doors of opportunity

Today, for the ninety or so lucky freshmen whose names were drawn at random from a much, much larger pool, the month-long summer academy begins. While their peers are watching TV and swimming and flirting, these kids will be doing fun-filled academic activities like math tutorials. Some of them, I learned today, may even commute nearly two hours each way to get here.

Students at MATCH have to dress the part. They wear khakis with white collared shirts or official MATCH tees, or, if they like, they can sport a shirt with a college logo on it. In the sea of white shirts, one lone red Harvard tee stood out, symbolic of the courage and hope each kid must nurture to get through these doors, hinting at the hope that these doors will nudge others open.

I watched these students as they tried to focus on their work, eyes shyly darting around the room sizing up possible friends. All so nervous. And I thought about how much each kid must commit -- not just 8-5, two hours more than their peers. Sometimes they're looking at staying until nearly 8pm, and then commuting home. Students admitted that staying in school can be tough, what with the strict discipline and high standards and financial and social pressures from home and friends. But they also said they dreamed of owning their own businesses, becoming doctors, lawyers, architects, forensics specialists, and teachers.

I know nothing of this level of commitment. Nothing. Together the students read and analyzed an excerpt from a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. My eyes could not help but well up as they read these words:

And I say to you, my young friends, doors are opening to you--doors of opportunities that were not open to your mothers and your fathers — and the great challenge facing you is to be ready to face these doors as they open...

This hasn't always been true — but it will become increasingly true, and so I would urge you to study hard, to burn the midnight oil; I would say to you, don't drop out of school. I understand all the sociological reasons, but I urge you that in spite of your economic plight, in spite of the situation that you're forced to live in — stay in school.

And when you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. Don't just set out to do a good job. Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead or the unborn couldn't do it any better.

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "What is Your Life's Blueprint?" to a group of students at Barratt Junior High School in Philadelphia, October 1967