05/18/2017
“I grew up in Inglewood, Los Angeles. I saw a lot of people, myself, my family, my cousins included, with situations that were difficult and challenging to overcome. My uncle was the first of my family to go to college and he went to UCSD. He would come and pick me up and he would take me to UCSD with him on the weekends. And as a kid, I didn't like going, because he would make me get dressed up, and he would take me to these places, and I couldn't talk. What he was doing was showing me that the world was bigger than Inglewood. He told me when he graduated, he was going to one day be the chief of the IRS in San Diego. He did. He was the chief of the IRS in San Diego for 27 years. His impact in my life of taking me out of that environment and showing me a bigger picture of the world, totally transformed my worldview. I understood as I grew up that one day I knew I needed to go back, after I got my degree and pursued my career, that I needed to go back and find communities and students who needed to have a bigger worldview than the area in which they lived.
“[I am the Executive Director of Touch Tulsa.] A story I can share is a student that came into the program the first year we went to junior high, four years ago. His very first day in the program he stole one of our iPads. He took the iPad and he thought he had just committed the crime of the century. He thought he was so slick. He walked out with the program and nobody knew. Unfortunately, he went back to the school, and ... of course, on the iPad you can locate your equipment. As soon as it hit the school building the internet came on and it started buzzing off. The principal called me to meet with the student. I came up there to retrieve the iPad, but I looked at the student and I told him, ‘You are so much better than this.’ His expectation was that I was going to kick him out of the program. I said, ‘You know what? You are right where you are supposed to be.’ I asked him why he took it. He said, ‘I've always wanted an iPad. I've never played with one. I've never operated one.’ And I said, ‘But you can come here and do it for free. So here's the deal I'm going to make you.’ I said, ‘I'm not going to kick you out the program. I want you to remain in the program.’ And I said, ‘I'm going to show you ... We're going to teach you coding on an iPad.’ It was amazing, because in the course of that school year he went from being an underperforming student to bringing his grades up from Cs and Bs in that first year and then Bs and As the next year. He was the first student that we hired to work in the Zone. He came and worked over the summer and worked the elementary program. His whole course of his future was altered out of one negative event that we were able to turn around and use into a positive event.”
Kujanga “KJ” Jackson, Executive Director of Touch Tulsa
(Tulsa, OK)
