{"id":1575,"date":"2014-02-24T16:35:00","date_gmt":"2014-02-24T16:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/?p=1575"},"modified":"2014-02-27T21:46:40","modified_gmt":"2014-02-27T21:46:40","slug":"kempsville-students-learn-to-dream-big","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/kempsville-students-learn-to-dream-big\/","title":{"rendered":"Kempsville students learn to dream BIG"},"content":{"rendered":"

The packed auditorium quickly was brought to attention with a thundering yet welcoming call filling the air.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, well, well. Hello, my Braves.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a moment, Clenise Platt captured the attention of the hundreds of Kempsville Middle School students taking part in a special lecture series as part of Black History Month.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2528\"<\/a>Platt is president of The Plattinum Group, a life development company committed to helping individuals enhance the quality of their lives professionally, financially, personally and spiritually. She has been named one of the Top Forty under Forty by Inside Business and has earned the Human Rights Award from the Virginia Beach Human Rights Commission.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the next half hour, Platt kept the KMS students focused with her one simple message: Dream big.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of times when you hear names like Oprah Winfrey or Nelson Mandela\u2026you kind of go, \u2018That\u2019s them. That\u2019s not available to me,\u2019\u201d Platt said. \u201cBut, can I tell you something? They are ordinary people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Platt explained that the many people we have grown up idolizing and studying have been normal, everyday people who allowed themselves to dream big.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026And, with dreaming big, all of the sudden, the extraordinary happened,\u201d Platt told the students.<\/p>\n

Platt demonstrated her point by looking at some of history\u2019s most inspiring figures (Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Jesse Owens) as well as at today\u2019s contemporary leaders (Mellody Hobson and Michelle Obama).<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2533\"<\/a>Platt even told the lesser known story of Ann Dearsley Vernon, a white woman who went to the Woolworths counter sit-in with two friends and they were seated, but they would not order until the black guests, who were being refused service, were attended to first.<\/p>\n

These were ordinary people, she reinforced, who dreamed big and did the extraordinary.<\/p>\n

As it happens, Platt continued, students today are also taking part in making history right now by being in school and finding the passions and skills they will follow to become remarkable.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou all are actually doing the extraordinary now,\u201d Platt said. \u201cYou are setting yourself up for success.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wrapping up her presentation, Platt encouraged the students to keep up their focus and their studies and to be \u201cbold,\u201d \u201cintentional,\u201d and \u201cgreat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dream BIG.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The packed auditorium quickly was brought to attention with a thundering yet welcoming call filling the air. \u201cWell, well, well. Hello, my Braves.\u201d In a moment, Clenise Platt captured the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1575"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1592,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575\/revisions\/1592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}