Mark KennedyView other columns by Mark Kennedy
Eighteen-year-old Tylis Green changed elementary schools five times in five years, often hopscotching across state lines in the process.
Sometimes he was enrolled at inner-city schools in Tennessee. Other years he was the only black kid at schools in rural Georgia – places, he remembers, where the other kids wanted to “touch my hair.”
For most kids, that lack of permanency might have resulted in a shaky educational foundation. But not for Tylis. Instead, it taught him resilience and the indispensable art of “fitting in.”
Watching him walk the halls at Ridgeland High School these days in Walker County, Ga., you almost forget Tylis is a student. Actually, a new teacher recently introduced herself to him by her first name, assuming Tylis was a member of the instructional staff.
It’s the way Tylis carries himself. He’s personable, confident and serious, with the chin-up bearing of an emerging leader.