew to donating their hair to cancer patients. As Aristotle said, "Educating the mind without educating the heart is not education at all."
"He talks about more than just basic math and English," says Mily Sharko, one of his students. "He talks about morals and values. And I really like that."
Standing next to her daughter and his wife, Michael Sharko says: "For some reason, she wouldn't stay after school before; she wouldn't go to tutoring. Now we can't keep her away from the campus. We know not to come at 2:30. She's going to ask for an extra hour here."
Another student by the name of Matt says: "Mr. White, he's like, 'Get a job, save your money, buy a car.' Bought a car. He made me change my thoughts. What I used to do is horrible. I used to get money like that and come up with a thousand dollars like that. But Mr. White, he's like, 'Work legally for your money, do it right, and you'll have that much to congratulate yourself because you actually worked for it.' "
His classmate, Ashley, adds: "I'm not on drugs anymore. I attend school every day. I don't disrespect my parents anymore. I actually live at home again. Just everything has gotten so much better."
At a parent meeting, White tells parents that he has an open door. "You calling my house, or your kids calling my house," he says, "it's not a bother."
He does not transform these students alone. If they want to stay in his class, their parents are required to attend a monthly meeting.
"If they're doing the right thing, run it up the flag pole and salute them," White tells the parents. "If they're not, step on them with both feet, not because you don't love them, but because you do."
One of the walls of his classroom is filled with photos of his students. But not every memory is a happy one. Three years ago, one of White's students was shot just a few steps away from White's safe haven.
"He was able to run upstairs to my classroom," White says. "He died right next to my desk in my arms. And it was at that point I realized it's not enough to recommend or encourage or suggest that kids do the right thing, you have to absolutely do everything to insist and to allow no other way around it, for their sake."
White insists he's no hero, that every school could be like his if you give teachers the proper tools and a life-affirming purpose.
"We've gotten awfully good at teaching kids how to stay alive," he says. "We haven't done near as good a job of teaching them what they're living for. You simply make a commitment to do whatever's required, and you don't allow them to make anything less. Why? As it says on the back of my shirt, miracles happen on an absolutely daily basis."
Paul White's miracles are expanding. Not only is he getting more money to serve more students himself, the county sheriff in Los Angeles has given him rent-free sites to set up more classrooms as long as they duplicate his program.