Chris Jones

Hailing from the island nation of Grenada, W.I., I share matrilineal kinship with my hero, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X). The island is most remembered for the international attention it received during the Cold War. After the assassination of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop in 1983, President Reagan deployed soldiers to ensure the safety of American medical students studying there. I lived in the small seaside town of Victoria for seven years before my parents immigrated to the United States and settled down in the Midwood section of Brooklyn, NY.

Although new to this country, my youth made it possible to assimilate and sponge a cornucopia of artistic expressions. I used the music of my time, hip-hop, to navigate my early childhood experiences in New York. Some of my favorite artists whom have all contributed to building the music were complex young men who all expressed a wealth of knowledge through the prisms of their existence. Nas, Wu-Tang Clan, The Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur’s songs all captured the economic and social realities that characterized Brooklyn during the early 1990s.

My educational experience made it possible to travel beyond the boundaries of my neighborhood, enlarging my mental map of the city. I attended I.S. 383- Philippa Schuyler in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, where my interest in math flowered under the tutelage of Mrs. Wilkes, my 6th grade math teacher. Though I didn't achieve the requisite score for placement in her high school math class, she accepted me into her class. This act of tenacity inspired me to pursue math. At Brooklyn Technical High School, Jules Peemoeller aroused my interest in civil engineering. The capstone of this experience was the creation of a topographical map of Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn, NY. As a result of my commitment to becoming an engineer, I was voted “Most Likely to Succeed” by my peers and earned a scholarship from Turner Construction Company to study civil engineering in college.

I developed a passion for political science and education as an undergrad and detoured away from engineering. I was influenced by the writings of Malcolm X and Paulo Freire. My senior thesis paper, entitled “Malcolm and Paulo: The Political Meaning of the Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” compared the pedagogies of Malcolm X and Paulo Freire and their work as community educators in North America and South America, respectively.

Upon graduating from Brooklyn College, I moved to Washington, D.C. where I taught at Yorktown High School in Arlington, VA. This experience exposed me to a pace of life that was more subdued and relaxed than life in New York. Buses accepted dollar bills and subway stations posted arrival times of incoming trains. The school district I taught in was smaller and more affluent than the one I attended as a student.

Returning to New York, I resumed my studies at Brooklyn College to finish my Master of Arts in Social Studies Education. Next on my list is National Board Certification in Social Studies and completion of my doctoral work in Sustainable Development at Columbia University. I plan to work with the United Nations in reducing, and ultimately ending poverty in developing countries and Third World conditions in First World countries.

I enjoy backpacking, documentaries, foreign/independent films, music, and the writings of Joseph Campbell, Reinhold Niebuhr, and J.R.R. Tolkien. My life and work is guided by the following quote by Joseph Campbell,

“We have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.”