What Really Counts as Learning

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Recommended: from poverty to success

What Really Counts as Learning

Learning happens in so many places and in so many ways. Maybe it is at the mall, or at home, or even in a classroom. For Russell Thomas it was in the poor town of Coney Island. In Coney Island, Russell has to learn many hard lessons in life. He learns that you can’t change everything and that life isn’t fair. Russell is forced to realize that failure is part of life and that it happens to all of us. These are all teachings that are irreplaceable and valuable. The lessons that Russell learns are ones that he will use for the rest of his life in his experiences. It is something that you can use on more than just a test for school. That is what real life learning is about and in one way or another we have all experienced it.

Russell is the main focus in Darcy Frey’s article about three basketball prodigies from Coney Island. Russell is a tremendous basketball player and hopes to get out of Coney Island on a basketball scholarship. He has the skill to get that scholarship, but even with all that talent he has a major obstacle stopping him. In order to attend college on a scholarship, a score of 700 is required on the SAT. Russell, on his first attempt, only gets a 500; when a 400 is earned just for signing your name. So in order to get that scholarship and 700, Russell dedicates large amounts of time to studying. If he wasn’t working on basketball then he was working on his academics. After all that work Russell never gets his 700, or the scholarship. So therein lies the first lesson that Russell learns; life isn’t fair. Russell tries his hardest to bring up his grades and earn that 700, but when it comes down to it he has grown up in a low class area, without many opportunities. Frey described Coney Island as a place where there are “…no stores, no trees, no police; just block after block of gray cement projects…” (Frey 38). Russell had what can hardly be called an education. It is a place where most of the good basketball players with any chance at a scholarship never make it, they either end up dead or back in Coney Island dealing drugs.

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