Hi my name is Sam Myers. I am a native of Jackson, MS. In the 8th grade I became a Co-Founder of YPP. I wanted YPP to be a space where young people would not be judged or put down for not being the “smart” kid. School often felt scary and uncomfortable for me, and even when I tried harder in order to do better, the work was confusing. YPP gave me the opportunity to learn in a way that I could better understand what I was doing.  Doing hands on activities and working with physical models and games helped me to visualize what was going on.  In the 9th and 10th grade I came to understand that I learned differently, and through my work in YPP I began to learn to teach myself to learn. The most important thing for young people to take advantage of in YPP is to learn how to learn.

What I learned in YPP, I use everyday. I’m currently working in retail and the other day when they were looking for volunteers who would be willing to be first to explain Google TV to customers I didn’t hesitate to step up and do it first. That’s because I’ve been doing presentations since I was in the 8th grade. YPP is me – I’m right here!

Two years ago my son came to live with me and I found out that he was classified special ed when I went to register him in school. I spent time with him doing homework. It seemed he was having the same kind of problems I had in school. I didn’t think that he should have been in special ed. As a father I wanted him to get the best education, and I was seeing that there was not a whole lot of learning going on in his classroom. So I talked to his teacher, who agreed with me, but told me that a child had to be tested out and evaluated by a school psychologist to determine if he could be put in regular classes.  I started working with him and thinking about how to get him excited about learning.  I played some of the games we used to play in YPP with him. I knew the games could help him learn, because I’ve seen them work with other students, and it worked for me. He began to love it. He would come home from school and say, ‘come on daddy lets play that game again.’  I felt he was a visual learner, so I put chart paper with the things he had to learn all over the house, like we did in the YPP math lab in Jackson. I told him to look at it throughout the day, so he could remember it.  After four months he was able to pass the test, and join a regular classroom.  We continue to work on his school work.  I’m in school now, working towards my college degree. We do our homework together, he has his chart papers in his room and I have my chart papers in the garage.

I changed the culture of my whole family in the way we interact with our children.  In the culture of my family you stop teaching after kids get a certain age - we teach our kids the 123’s, the ABCs but after 5 we turn our kids over to the public schools.  My son is seeing that I am hands on. I plan to be involved in his education through high school and maybe even into college.  I want him to know that being a father is not just being a provider for the family but being a teacher as well.

I feel that YPP is ours, and we should always give our support.  It’s a family. It helps families. I made it to where I am because of YPP.

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