Professor's life took dramatic turns; now he guides others

When Fatima Asamarai graduates from Metropolitan State University on Thursday, she will be one step closer to a dream that would bring her full circle, a dream to help urban public schools close the achievement gap between rich and poor, black and white, and give back to the communities that helped her succeed.

Daryl Parks will be there, too, an unlikely inspiration and mentor with an improbable life arc that has taken him from being a Gary, Ind., asbestos remover and punk rocker to a stellar academic and Asamarai's "beacon of light."

Parks, Metropolitan State's associate professor of literature and language, grew up the youngest of five children. His parents came from the hills around Paducah, Ky., poor and unschooled, but sturdy and determined. His childhood was marked by times of peanut butter and Karo syrup sandwiches, hard labor and tough love. His mother kept up with current events by reading the newspapers that lined the walls as insulation. College was for someone else, so Parks left high school with his dreams limited to the factory floor.

He shoveled corn, fit pipes, worked sheet metal, cleaned animal cages, removed asbestos and worked as a nightclub disc jockey. He shaved his hair into a Mohawk and played funk and punk rock.

Then came a confluence of events that changed everything, what he humbly calls "issues of faith," as he began to seek direction. There was the boss at the sheet metal shop who asked, "What are you doing here?" And then he met Wendy, the woman who would become his wife, a blue-collar girl from North St. Paul.

Parks threw everything in an orange Gremlin and followed his instincts, and heart, to Minnesota. Here, he met people who had been to good schools, who asked why this obviously bright guy didn't go to college. "I didn't know anything about formal education, but I could lose myself in a book," he said.

Parks had landed here with $1,000 in his pocket. He spent $600 on an engagement ring, and $400 on a semester at a community college.

"I figured if I could shovel corn for 16 hours a day, you think I can't sit in class and read for 12 hours?" Parks said;. "I told myself, 'No one will work harder than I will today.'"

But stop there for a moment. Parks was not interested in telling his story if he was to be "a single outlier of 'This guy did it, so can you,'" he said. "It is less a tale of boot-strap individualism than about interdependence. I owe the people of this state, big time."

That help included WIC payments to help with food and health care. It included grants and scholarships; he couldn't believe Minnesotans he never met had donated money so people like him could "stay up and read all night while my children slept."

Along the way were mentors -- he calls them cultural brokers -- "people who teach you how this world works, people who went beyond their job description."

Parks was a stellar student. He received virtually every scholarship he applied for. At times, he felt the "impostor syndrome. There was this feeling somebody was going to find out I didn't belong."

When Parks looks in the rearview mirror, the past is now a blur: Summa cum laude in English. A master of education at the University of Minnesota, then a doctorate in education. A stint at Harvard Graduate School. A list of publications, including a chapter in "Homeless to Harvard." A teaching job at Johnson High School.

He could have gone anywhere to work, a world class academic and researcher. But one day little old Metro State called, a school where the average student is 32. One-third have parents who never went to college. They wanted Parks to teach students to go into urban schools and inspire poor kids.

He was crying when his wife came home: "I found my job," he said.

Now, when Asamarai gets her diploma, he will be there, the cultural broker, the one going beyond the job description.

"My ultimate dream and goal is to inspire and touch the lives of my students, just as Dr. Parks has done for me," Asamarai said. "I firmly believe that there are no students that are unable to learn and thrive; the teacher's responsibility is to discover a way to effectively communicate with, and reach that student."

"I owe this state, and I don't know when I'll feel like I paid it back," he said.