Around the time Barack Obama started high school, I was a new English teacher of freshmen and sophomores at Chicago Vocational High School (CVS),on the city's southeast side.

Raised in the suburbs, I had had zero experience working withinner city youth,for whose education I became suddenlyresponsible.But I was 25 years old, armed with a bachelor's degree in English, a ton of idealism, and the cocksuredness of youth, without a single doubt that I could change the world in return for my $9,000 per year salary.Kids were kids, no matter where they grew up, I surmised.

And then I gave my first homework assignment.

Write a paragraph entitled, "My Dream," I instructed my 4^th period freshman class.I was looking forward not to just seeing their writing, but learning about who they were.

"Like a dream when I'm sleepin'?" asked Norman Williams.

"No, I mean what you hope your life will be like.Your future."

There were 28 students in that class, and I received all 28 papers the next day.This was going to be a diligent group!

But at home later that evening, whenI commenced to reading the papers,I thought they were playing me for a fool.

For most of the males—and there must have been a dozen--wrote that their dream was eitherto become a gangster or a pimp.

Pimp was a dirty word in my mother's house.Notas bad as the f-word, but a fighting insult if you said it to your brother or a friend.Andgangster was Frank Nitty or Al Capone in a double breasted suit,a cigar clenched between their teeth.

What was going on?Should I give them all F's?Call their parents?At the very least, they were disrespecting their teacher.

I reviewed the stories of the females:One wanted to be a nurse.Several mentioned cosmetologist.A few wrote teacher.That wasmore like it.

My mind was made up: tomorrow's would be a stern lecture.I prepared to lay down the law forthe young men in class.But I would try to keep my cool, act as if I were not personally perturbed.

I ran my plan by my department chair, Lee, whom I saw at coffee early the next morning.Good thing I did, because his enlightening but deflating explanation, would have me running nearly all my plans by him for the rest of the year.

"They're not being punks," he said."It's all they know."

Whereas I was raised by a middle class father,and could brag aboutone wealthy uncle who owned a tile store, and another who was a successful criminal lawyer, my students,who lived in South Shore and Altgeld Gardens—poor neighborhoods and housing projects—had done their bestto describe the only successful male role models they knew, said Lee.

The best dressed, most prosperous, man on Norman's block was "Hector" who drove a Lincoln Town Car with pretty girls in the back seat.A funny, friendly man, he'd often peel a dollar off his thick money clip,and ask Norman to buy him a newspaper,invitinghim to keep the change.

Hector seemed powerful,his happiness contagious; so Norman sought him out and wrote about him in his dream paper.

That too many of the other 14 year old male pupils had similar stories, was a surprise to me back then, but it'sa fairly familiar sociological and historical fact to most reading this today.Their life's horizon wasthe lowest of skylines, reaching no higher than the roofs of abandoned buildings on the dangerous side of the tracks.

It's hard to believethat Barack Obama was part of the same generation.But somehow family, education, intellect, as well as, certainly, an indomitable character, enabled his ascendancy from that hopelessness, so that now he himself has become the ultimate role model not only for African Americans, but for all of our youth.

Granted, too many black youths still live in gang neighborhoods, where crime and prostitutionproliferate.But suddenly there's a blizzard of light rising beyond that old horizon, further than the eye can see.

As ofJanuary 20^th, 2009, there'll be no limit on their topic sentences for the American dream.