How school, classes, learning helped me & the Chicago Get MotivatED Challenge!!

I’m sitting at O’hare waiting for my flight to Asia (follow me on twitter & facebook to see what I do there!) realizing that recently I’ve been asked a lot of questions about how I got to this point, and how education, going back to school, taking classes, learning in general, has helped me along the way.

Well, long story short it’s meant everything, but I don’t want to go on about my life here (if really interested in my backstory here’s a couple articles http://bit.ly/dXhtgL & http://bit.ly/gyIyCo), but I’d love to highlight a chicago education related program I just heard about that I think is super cool & will make a huge impact in many other lives!!!

It’s about what the Get Schooled Foundation with AT&T, def jam raptor, and viacom is up to with the Get SchoolED challenge to get 25 schools in 11 cities across the u.s. (6 in Chicago!) to improve the attendance rates at their school. The schools in Chicago that are taking part are Chicago Academy High School, Collins Academy High School, Eric Solorio Academy High School, Kenwood Academy, Orr Academy High School, and Wendell Phillips Academy High School.

The school that shows the greatest improvement in their attendance rates over the five week period of February 14th to March 18th will receive college scholarship dollars for students, free access for every student for one year of official sat online courses, a new college-counseling library from the college board, and a visit to their school from a get schooled celebrity education ambassador! Get schooled has worked with celebrities like Trey Songs, Jesse McCartney, and Big Boi.

So how can we help? we can like the get schooled Facebook page and give shout outs to the schools in Chicago, have students submit a performance to the def Jam Rapstar video contest, or share a story about what or who motivated you to stay in school (you will see what motivated me in the articles above, I too need to share here). the challenge ends march 18th, so get your stories, votes, and students’ submissions in!

You can find more information about the get schooled challenge here.