Thinking Outside The "Box"

"I was a third-generation street hustler," Taren Tyler says.  "My father and all his uncles were big-time drug dealers.  As a kid, I idolized that lifestyle.  It was glorified and became a traditional, hereditary thing in my family.  I picked it up at 12.  By 15, I had cars, my own place and lots of money.  It was easy for me to make the transition to the streets."            

It is not easy for Taren – or anyone – to make the transition he is in the midst of now.  After spending six years in prison for drug-related crimes, he has come home.  He was 16 when he left his Brooklyn neighborhood, a self-described "bad kid", a drug dealer, a thug.  He has returned a passionate, articulate, highly motivated young man of 23, determined to change his genetic destiny; redirect his path toward positive pursuits, primarily, education.  He is currently juggling two-and-a-half jobs and attending college full-time.            

Taren's drive to transform himself was sparked while he was still incarcerated, spending endless hours in the "box".             

"When I first went into prison, I got involved in the same things I did on the streets," he explains.  "I was always in trouble.  One time, they put me in the box for six months.  I was feeling empty and lost and, suddenly, I felt a light turn on inside of me.  I said, 'You don't want to do this for the rest of your life, sitting here like an animal.  This isn't you.  Something's got to give.'  So, I started reading," he smiles.  "I read like 70 books."            

One of them was "A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave."  It affected Taren deeply.            

"The whole message was that education elevates you, opens doors, gives you opportunities," he says.  "That became important to me, just to be able to be educated, because where I come from the average person is not."             Taren got out of the box in January.  By April, he had his GED.  His old crowd wondered what had happened to him.            

"I started to distance myself from them and hang around with older people and people I felt were intelligent and had something to offer.  I got involved in different programs, including ones where teachers came in from the outside, like a poetry class I took in Coxsackie.  An old-timer got me into it.  He said, "Come on, Youngblood.  Come with me to poetry.'"            

"Everywhere I turned there were people who it seemed like God sent into my life," he continues.  "It was that way with the College Initiative.  I was going through a book in prison that tells you all the reentry programs in New York City.  I saw the College Initiative and wrote to Kirk -- a long, philosophical letter about how I wanted to get out and do counseling work and go back into prisons and help people and get my Master's degree.  I didn't even have an Associate's at the time," he laughs, "but Kirk wrote me back, 'No problem.  When you get out, come on in."          

"There is no other program that offers what the College Initiative offers," Taren declares; "no other program that focuses specifically on the need for people who were formerly incarcerated to have a higher education because of their histories; no other program where people who have been where you are sit you down and discuss your natural aptitudes, what you want to be doing in five or 10 years, what colleges are right for you and how to get in.  The College Initiative has people I can call anytime and ask, 'What is this about?  How do I do this?  How do I fill this out?  How do I go about registering for classes? How does this go?  How does that go?'  Without them, I would have been lost."            

Taren Tyler is not lost, not anymore.  He works for the Correctional Association's Public Policy department and is starting his second semester at New York City College of Technology, with very clear goals.             .

"I want to get my Master's degree and become a force to be reckoned with in the public policy field," he says.  "From there, I want to start a non-profit addressing the needs of the times.  My interest is in helping, period.  Right now, criminal justice reform and prisoner reentry are critical issues.  There's way too much incarceration and recidivism.  I want to change that, as I change myself."  

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