Different Encounters: A Grassroots Education Program

Different Encounters (DE) started as a conversation between two friends playing weekend basketball in the neighborhood of Jackson Heights in New York City, New York.  What started as a simple dialogue around helping a few youth learn the skills of shooting, dribbling and passing has now unfolded into a wonderful design to educate adolescent youth in areas that will allow them to be successful throughout adolescence and into adulthood. 

The integration of physical, health and character education will hopefully establish a sense of purpose and value in the young people who experience the program.  At DE, we want to provide the young people an experience that will help guide them in making decisions and choices as well as expose them to a ‘different’ mindset, a mindset that emerges through in-depth conversation and dialogue with the program staff members.  The DE staff members bring a diverse, different viewpoint to the program but are similar to the participants in that everyone shares a love for the game of basketball.  This singular connection allows a mutual respect in which staff and participants can learn from each other while also gaining mutually beneficial rewards in the process. 

The rewards for the young people are improved self-confidence, greater self-awareness, increased physical activity and structured opportunities to learn new information, meet new people and to have fun playing a game that they love.  For the program staff, the rewards are realized in knowing that they have given back a portion of their time in helping a young person learn valued lessons that will lead to making better informed decisions, which ultimately could result in the improvement of society on a number of measures. 

Though still in its infancy, DE realizes its usefulness in spreading love among the members of humanity, regardless of age, through a common interest and passion, which in this case happens to be a bright orange ball.  DE endeavors to develop a model that can be reproduced the globe over to inspire people to be active, engaged and good-hearted.  

A Balancing Act: Leading with Poise and Understanding

A leader not often mentioned in the fields of medicine, military, politics, education, business and sports that should be is Dr. Roscoe C. Brown, Jr.  The son of a respected pioneer in the field of public health, Dr. Brown is the essence of leadership according to the great military general, strategist and philospher Sun Tzu.  Sun Tzu described leadership as a matter of intelligence, trustworthiness, humaneness, courage, and discipline (Sun Tzu, Art of War).  Sun Tzu went a little further in expressing that when an individual has all five virtues together, each appropriate to its function, then one can be a leader.  Dr. Brown is, and for close to seven decades has been, an individual who has intelligence, trustworthiness, humaneness, courage and discipline. 

As the Director for the Center for Urban Education Policy at the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), it could easily be proclaimed that as a distinguished scholar, author of well over 50 scholarly articles, and professor that Dr. Brown is intelligent.  However, his intelligence has been on display since the 1930's, over 80 years, when he was one of a few blacks to attend and graduate from Springfield College in Massachusetts and later go on to receive masters and doctorate degrees from New York University (NYU).

He combined his intelligence with courage and discipline in service to his country during World War II.  At a time in American history when blacks were seen as unequal to their white counterparts, Dr. Brown and several others broke down stereotypes and institutional barriers when they completed flight training and flew combat missions overseas during the height of World War II.  This group became known as the Tuskegee Airmen and forever changed the role that blacks would play not only in the military but in all of society as capable, intelligent, courageous and disciplined leaders.

Along the journey from his childhood days in Washington, D.C. to his service in the military and on to his long career in education and research, Dr. Brown found time to mentor and guide others.  He was patient and trustworthy.  Behind the scenes he advised leaders in all fields of endeavor to include Dr. Leroy Walker, the first black president of the U.S. Olympic Committee.  His guidance, wisdom, example and trustworthiness enabled Walker and others to walk down paths that would open up doors to millions of individuals to enjoy pursuits and opportunities in sports, medicine, education and service that otherwise may have never been available.

Dr. Brown, into his nineties, exemplifies everything human in spite of his extraordinary gifts.  He remains grounded and connected to the spirit of the people.  Educating and serving have remained a part of his being and his mantra should be acknowledged by all who wish to attain the status of leader:  to educate and serve.  To find a balance amid a world of change and instability is a tough act.  The example of Dr. Brown serves to educate those on leading with poise and understanding through any situation and time.