Truth in Fiction

“Wait, wait, wait.”

The boy pointed at the screen. He squinted his eyes.

“You got $401,000?” he asked.

The other kids sat up in their chairs.

“Mr. Spencer,” another exclaimed. “You rich!”

I couldn’t help but laugh. The classroom had gone from quiet and concentrated to an erupting caldron of excited looks and whispers. The boys couldn’t believe how rich their financial literacy teacher was.

I waved my hands to hush the class.

“Guys, guys, guys. That’s not $401,000. That’s my 401k. A retirement account. You’ll learn about that.”

The boys exchanged confused looks. Their excitement died down.

“Dang,” one said sadly. “We thought you were rich rich.”

A long time ago I read an obituary of a teacher in New York City. As a young man, this teacher was assigned to an underprivileged inner-city school. He couldn’t get anyone to pay attention in class until one day he taught a lesson on entrepreneurship. All the sudden, the formerly unruly class became attentive. He realized he’d hit a nerve – everyone wants to be rich. For inner-city kids, entrepreneurship was the most common path to wealth. The kids wanted to learn the skills they needed to become rich. What they didn’t want to learn about was stuff that bored them or wouldn’t serve them practically in their hardscrabble lives.

Reading the obituary, a light bulb went off in my own mind. I’d been struggling to teach the fundamentals of science to our class of 17-year-olds at this particular prison. They didn’t seem to care about science as much as I did. I decided to take a new approach.

We’d teach the basics of horticulture but with the end goal of teaching students to start their own green business – be it a landscaping business, food truck with farm-to-table recipes, or for the artistically-minded, a landscape design firm. For now, they’d have to learn the basics of science in order to understand the green side of things, but later they’d learn the entrepreneurial side of things. Class attendance skyrocketed and disruptions went down. The students would sit through the science lessons that I loved to teach knowing that later, they’d learn the basics of business.

As I developed the financial literacy curriculum, I ran across a problem. When teaching topics like budgeting or investing, many of the figures provided in already made spreadsheets or diagrams I’d find online were unrealistic. For example, a budget would be for someone making $2,000 a month and paying $500 for rent. Yes, the concept of paying less than a third of your monthly income was correctly displayed, but no matter where my students lived upon their release, they probably were not going to find rent for $500. I didn’t want to give them unreasonable expectations.

So instead, I used my own budget, my own savings accounts, my own investment portfolio to create the financial literacy lessons. The students could see how much I earned, how I spent my money, and how I saved for the future. They could question my stock picks and understand my logic behind my investments.

I’ve been doing it for years and years now. I never really thought twice about it until Lillian, our intern this summer, shadowed one of our classes. Afterwards, I asked her for her takeaway from the course.

She pointed out how the students engaged with the material because it was real, because it was tied to my life. It wasn’t just numbers on a screen; it was decisions they could scrutinize, real expenditures that they could relate to. On one budget, I overspent because I bought Madi a purse. One student looked at how much the purse cost and told me bluntly, “That was dumb.” The lesson that day didn’t have extra time for me to explain relationship dynamics and the five love languages so yes, it was dumb…to them.

Most of society would look at these boys and see them for the worst thing they’ve ever done. This is a sentiment I can understand to a degree – after all, these boys are housed at an adult prison because though they are minors, they committed an offense serious enough to warrant being charged as an adult. However, what society doesn’t see is what these boys are really like. They are desperate to learn, hungry for a way out of whatever situation they grew up in, and eager to become better men.

One of my students recently wrote a fictional paper about his childhood. I say fictional because he was very adamant that it wasn’t his own story, just a story he wrote. Read this story and tell me - do you think a 17-year-old locked up in prison is making this up? Is he not drawing from his own life experience? Is his pain not pouring through the page?

His story, though I wish it were so, is not unique. I hope that as you read it, you will gain a better perspective as to who we are working with and why HeartBound’s work matters.

It's so cold this morning, my whole body is in pain and I'm wet. My name is Kevin and I'm six years old.

Don't ask, yes I still wet my clothes. I wake up and instantly go to the kitchen where I know the oven will be open even though there won't be any food in there this morning. I won't eat until mom wakes up and she went out so that will be all day.

I get up to get some water and watch SpongeBob for awhile until I get too hungry, now I'm eating plain bread. My mom still hasn't woke up but I'm already preparing to go outside. I swap my clothes, put my shoes on the wrong feet of course, and head out the door. My boy Fat is outside already playing so I go to him. I'm hungry still so I ask Fat if we can go to his house and play because I know I can get some food there.

I love Fat’s mom, she is so sweet and full of love. I can tell she can still smell the pee on me when we arrive but she doesn't say anything. I think she knows I'm hungry, because she instantly asked. She feeds us sandwiches and juice and I swear it made all the difference. I don't know my dad so I get a little jealous of Fat’s dad and the love he gets from him. Fat’s dad sees us and gives Fat $5 and tells him to buy his candy. That makes me wish that Fat’s dad was mine.

While Fat petals his bike with me on the pegs this whole world seems so different. The stray dog still flipping through trash cans, the adults screaming at dice, loud music and drugs, it seems so different. I guess because around the corner where the store is looks so different. The streets are clean, people are moving about their day not posted in front of the store. The conditions of the two neighborhoods are totally different and it's on display. We go in the store and get our snacks but my day still feels weird. Me and Fat play all day until late into the day. My mom hasn't come looking for me yet so I tell Fat I'm going home for awhile and I'll be back later.

As I go home my weird feeling is intensified. Nothing has changed and my mom is still asleep. I sit next to her and watch TV and at one point I fall asleep. I wake up next to mom and she's still asleep but I'm trying to wake her up. I'm shaking her, yelling, and now crying because I'm scared. I get up and run all the way to Fat's house crying. They called the police and I'm taken away. My mom overdosed on fake pills and she was my only family. We lived poor and she left me with nothing. Fat's family took me in but we struggle and I get scared of losing them too. Poverty effects everyone and poverty and drugs has affected my life and it won't ever be the same.

You see, these boys don’t want to just be rich to be rich. They want to make it out. They want a better future.

May we continue to help them get there.