Most of our students come from poverty. We don’t tell them there’s anything wrong with that. But our world operates according to middle-class norms. In order to be successful, you have to understand that those norms exist and play to them. We also talk about e-mail addresses and social media. We call it “getting to know yourself.” You have to assess how you look, how you dress, how you present yourself to the public. We reinforce that every single week, but not in a way that’s judgmental or condescending.
