{"id":3468,"date":"2021-08-16T20:01:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-16T20:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/?p=3468"},"modified":"2025-05-09T20:02:30","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T20:02:30","slug":"from-a-seed-to-a-bountiful-harvest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/2021\/08\/16\/from-a-seed-to-a-bountiful-harvest\/","title":{"rendered":"From a seed to a bountiful harvest"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cWhat we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action.\u201d<\/em> Mesiter Eckhart<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the beginning of last week\u2019s Healing Circle webcast, right after the magnificent \u2018Sounds of Blackness\u2019 belted out \u2018Pay Up!  Time for Reparations\u2019, I glanced over at the Facebook Live Chat and saw a brief message from Synamon Baldwin that read, \u2018in my lifetime, God\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought about that request of the Divine with the world being so messy and perhaps frightening, painful. and surreal. I was reminded that a day of reckoning is at hand. In the midst of crises on top of crises, it is clear that there are many opportunities, even though we must still face tall mountains to climb. We see a future with less worrying and more faith and gratitude; with less judgment and more compassion; and with more love and less hate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Healing Circle focused on the impact of trauma on children, whose innocence and futures are besieged by the COVID 19 pandemic, by urban unrest and resistance to daily oppression, by witnessing the execution of George Floyd,  and by experiencing the deaths of some of their young friends by the escalating gun violence. And now they have to return to school very soon.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eric Mahmoud addressed the issue of mental health in a rich narrative that embraced and intertwined our culture, history, achievements, and needs in the context of education.  Host Al McFarlane described Mahmoud as a thinker, mover & shaker, doer, builder, architect, and manager of the Harvest BEST Charter Schools.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI grew up in a pretty tough neighborhood in Philadelphia which helped shape my resilience for survival at first, and later down the road for rewards and success.  I aimed at becoming the best myself that I could be.  Unfortunately, it seemed like there was always a teacher strike, which meant I was missing at least a year of academics.  At the time, that arrangement was just fine with me.  I thought I was getting over, but I learned when I got to high school and to college that I was behind so many other students.  When my college white roommate said \u2018Black folks never did anything\u2019, that belief and him saying so was the first of quite a few turning points for me.  I set out to read everything I could about Black America and was so pleased that I could prove the white boy wrong though it wasn\u2019t my job to educate him.  It was for the system and for parents,\u201d Mahmoud said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The academic guru will tell anyone that his wife, Dr.  Ella Mahmoud persuaded him to \u201cleave his good engineering job and join her on an educational journey spanning 30 plus years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Together, he said, they have achieved \u201cunprecedented goals in changing the lives and opportunities for children of color, strengthening their minds by challenging their  work ethic and their will to succeed; building their confidence and pride of being who they are by teaching true history of American sins we hope will not be repeated, and gladly being responsible for the shaping future leaders from the next generation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1985, the Mahmouds set out on their quest to use education to establish sustainable community development.  SEED Academy was a pre-school that began in their home.  In 1992, SEED grew into Harvest Preparatory, located on Golden Valley Road.  It was a private school. Charter schools had not been integrated into the academic scheme of the Minneapolis school district. In 1998, Harvest Prep became a charter school.  With the creation of BEST Academy in 2008, Mahmoud and his staff wanted to address academic deficiencies in boys who to seemed surpasss girls only in the number of suspensions.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, the three schools were consolidated under the Minneapolis School District as Harvest Best Academy with a school population of 800 kindergarteners through eighth grade, 70% African American and 30% East African Somali.  \u201cIt\u2019s been a wonderful journey, he said, but I will admit at times a \u2018baptism by fire\u2019.  Integrating newly arrived Africans, often with a language barrier, into the fabric and culture of America and especially the African American families and communities, has been a challenge. But we learn from each other,\u201d Mahmoud said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mahmoud said he knew the impact the COVID-19 shut down was going to be felt for a very long time unless a strategy was devised to make up that lost ground.  In March of 2020, he managed to get 750 Chrome books for his students to work for home. But then he found out that only 50% of the computers were turned on.  \u201cMany of the students just didn\u2019t have conducive learning environments to utilize the equipment or understand the material to their benefit and mastery,\u201d he said.  As a solution, he created a mobile learning lab with a charter bus company providing safe spaces and the use of the internet.  But it wasn\u2019t sustainable, and the school wasn\u2019t reaching enough students.     <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next he secured funding to pay churches and the YMCA to allow approximately 500 students not just from Harvard Best but around the neighborhoods to work in learning pods and often under tents. On August 17, 2020, kindergarten opened with 75 students that were allowed to come into the building because of new air filtration units. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tenanye Heard, a member of the AACWI\u2019s COVID outreach team, said \u201cThere must be precise strategies put into practice to protect our children, our school staffs, and ourselves.  With children under the age of 12 unable to be vaccinated, we must be consistent with the correct use of masks; put into the daily routine social distancing as much as possible; display posters about hand washing and normalizing sanitizers; and insist on facility ventilation inspections for quality air purification.  It wouldn\u2019t be a bad idea to have hygiene stations secured in classrooms and throughout the school.  We\u2019re not talking about a one-time event.  Establishing consistent systems and processes must become a critical component of our schools\u2019 infrastructures.  It doesn\u2019t appear COVID19 is going away anytime soon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pastor Darrell Gillespie, a mental health clinician with AACWI and dean of HOPE Academy, encourages us all to \u2018encourage\u2019 ourselves.  “We\u2019ve got to tap into our ancestors\u2019 resilience, that way of \u2018making a way out of no way\u2019.  And as a people, we\u2019ve got to allow our children to see us do the things necessary to keep our families together in a safe and nurturing environment; be motivated and uplifting; to dream big and not limit ourselves; and to be of service to others.  We\u2019re like those seeds Brother Mahmoud talked about having everything in it that we need.  We just have to tend to it routinely, care for it, protect it, teach it, and watch it grow.\u201d   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gillespie said \u201cas we take our rightful place as elders. our culture allows us to be in relationships with kids that look like us.  We\u2019ve got to push aside fears caused by misinformation.  We also have to talk with parents about the situations that scare them and cause trauma and angst.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therapist Ted Thompson said parents know that children will be returning to a school that will not be business as usual.  \u201cParents have learned a lot from being home with their kids for the past year and a half.  In the past, they would defer student problems over to the schools\u2019 administration or the teacher.  I invite parents and guardians to come forward and become partners in their child\u2019s school and in their personal academics.  They will find that their communities have resources if they are willing to do the research, follow through with leads and advice, and accept that there is no shame in asking for help.  People are being compelled to shift their thinking and actions, create, and circumvent obstacles. The focus should be on the health and welfare of the students,\u201d Thompson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhat we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action.\u201d Mesiter Eckhart At the beginning of last week\u2019s Healing Circle webcast, right after the magnificent \u2018Sounds of Blackness\u2019 belted out \u2018Pay Up!  Time for Reparations\u2019, I glanced over at the Facebook Live Chat and saw a brief message from Synamon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[116,378,537],"class_list":["post-3468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columnists","tag-black-children","tag-covid-19","tag-mental-health","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3468"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3469,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3468\/revisions\/3469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}