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SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
Wes
Moore
Talks Decisions,
Education,
Expectations
by Mary Wimberley
Best-selling author Wes Moore talked
about making good decisions, getting
an education and meeting
expectations at Samford University
March 17.
“Education matters, and it is not just
about what you’re learning, but who you are
learning it from and with,” said Moore, an
Army veteran, Rhodes Scholar, television
host and author of The Other Wes Moore, a
New York Times best-seller.
Education, he said, is about much more
than a diploma or a major subject. “It’s
about answering the question of ‘who will
you fight for and who will you serve,’” he
said.
Moore spoke at the Wright Center as
the 2014 speaker in the Tom and Marla
Corts Distinguished Author Series. Proceeds
from the lecture benefit Orlean Bullard
Beeson School of Education.
Moore told the audience of about 500,
including some 100 students from area
middle and high schools, about the experiences
that led to his 2010 book, which
contrasts his life with that of a man by the
same name.
Moore was a Johns Hopkins University
senior and newly named Rhodes Scholar
when his hometown newspaper, The
Baltimore Sun, was writing about another
young man named Wes Moore. The latter
was convicted for murdering an off-duty
police officer during a jewelry store burglary.
“We had more in common than just
the same name,” said Moore. Both had
grown up in single-parent homes in the
same area of town and had gotten into some
troubles as youth, said Moore, who was 11
when he felt handcuffs close on his wrists
for the first time. The book chronicles how
the two boys with so many similarities made
choices that took their lives in vastly
different directions.
Moore had the rapt attention of the
young people in the audience, including
students from Homewood High, Holy
Family Cristo Rey School, Restoration
Academy, YMCA Y Achievers, and members
of Leadership Southtown, a Baptist Church
of the Covenant ministry that serves
students from several Birmingham schools.
After the talk, many lined up with
adult audience members to meet Moore and
get books autographed.
To follow up the lecture, education
students attended a luncheon to discuss
family and cultural influences on education,
to share their own stories of failure and
success, and explore how personal and
cultural biases affect teaching and
learning. ◗
www.samford.edu • 27