Chalkbeat

70 years after Brown, too many U.S. schools remain hypersegregated and unequal

2024-05-17T22:46:21+00:00

I was 21 when I started teaching at Hope-Hill Elementary School in Atlanta. I had big dreams and bold ideas — some held, others fettered as the toll of teaching in majority Black schools suffering from resource deprivation took hold.

My first year was complicated by the fact that C.W. Hill Elementary closed, or merged with John Hope Elementary, depending on whom you ask. And in an effort to make the devastating change more palatable, John Hope Elementary School became Hope-Hill Elementary School.

Shannon Paige Clark

This was my introduction to austerity measures, or the practices in school districts that justified slashing resources, slimming budgets, and closing schools, which are often in working-class Black communities.

Hope-Hill was led by Black women and almost all of my colleagues were Black, as am I. We did the best with what we had, and many of us used our own resources to make our classrooms special. At the end of that year, I felt grateful to be in a community that felt like home, and I was happy I survived the first year of teaching in a system that set me and my colleagues up to fail.

Midway through my summer break, I received a surprise phone call inviting me to interview for a new teaching position. A neighboring school principal informed me that my name was listed as eligible for hire, which meant I was surplused, unbeknownst to me. In other words, I was the last one hired and the first one fired because the enrollment numbers at Hope-Hill did not justify the existing number of teachers — another austerity measure.

Two years, two schools. New grade, new curriculum. I was already disillusioned and not sure I had the wherewithal to start over so soon. In fact, research shows that Black teachers leave the teaching profession more than educators in other racial groups, commonly citing burnout, disrespect, and racism.

I stuck it out. I was a brand new teacher for the second year in a row.

One day, I read a book about Ruby Bridges to my third grade students. I began to explain that schools were no longer segregated, in part because of the courage of children like Ruby, who in 1960 became the first Black student to attend a Louisiana school that had previously been all white.

“Did you say segregation ended, Ms. Paige?”

Tatianna’s question stopped me mid-sentence.

I thought to myself: I did, but if you look around this classroom and school, you would not know.

“Yes,” I told Tatianna.”There are no longer laws, or rules, that forbid Black people like you and I from going to schools with white children.”

Then Tyreik chimed in, “So where all the white people?”

I replied, “That’s a good question. It’s tricky. Many of the neighborhoods we live in are still segregated even though the law does not say they have to be that way. And since we live in segregated neighborhoods, many schools still look like they did when the law said schools must be segregated because most children go to school near their houses.”

... research shows that Black teachers leave the teaching profession more than any other racial group, commonly citing burnout, disrespect, and racism.

If they were older, I would have told them about anti-Blackness and redlining and the ways unjust policies have been used to maintain de facto segregation.

Today, schools remain largely segregated by race and class, and I often think back to my first two years in the classroom, starting in 2009. All but three of my students were Black, and most of my colleagues were Black, too. We lacked material resources, but we had a lot of heart.

My teaching and coaching experiences in schools that were highly segregated by race and class fuels my passion for researching hypersegregated schools, places that 70 years after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling are still separate and unequal.

Read more of Chalkbeat's coverage of the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.

According to the Center for American Progress, some 40% of America’s more than 1,700 school districts are hypersegregated, where at least three-quarters of students are from low-income households. Hypersegregated schools tend to get by on the bare minimum. Facilities may be inadequate, and the consequences of racial segregation and concentrated poverty make it harder to learn and even harder to thrive.

In my research, I focus on hypersegregated school communities where people lack the resources they need. I call this resource deprivation because those in power make decisions that deny necessary resources.

A CBS News investigation found that majority Black school districts have less money, and the students suffer as a result. School funding disparities exist across states, districts, and schools; high-poverty districts with the most students of color receive less funding per student, on average. EdBuild, which parsed school funding systems, determined that, nationwide, predominantly white school districts get $23 billion more than predominantly non-white districts, despite serving a similar number of children. This is resource deprivation.

Hypersegregation fuels inequity, and despite the landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education 70 years ago, the resource deprivation that existed in 1954 remains for far too many Black children who are relegated to underfunded schools.

There are miracle workers in many of these school communities. But the weight of fighting a separate and unequal system can diminish the hopes and dreams of even the most idealistic people — educators and students alike.

Shannon Paige Clark, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern. She researches educational policies and family engagement in school.

We are facing a migrant mental health crisis. More school social workers could help.

2024-02-05T13:00:00+00:00

A new student recently arrived in my third grade classroom in tears. She missed her mom, who was back in Colombia, she told me. She cried from 8 a.m. until lunch. The other students stared. Some cried, too. Some offered hugs. We all felt the heaviness of the moment.

I tried every trauma-informed technique I knew to comfort her: We took deep breaths, she visited our peace corner, I lent her a teddy bear, we looked at some calming books, and she wrote a letter to her mom. Despite my efforts, this child was inconsolable, and I could not just continue teaching. Our school’s lone social worker was dealing with cases that had already escalated into crises. I felt woefully unprepared.

Ashley Busone Rodríguez

I teach at a community school in Washington Heights where, like most New York City schools, we’ve recently received a dramatic increase in immigrant students. Unfortunately, it feels like we are failing them from the minute they walk through our school doors.

As teachers, we have a lot of training in literacy and math instruction. What we’re missing is what to do when trauma interrupts our teaching. Through my work with the City University of New York Initiative on Immigration and Education, I recently published this guide on trauma-informed practice for educators. I’ve been fortunate to gather resources and training on techniques that can support my newcomer students.

But even my practice isn’t enough to get teachers and students through this crisis. We need more social workers in our schools. Because if we don’t address their trauma now, these children won’t be able to get through the day, let alone learn.

Our one social worker for 450 elementary students does not have time in her overflowing caseload to do an intake with every new child. And our school is better than some in New York’s Department of Education. In 2023, there were about 907,000 students enrolled in NYC Public Schools, not including charters. There were around 2,000 social workers, according to the department’s press office. Like at our school, that’s roughly one social worker for every 450 students.

Instead of receiving trauma-informed resources and training from the city, I receive paperwork to fill out. Almost immediately, I must evaluate migrant students’ reading levels: Do they need English as a New Language services? I have to quiz them in math and determine if they will need intervention. I have to find out if they’ve been out of school and, if so, for how long. I am allowed to provide these students basic necessities, such as school uniforms or snacks from the teacher’s lounge if they have not eaten that morning, but a social worker could do so much more.

With more social workers, our school could offer consistent counseling to new students and their families, with periodic check-ins to monitor their mental and physical health and their academic progress. They could do more home visits and provide more preventative, rather than crisis, mental health care. They could take the time to really get to know families and build trust with them.

Due to time constraints, my own conversations with new families must be brief. I usually duck into the hallway to meet a parent or a relative who tells me stories of persecution, famine, poverty, or natural disasters that drove them to seek refuge in the United States. If I had time to linger, I might be able to understand the root causes of their child’s trauma. I could relay this information to a social worker who could apply their training when time permits.

Instead, I try to convince the family that their child will do just fine in my classroom, and then I have to return to teaching the rest of the class. When a child continues to cry, their tears remind me that they need more than milk and a math assessment.

On the same day I was trying to console our newest student, I got an email from the school district about Saturday School. I couldn’t help but think how the education system’s priorities were so backward.

Many schools in New York City run programs like Saturday School that help promote academic and test-taking skills. Where I work, we typically choose students who need a little extra help in math or reading and set aside money for curriculum and staff to run a remedial program. Our new arrivals are often considered for this academic support.

But how can we possibly be expecting these students to attend Saturday School for tutoring when they can barely get through school on a weekday?

Another “urgent email” recently came across my screen while I was reading a gut-wrenching article about the 11-year-old migrant who apparently died by suicide in a New York City shelter a few weeks ago. As I scrolled through, holding back tears, I saw the education department’s mandatory “Remote Learning Protocol” reminder pop up on my screen. That meant I had to reshuffle my schedule that day to ensure that students took computers home, that I assigned work in Google Classroom, and that parents had their passwords “just in case.”

Saturday School. Technology for every child. All of these are great initiatives and have their purpose. But what if, instead of test prep and technology, we use these resources to hire social workers and trauma counselors? What if there was time in every school’s schedule for social-emotional check-ins and self-care small groups? In the wake of a nationwide migrant mental health crisis, we must prioritize our students’ mental health before their ability to answer multiple-choice questions or log in to a Chromebook.

Ashley Busone Rodríguez is a third grade bilingual teacher at an elementary school in New York City’s Washington Heights neighborhood. She’s also a project researcher and instructor at the CUNY-Initiative on Immigration and Education. She has 50 students on her roster between two classes, and 11 of them were new to the country last school year.

Welcoming migrant students is more than a generational challenge. It’s a moral obligation.

2024-04-05T16:00:00+00:00

Leer en español.

There’s no denying the challenges that the influx of newcomer students presents. There are testing requirements, transportation needs, and requisite Spanish-language academic and mental health supports, to name a few. As a child of immigrant parents and the leader of Colorado’s largest school district, I am confident that Denver Public Schools is meeting the moment.

Denver has the highest intake of new-to-country students per capita among all large U.S. cities not situated along the southern border. Since July 2023, Denver Public Schools has welcomed more than 3,500 migrant students.

Dr. Alex Marrero

In the past few months, I’ve walked the halls of more than 100 Denver schools and met with many of our new-to-country students, their families, and the educators dedicated to serving them. I’ve seen fear and sadness in these students’ eyes transform into sparkle and joy. I’ve watched thousands of teachers and school employees level up supports and services — hosting winter clothing drives and information sessions about the American school system. In the process, our leaders have grown, and our district has been enriched.

My own upbringing, as the child of a Cuban refugee and a Dominican immigrant, offered profound lessons in how public schools can help newcomer families thrive. Decades on, I’m proud to lead Denver Public Schools’ work to support our new-to-country scholars.

Amid teacher shortages in the area, Denver Public Schools created an International Educator Institute to recruit highly qualified international candidates who can fill critical vacancies, including for multilingual educators. To date, we’ve successfully hired 98% of budgeted teaching positions, with a focus on diverse candidates to meet our students’ varied needs.

The district’s six community hubs have been key to supporting the newcomer families as they build their lives in Denver. Launched in 2022, these hubs offer help with everything from food assistance to medical services to workforce training. While they are costly to maintain, they help ensure our students have what they need to thrive. The district is also committed to providing reliable transportation, nutritious meals, mental health support, and access to technology.

The district’s six community hubs have been key to supporting the newcomer families as they build their lives in Denver.

Recognizing this as a statewide and nationwide challenge, we are grateful for all of the school districts and leaders advocating for state and federal funding support. These efforts underscore the importance of unity and shared responsibility in addressing the educational needs of our newest community members. It is more than a responsibility; it is our moral obligation as educators.

I want to assure Denver’s new-to-country families that despite the circumstances that brought them here, every child who walks through our doors will have access to the highest-quality education. While accommodating an influx of newcomer students has presented challenges in staffing, services, and a budget impact that now totals in the tens of millions of dollars, it has also proved our resolve to uphold our mission of educational equity and inclusivity for all learners.

As long as I am Superintendent, Denver Public Schools will continue to champion this cause and uplift every child. We are committed to honoring the legacy of those who have paved the way for equity and justice, positioning our schools as drivers of opportunity and advancement for all.

Dr. Alex Marrero is the Superintendent of Denver Public Schools.

Why did so many Black teachers lose their jobs after the Brown v. Board ruling?

2024-05-10T13:00:00+00:00

I have no vivid recollections of attending a segregated school, but I am aware that my educational journey commenced in Head Start at what was then Lincoln Consolidated School for Black students.

I was born in 1964 — my middle daughter playfully labels me a “Baby Boomer” — and my life aligns with my county’s momentous period of school desegregation.

Valencia Ann Abbott, right, with one of her first grade teachers, Cornelia Price, in 2019.

My earliest educational memory is going to first grade at Happy Home School, a couple of miles from my home on the outskirts of Rockingham County, North Carolina. There, I was under the tutelage of Mrs. Neal and Mrs. Price, two impeccably dressed Black women. They were the only women I saw outside of church who dressed so elegantly. My journey continued with Mrs. Jones as my fourth grade teacher and Mrs. Townes as my fifth grade teacher.

Read more of Chalkbeat's coverage of the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.

Happy Home School only went through seventh grade. By that time, the county school system was in transition as new schools were being built. I had two Black teachers in eighth grade: sisters, Mrs. Jefferies, the English teacher — to this day, I think about her whenever I see a diagrammed sentence — and Mrs. Blackwell, the math teacher. At the new county high school I attended, I had a couple of Black teachers, too: Ms. Lindsey for English and Mrs. Keesee for business.

Recent scholarship tells us that Black students with one Black teacher by third grade are 7% more likely to graduate high school and 13% more likely to enroll in college. After having two Black teachers, Black students’ likelihood of enrolling in college increased by 32%. Growing up, I knew nothing of this. I was a student whose parents never graduated from high school in rural North Carolina, who loved to read, and who decided in seventh grade that I would be a lawyer.

May 17 marks 70 years since the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which found racial segregation in schools to be unconstitutional. I cannot personally speak to what it’s like to attend a segregated school. I can, however, speak to the power of Black teachers, many of whom were forced out of the classroom following the decision.

Valencia Ann Abbott as a first grader at Happy Home School in Rockingham County, North Carolina.

Speaking over the years to those who did go through a segregated school system, not once did I ever hear sorrow, neglect, or regret. I have heard stories of pride, responsibility, and community and what was lost when Black educators were pushed out when Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision dismantled the Black educational community.

I would come to understand that Black educators, even those who were more highly qualified and degreed than their counterparts, lost their teaching positions. The roles they had long filled went to white teachers amid school desegregation efforts. Some 38,000 Black teachers were displaced in the South alone in the decade following the Brown decision, research has shown.

In some cases, racist educators refused to hire Black teachers. In others, they were demoted for no good reason, or forced to sit for new licensing exams that, according to Leslie T. Fenwick, the author of “Jim Crow’s Pink Slip,” served a “racist agenda.”

The loss of Black teachers, especially Black males — I would not have a Black male instructor until my senior year of college — has been chronicled in books such as Fenwick’s and “Greater than Equal” by Sarah Caroline Thuesen. This mass displacement had profound effects on communities and the teaching profession, ravaging the Black teacher pipeline for decades to come. The fallout explains why Black teachers are so often underrepresented to this day, Fenwick has said.

Knowing what I know now, I wonder if the outcome would have been different for me if I had not had those Black teachers sprinkled among the exceptional educators who taught me through high school. I know that my opportunity to graduate from college plotted the course for my daughters to do so, which they did.

More than four decades after I graduated high school, I think about how many students in the district I attended — the same district where I now work — may go through the whole K-12 system without ever having a Black teacher. I teach at a high school, and for most of my students, I am the first teacher of color they have ever had, and I don’t get them until their sophomore year.

So 70 years after the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the words of the legendary Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes resonate still:

The past has been a mint

Of Blood and sorrow

That must not be

True of Tomorrow

Valencia Ann Abbott is a social studies and history teacher at Rockingham Early College High School in Wentworth, North Carolina, where she was named the school’s 2024-2025 Teacher of the Year. Abbott received the 2024 Civil Rights/Civil Liberties Excellence in Teaching Award from the North Carolina Council for the Social Studies in partnership with the Social Studies School Service.

What we leave out when we teach about Brown v. Board

2024-05-15T12:30:00+00:00

I came to the United States 35 years after the Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka decision, ruling that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.

As a mixed race student arriving from England with a strong accent and an Afro, I was not warmly received by my new suburban school community. I entered elementary school at age 7. The elementary school students immediately made fun of me for my British accent, and I was often called an immigrant and even a pilgrim.

Abigail Henry

By middle and high school, my peers made annoyingly frequent statements of their supposed colorblindness. “Abigail, I don’t see you as different from me,” they would say, “We are just the same.” Their statements, in which they claimed not to notice my Blackness, made me realize they were in denial about the racism that existed in our school community.

Now that I’m an educator, sometimes I look back at my experience and wonder, “What if I just had one Black teacher when I arrived?” I look back and know that pervasive racism in our school system is real and teacher repression — when educators are silenced and lessons challenged or banned — is real.

That is why Brown, which turns 70 this week, is often not taught to the fullness of its story and legacy. It is often taught as a celebration of American justice, equality, and exceptionalism. When I was in high school, the history teacher would smile at me during the lesson, proud of this history. I remember thinking, “Oh, so because of Brown, I should be grateful that I am the only Black student in the classroom right now? Because, mostly, I feel uncomfortable.”

To teach Brown fully, it needs to be done so through LaGarrett King’s principle of Black historical contention — the concept that not all Black people have the same ideas and approaches to Black liberation. But most of the time, we get one-dimensional lessons on the ruling because pan-African and Black nationalistic perspectives remain left out of corporate-produced textbooks and supplemental resources.

Despite the NAACP and its chief counsel Thurgood Marshall’s bold and unrelenting legal crusade against school segregation, and a victory in the nation’s highest court, not every Black person wanted their Black child to integrate into a white school.

Read more of Chalkbeat's coverage of the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.

Many Black people had more than enough reason to not trust the public school system after Brown. As I have argued before, one of the strongest tools of white supremacy is denying Black people an education. Black families were rightly concerned about the racism their children would face post-Brown and the curriculums they would encounter. Rather than send their child to a white school, many just wanted their Black school to receive equal funding.

The No. 1 fault when teaching Brown is the assumption that society will make significant racial progress when Black students integrate into white schools. Historically, why has the starting point of the discourse been that Black academic success depends on a system that has racially targeted the Black community?

This is why the rise of Freedom Schools needs to be included in the conversation about Brown. Freedom Schools — free, alternative schools (mostly summer and after-school programs, but also day programs during school boycotts) — were created to prepare “disenfranchised African Americans to become active political actors.” Charles Cobb of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was among those who helped spearhead the Freedom Schools movement.

Freedom Schools in the 1960s were inspired by the centuries-old pan-African approach to education, with its Afrocentric perspective and focus on self-determination. Lessons at these schools, located in the South and around the country, focused on literacy and activism. They were also infused with Black history and rituals such as “libations,” or offerings to ancestors. Some such rituals are still common practice at Freedom Schools that exist to this day.

Philadelphia Freedom Schools, built for Black children, tackle literacy and love.

It was not until I worked at the Center for Black Educator Development’s Freedom School Literacy Academy that I discovered, while teaching Russell Rickford’s “We Are an African People” that post-Brown there were three dueling types of Freedom Schools: those established by the Nation of Islam, the 1960′s Freedom Schools, and the Black Panther Party’s Freedom Schools. The Black historical contention and nuances between these schools and the Black nationalists who founded and fostered them are as important as the movement to overturn legal school segregation.

I just finished reading Dennis Lehane’s “Small Mercies,” and was unaware of the extent to which some white parents in South Boston did everything they could to avoid school integration. After reading more about integration efforts in South Boston this image of a Black student, Valerie Banks, resonated with me when I reflect back to my first days as a student in a suburban Pennsylvania school. Valerie Banks was the only student to show up to class at South Boston High School on the first day of court-ordered busing. I ask myself, “On the first day the white students return, to what extent would her experience be like mine?”

Sites in Philly continue the Freedom School legacy

When I teach Brown to my ninth grade African American History and my AP African American Studies classes, I go over the differences between de facto and de jure segregation — that is, the difference between segregation that occurs by choice/reality and legal segregation. I ask them which one has the bigger impact on society and then point out that for many in the pan-African movement, there is no actual distinction. The white flight that followed Brown offers further evidence of why this perspective needs to be included in classrooms.

Learning about Black nationalism provides students the opportunity to engage with alternative strategies aimed at achieving Black freedom and self-determination. For this reason, I include lessons from some of the first Black nationalists such as Paul Cuffee and Martin R. Delany. (Some more of my favorite resources for teaching about Brown and its aftermath can be found here and here.)

As the educator and writer Rann Miller argues, “For too long, Black students have had the burden of adjusting to a racist society.” To make amends, teaching the whole story of Brown is a step towards helping the Black community heal.

Abigail Henry is an African American History teacher and adjunct professor in West Philadelphia. She has helped spearhead curriculum development at the School District of Philadelphia, won a Pulitzer Grant to incorporate the 1619 Project, and recently found an LLC called theBLKcabinet for African American History curriculum, resources, and consulting.

La implementación fallida de la FAFSA perjudicó a familias como la mía

2024-04-22T12:00:00+00:00

Read in English.

Sentada a la mesa del comedor, marqué el número gratuito, esperando que hoy fuera el día en que alguien realmente contestara. En cambio, escuché las palabras que han resonado en mis oídos durante los últimos meses. La línea de ayuda estaba experimentando un gran volumen de llamadas. Vuelva a llamar más tarde, instaba el mensaje automático antes de terminar con un brusco “Adiós”.

Cuanto más escuchaba ese mensaje, más ansiosa me ponía.

Sabía que no estaba sola en esta experiencia y eso de alguna manera me hizo sentir peor. Miles de estudiantes de último año de secundaria que necesitaban asistencia financiera para ir a la universidad no pudieron completar la solicitud de ayuda federal; la misma solicitud que el Departamento de Educación de Estados Unidos insistió en que ahora era “más rápida y más fácil” de completar.

Miriam Galicia, of New York City

“Más rápido y más fácil” no serían las palabras que usaría para describir la experiencia de mi familia con la solicitud, ampliamente conocida como FAFSA. Todo se debe a nueve pequeños dígitos que no todos los familiares de un solicitante tienen: un número de seguro social. Los padres que no lo tienen no podían, primeramente, enviar el formulario requerido.

La FAFSA, que normalmente se abre en octubre, se pospuso en medio de las actualizaciones y se publicó a finales de diciembre. Esto retrasó el proceso para todos los que solicitan ayuda financiera federal, no solo para las familias en las que no todos los miembros cuentan con un número de seguro social. Pero una vez que la solicitud finalmente se puso en marcha, muchos estudiantes que buscaban ayuda se sintieron aliviados.

En ese momento, a aquellos con un padre indocumentado se les pidió que llamaran a un número del gobierno federal para verificar la identidad de sus padres.

Así fue como me encontré memorizando ese exasperante mensaje automático que terminaba con un “Adiós”. Después de marcar el número más de 20 veces en el lapso de un mes, un día recibí una respuesta. Estaba sentada en la oficina de mi consejero universitario. Me sorprendió escuchar la voz de una mujer al otro lado de la línea. Le expliqué la situación de mi familia de la manera más clara y concisa que pude. La mujer me dijo que mis padres necesitaban hacer la llamada ellos mismos o estar presentes, algo que resultó difícil de hacer durante su jornada laboral.

La llamada terminó ahí y regresé a clase. Inspiré y exhalé, tratando de sacar la FAFSA de mi mente. Pero al igual que la llamada telefónica, era desesperanzador. Me senté en clase, sin hacer ningún movimiento para acomodarme.

“¿Entonces, cómo te fue?” me preguntaron mis amigos discretamente.

“Dijeron que no puedo hacerlo”, respondí, dándome cuenta en ese momento del estado emocional en que me hallaba.

Las lágrimas comenzaron a rodar por mis mejillas. No eran lágrimas de tristeza ni siquiera de desesperanza; eran lágrimas de rabia. Estaba enojada -estoy enojada- por la confusa solicitud y el menosprecio por miles de estadounidenses de primera generación.

El estrés estaba escrito en mi rostro y, cuando mi maestra se acercó para ofrecerme palabras de amabilidad y aliento, traté de mirar hacia el futuro cuando finalmente mi FAFSA estuviera completa.

Después de la cobertura mediática negativa sobre la fallida implementación de la FAFSA, el gobierno tomó medidas para corregir sus errores, pero tomó meses. Pasaron el proceso de verificación al correo electrónico. En ese momento, se nos pidió que enviáramos por correo electrónico pasaportes, licencias de conducir y facturas con el nombre y la dirección de mis padres. El proceso de verificación pareció interminable hasta principios de marzo, cuando finalmente se comprobó la cuenta de mis padres.

Una vez que recibí ese correo electrónico, inicié una sesión lo más rápido que pude, agradecida de que este proceso casi terminara. Pero incluso con las cuentas de mis padres verificadas, el portal apareció en blanco, lo que una vez más me impidió enviar mi FAFSA. Sentí que mi cuerpo se calentaba y mi cara se ponía roja brillante. Había realizado todos los pasos correctamente. Pensé que finalmente saldría del laberinto de la FAFSA. Estaba equivocada.

Con solo unas pocas semanas para decidir dónde pasaría los próximos cuatro años de mi vida (la fecha límite para comprometerme con una universidad es el 1 de mayo), la FAFSA parecía mi peor enemigo.

No fue hasta principios de abril, después de meses de llamadas telefónicas, trámites y reuniones con mi consejero universitario, que finalmente pude presentar el formulario de ayuda federal. Mi solicitud ya está recibida y eso es un alivio. Pero como muchos otros estudiantes en la misma situación, me pregunto si alguna vez sabré cómo serían mis paquetes de ayuda financiera en algunas de las escuelas en las que fui aceptada.

Incluso con todos los obstáculos que he tenido que afrontar estos últimos meses, soy una de las afortunadas. Recientemente, dos universidades privadas de artes liberales me ofrecieron becas, lo que me permitió evitar por completo el proceso de ayuda gubernamental. Es gracias a estas becas, y sólo a ellas, que el estrés de la FAFSA no se cierne sobre mí. Pero mi buena suerte me hace pensar en los otros estudiantes de primera generación que no tienen estas opciones.

Al provenir de un hogar de inmigrantes, supe desde que era niña que mi familia y nuestras experiencias no eran como las de la mayoría de mis amigos. Lo sabía cuando mis amigos hablaban de sus vacaciones en el extranjero o cuando sus padres asistían a las conferencias de padres y maestros. Las diferencias se hicieron especialmente evidentes durante el proceso de solicitud de ingreso a la universidad.

Recuerdo estar sentada con mis amigos en la escuela mientras expresaban su alivio por haber terminado con sus solicitudes, ensayos personales, trámites y FAFSA. Ahora todo lo que tenían que hacer era esperar. Todos estuvieron de acuerdo, todos menos yo.

Un amigo incluso sugirió organizar una fiesta para celebrar.

No pude evitar preguntarme por qué nueve números marcaron una diferencia tan grande en nuestras experiencias. Meses después de esa reunión, me quedan esa y otras preguntas. Preguntas como: ¿Por qué los estudiantes de familias inmigrantes tienen que superar tantos obstáculos? ¿Por qué se pasó por alto a nuestra familia y nuestra experiencia cuando se implementó esta nueva FAFSA “más fácil”?

Conozco el inmenso privilegio que tengo de cursar una educación superior, gracias al apoyo de mi familia, mi consejero universitario y las instituciones privadas que me ofrecen ayuda financiera. Aún así, a veces la duda aparece como una sombra. Me pregunto por qué me esfuerzo tanto para llegar a la universidad cuando algunos de los procesos que hacen posible la universidad no parecen valorar a personas como yo ni a familias como la mía.

Miriam Galicia es estudiante de último año en The Institute For Collaborative Education y es becaria de Chalkbeat Student Voices 2023-24. En otoño asistirá a Skidmore College. Como futura estudiante universitaria de primera generación, valora la oportunidad de cursar una educación superior que no tuvieron las generaciones anteriores de su familia.

Traducción cortesía de El Diario NY

Without housing, we were out of options. COVID quarantine offered my family a path forward.

2024-05-14T11:00:00+00:00

The writer of this essay is a 2023-24 Student Voices Fellow at Chalkbeat. Click to learn more about our high school fellowship program.

Content warning: This essay contains references to thoughts of suicide.

As the winter breeze blew through my braids, I felt a surge of excitement. Back then, good news was hard to come by so I was eager to share some with my mom. A smile spread from ear to ear as I rushed toward a white Honda parked across the street from my school, imagining her reaction.

But the usual sensation of love and security that I felt in my mom’s presence seemed to diminish with each step that I took. My mom didn’t trust me crossing the street, so she would usually park closer. This time, she didn’t roll down her window and call out to me with familiar laughs and friendly jokes. Something was wrong. A brewing surprise awaited me in that car. I hate surprises.

Alexa Brown-Hill

I hesitated for a moment before opening the car door. When I did, my heart sank when I saw who was driving. As I settled into the back seat, I wasn’t met with the typical “How was your day?” but instead with a chilling silence. Every slight noise — the hum of the car engine, the shuffling of my burgundy coat, my heart pounding — seemed magnified.

I recall having to swallow what felt like a brick to playfully ask, “Can we go home?”

“You have no home,” my mom’s partner said, turning around from the driver’s seat to look at me. He taunted me. I begged and pleaded to go home as tears fell from my eyes. He laughed and repeatedly said, “You have no home.”

Months earlier, my mom’s day care business began to fail. Money wasn’t coming in, running hot water was a luxury, and choosing what to eat was no longer a privilege. Although she was in a “marriage,” my mom was always left to figure things out on her own. Only this time, she couldn’t find a solution.

Eventually, her partner decided it was best to sell our home, the same home where his presence contributed little but chaos and stress. My mornings were often filled with the discordant symphony of screaming and arguing — whether it was about his infidelities or his decision to take our front gates down, resulting in my mom having to close the day care.

At the time, school and God were my only escape. At school I kept up appearances, pretending everything was normal, even as my life was slowly falling apart. I reminded myself that school would be the way out for my mom, my sister, and me.

I remember walking home one day to an empty house. The tables, the daycare toys — everything was just gone. That’s when the reality of my situation hit me. I felt shock, sadness, and worry. In that moment all I could do was document my barren home on Snapchat memories. I guess some part of me knew that this would be important one day, even if I didn’t understand it at the time.

Life after that chaotic winter night in 2019 was “no crystal stair,” as the poet Langston Hughes put it:

It’s had tacks in it

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor—

Bare.

But when you saw me at school, you would’ve never known that the night before, I had slept in the car or that I had to get ready and freshen up in a gas station bathroom. I was always full of giggles. Growing up, I was taught that what happens in the house stays in the house, even if you no longer have one.

I remember the third night after losing my home — after spending two nights in a cold car — my mom’s partner, who had been sleeping at his sibling’s house, finally brought us to a Holiday Inn. He paid for us to spend the night there but initially didn’t give us any of the proceeds from the sale of our home. We arrived with nothing but the clothes on our back and whatever my mom managed to pack in a small brown bag.

At school I kept up appearances, pretending everything was normal even as my life was slowly falling apart.

That night, for the first time, I had thoughts of ending my life. I was only 12 years old.

I had made up my mind that life would be easier for my mom without me. As my thoughts spiraled downward, I received a text message from my sister. She sent me Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” The scripture was a lifeline and managed to calm the storm in my mind.

After about three months in hotels and motels, we had run out of money. To make matters worse, my mom’s license plates got taken, so getting to school meant walking, often in the freezing cold, or taking a cab we couldn’t afford.

Bereaved students like me are more likely to struggle in school. Here’s what we need to thrive.

Life while being homeless was like a rabbit hole. Things were constantly changing. This instability caused me to be late to school almost every day of my seventh grade year, drawing the attention of my guidance counselor. It was hard for me to reach out for help, but when I finally got the courage to do so, my situation became gossip. I never spoke about it again.

Unfortunately, the school wanted to get the state involved. Just when I thought my world would get flipped upside down, and I would be separated from my mom and forced to repeat a grade, COVID and quarantine changed things.

During what was meant to be a two-week quarantine, our only options for housing was to go to a homeless shelter or upstate to my mom’s father’s place. Eventually, with hesitation, my mom decided to take my sister and me to her father’s home — a place I came to call “the hell house.”

The external appearance of this house was deceiving. The grass was freshly cut, and there was a pool in the backyard, but inside this beautiful home hid an ugly truth: the constant threat of violence.

Before COVID, life felt like it was moving too fast, and we couldn’t keep up. Quarantine was supposed to give us a break, a chance to figure out our next step. However, living in the hell house triggered my mom, plunging her into a deep depression. Nothing could snap her out of it. When we were kicked out into the snow eight months later, we had nowhere to go. No car, no money, nothing.

The rule “what happens in the house stays in the house” no longer applied. My sister reached out to our godmother in Newark who welcomed us with open arms. Her family provided the steady, loving environment that I so desperately needed. My mom was always doing for others, so it was hard for her to acknowledge that she and we needed help. If it wasn’t for quarantine, I would not be where I am today: safe, stable, and surrounded by love.

Alexa Brown-Hill, a junior at Bard High School Early College in Newark, is a multifaceted individual who is deeply passionate about literature and aspires to become a published author and a makeup artist. She is a 2023-24 Chalkbeat Student Voices fellow.

The botched FAFSA rollout hurt immigrant families like mine

2024-04-22T12:00:00+00:00

The writer of this essay is a 2023-24 Student Voices Fellow at Chalkbeat. Click to learn more about our high school fellowship program.

Leer en español

Sitting at my dining room table, I dialed the toll-free number, hoping that today would be the day that someone actually picked up. Instead, I heard the words that have rung in my ears for the past few months. The helpline was experiencing a high volume of calls. Call again later, the automated message urged before ending with an unceremonious “Goodbye.”

The more I heard that message, the more anxious I became.

I knew I wasn’t alone in this experience, and that somehow made it worse. Thousands of high school seniors who needed financial assistance to go to college were unable to complete the federal aid application — the same application that the U.S. Department of Education insisted was now “faster and easier” to fill out.

Miriam Galicia

“Faster and easier” would be the last words I’d use to describe my family’s experience with the application, known widely as the FAFSA. It’s all because of nine little digits that not all applicant family members have: a social security number. Parents without one couldn’t initially submit the required form.

The FAFSA, which usually opens in October, was postponed amid the updates and released instead in late December. This delayed the process for everyone applying for federal financial aid, not just families in which not all members have a social security number. But once the application finally went live, many aid-seeking students breathed a sigh of relief.

At this point, those with an undocumented parent were told to call a federal government number to verify their parents’ identity.

That’s how I found myself memorizing that infuriating automated message that ended with “Goodbye.” After dialing the number 20-plus times in the span of a month, one day I got an answer. I was sitting in my college counselor’s office as the February chill crept into the room. I was surprised to hear a woman’s voice on the other end of the line. I explained my family’s situation as clearly and concisely as I could. The woman told me that my parents needed to make the call themselves or be present for it — something that proved hard to do during their workday.

The call ended there, and I headed back to class. I breathed in and out, trying to push the FAFSA out of my mind. But like the phone call, it felt hopeless. I sat in class, making no move to settle in.

“So how did it go?” my friends asked discreetly.

“They said I can’t do it,” I replied, not realizing until then how emotional I was.

Tears started rolling down my cheeks. They were not tears of sadness or even hopelessness; they were tears of anger. I was angry — I am angry — about the jumbled-up application and the disregard for thousands of first-generation Americans.

Stress was written on my face and, as my teacher came over to offer words of kindness and encouragement, I tried to look ahead to when my FAFSA was finally complete.

After negative media attention about the botched FAFSA rollout, the government did take steps to correct its mistakes, but it took months. They moved the verification process to email. At that point, we were required to email passports, driver’s licenses, and bills with my parents’ names and home address. The verification process seemed endless until early March when my parents’ account was finally verified.

Once I received that email, I logged in as quickly as I could, thankful that this process was almost over. But even with my parents’ accounts verified, the portal showed up blank, once again stopping me from submitting my FAFSA. I felt my body heating up, my face turning bright red. I had taken all the right steps. I thought I’d finally emerge from the FAFSA maze. I was wrong.

With only a few weeks left to decide where I would spend the next four years of my life — the deadline to commit to a college is May 1 — the FAFSA felt like my worst enemy.

It wasn’t until early April, after months of phone calls, paperwork, and meetings with my college counselor, that I was finally able to submit my federal aid application. My application is in, and that’s a relief. But like many other students in the same situation, I wonder if I will ever know what my financial aid packages would look like at some schools I’ve been accepted to.

Even with all the hurdles I’ve had to face these past months, I am one of the lucky ones. Just recently, I was offered scholarships from two private liberal arts colleges, allowing me to bypass the government aid process altogether. It is because of these scholarships, and only these scholarships, that the stress of FAFSA isn’t looming over me. But my good fortune makes me think about the other first-generation students who don’t have these options.

Coming from an immigrant household, I’ve known since I was a little girl that my family and our experiences weren’t like those of most of my friends. I knew this when my friends talked about their vacations abroad or when both of their parents showed up to parent-teacher conferences. The differences became especially apparent during the college application process.

I remember sitting with my friends at school as they voiced relief about being done with their applications, personal essays, paperwork, and FAFSA. Now all they needed to do was wait. Everyone agreed — everyone but me.

One friend even suggested throwing a party to celebrate.

I couldn’t help but wonder why nine numbers made such a world of difference in our experiences. Months after that hangout session, I’m left with that and other questions. Questions like: Why are students from immigrant families made to jump through so many hoops? Why was our family, our experience, overlooked when this new “easier” FAFSA was implemented?

I know the immense privilege I have to pursue a higher education, thanks to the support of my family, my college counselor, and the private institutions offering me financial aid. Still, sometimes self-doubt creeps up like a shadow. I wonder why I am trying so hard to get to college when some of the processes that make college possible don’t seem to value people like me and families like mine.

Miriam Galicia is a senior at The Institute For Collaborative Education and is a 2023-24 Chalkbeat Student Voices fellow. In the fall she will attend Skidmore College. As a soon-to-be first-generation college student, she values the opportunity to pursue higher education not afforded to previous generations of her family.

Bereaved students like me are more likely to struggle in school. Here’s what we need to thrive.

2024-04-18T12:00:00+00:00

The writer of this essay is a 2023-24 Student Voices Fellow at Chalkbeat. Click to learn more about our high school fellowship program.

The afternoon wind blew through the classroom windows, causing the pages of “The Epic of Gilgamesh” to shift. I sat there silently. The words of my teacher Dr. Russell blurred into the background as thoughts of my mother consumed me. Did she know I loved her? Did she understand why I didn’t go with her? Does she forgive me?

From the time I was little, I was always praised for my academic abilities. But now, in the wake of this colossal loss — my mother’s unexpected death when I was just 14 — I was simply another gifted student who had fallen off her path. In reality, I was carrying a burden far heavier than the weight of any school assignment: grief.

Alexa Brown-Hill

When my mom died, I was already navigating the tumultuous waters of adolescence and homelessness. Now, I was grappling with the loss of both of my biological parents — my mother’s death being more recent and devastating.

When I started my freshman year of high school, I had looked to the future with hope, envisioning all the moments I would share with my loved ones. Moments like my 16th birthday, my senior prom, and my high school graduation. I never would have imagined that within a few months, I would bury my mom and my whole world would fall apart.

As with any mother and daughter, my relationship with my mother, Michelle, had its ups and downs. But no matter what, she was always there, loving her daughters hard and caring for us. She was an independent Black entrepreneur, a person who would give you the clothes off of her back if you needed them, and someone who allowed her children to dream big. At 38, my mom, with her beautiful smile, was called home.

As I sat in English class on that windy afternoon, I had so many questions. Why me? Why did I have to lose both parents while my classmates’ parents were alive and well? My peers seemed so carefree, while I struggled to keep myself afloat.

I felt alone, but I wasn’t alone. An estimated 1 in 12 U.S. children will lose a parent or sibling by the age of 18, according to the Childhood Bereavement Estimation Model. And grieving children are more likely to struggle in school, and experience symptoms of depression, anxiety, and social withdrawal.

In my case, my grief manifested as a decline in my academic performance. As I mourned the loss of my mom, it was hard to get up in the morning and make it through the day. I recall feeling like an astronaut floating in space without a tether.

Still, glimpses of light came from people who recognized my pain. The school social worker provided a listening ear and set me up with the text therapy resource; some teachers offered me extra time on tests and assignments.

The saying “it takes a village” really comes into play here. My family supported me. Whether it was a road trip to South Carolina with my Aunty Mo to take a break from the world or the Friday nail dates with my sister, these moments offered respite from the suffocating weight of my grief.

Alexa Brown-Hill, center, with her sister Diamond, left, and her mom, Michelle.

Two years later, my grief journey is still not over. It will never be over, but I have gleaned some important lessons from it. Lessons like never giving up, letting your choices in life be for you, and giving yourself grace. Perhaps the most meaningful lesson is how important empathy and compassion is within the school community.

On too many occasions grieving students are met with indifference or misguided attempts to “inspire” them to persevere in the name of their lost loved one. Educators insinuate that the student is somehow disappointing the deceased if they take the time to process their grief. On countless occasions, I had people say unhelpful things like, “Be who they would want you to be” or “Do it for them.” But when your mental health isn’t good, you most likely won’t perform as well academically.

This is not an essay about personal loss. It’s a call to action for educators and schools to recognize the impact of home life on student performance and make changes.

New Jersey will soon become the first state to require school districts to teach students about symptoms of and coping methods for grief, as well as to provide in-school grief resources, such as mental health crisis support and therapy. But it’s not enough.

Educators need to know what grief looks like in children and teens. Schools need to realize that grief is not an obstacle to overcome but a lifelong journey to explore with care and generosity of spirit. Teachers should offer accommodations to bereaved students who need them, and campuses should have safe spaces where grieving kids can be heard and feel understood. That could be school counseling sessions or just a quiet room for when the world gets a little too loud.

Allow us, those who have experienced profound loss, to bridge the space between grief and education. Allow us to help create a community where every student feels supported, valued, and equipped for success. We, humans, need to learn to take breaks, to stop and feel what we need to feel. Only then can healing begin, and only then can students truly thrive both inside and outside the classroom.

Want to show teachers you appreciate them? Become a guest educator.

2024-05-09T09:00:00+00:00

I heard an odd sound walking into the school building one day: coo-coo, coo-coo.

Unmistakably, it was a pigeon, but it didn’t sound like it was outside. I walked down the hall to see our dean and a math teacher corralling not one, but two pigeons flying around the hallway. We cooed and cawed ourselves, flapping our arms wildly like predators, and swinging brooms at the light fixtures they perched on for 20 minutes. Finally, both birds made their way out of the open window.

Ronak Shah

Why were there pigeons in the building, you ask? Well, a window had been left open, and the window had no screen. The window was open because our school HVAC system — like many in the district — are too old to keep us cool in our ever-warming summers. Our old buildings have so much deferred maintenance because the property tax revenue that funded it was capped long ago. And even as schools are maintained like castles in some Indianapolis suburbs, the revenue in the city stretches ever thinner across increased transportation costs, inflation, and school safety needs that eclipse the routine maintenance costs anticipated decades ago.

Complexities like this govern our experience as public educators, and the pigeon story is not the wildest tale I could tell. The stakes could never be higher.

How do we help others understand what the day-to-day is like?

For most of us, Teacher Appreciation Week is a bittersweet time. Families, administrators, businesses, and organizations earnestly want to shower love and support on the educators in their community. But few people know what the modern teacher’s experience is really like or even hear stories like the one I just shared. So, every year, this becomes the week where teachers end up swimming in more discounts and donuts than we can stomach.

That’s why a note from someone who notices my impact resonates most. It’s not that I’m fishing for compliments. I love what I do each day as a middle school teacher, and I know that I make a difference, whether or not someone tells me. What’s validating is to hear that someone outside of my classroom has a sense of what’s going on inside of it.

So this year, I’d ask you to go one step further: Be a guest teacher in your local school.

Part of the problem is that what happens in our schools is either invisible or misconstrued to most of the public.

Education is one of the most important pillars of our democracy, and one of the biggest expenses we pay for with our public funds. Yet teachers across the country are constantly subjected to poorly conceived policy decisions that make our jobs harder. These decisions tend to be made by people who haven’t spent more than a few minutes in a classroom since they were a student themselves. I run out of fingers and toes when I count the times an outsider thought that attending high school made them an expert on what’s wrong in education.

Part of the problem is that what happens in our schools is either invisible or misconstrued to most of the public. That then extends to the people that they elect, who typically see schools outside of highly manicured walkthroughs. Understanding the experience of teaching and learning today is a civic responsibility on the same level as voting, jury duty, and filling out a census form.

So this year, I’d love to see people reach out to their local school to see how they can share what they know, or at least to observe what it’s like. This could be as simple as shadowing a teacher or being a guest speaker for a class. But the best way to get the full picture is to spend the full day as a substitute teacher, start to finish, to see what the day holds. (Of course, you’ll need to get a substitute teaching permit, but the requirements are simple.) Even better, try this out in different schools in your area of different types — high schools and elementaries, public and private schools.

I’d love to see local businesses incentivize their employees to teach in a local school for a day. Schools already pay substitute teachers a fixed rate. If the employer fills the gap between the substitute teacher wage and the employee’s salary, the employee can make the same amount that day while taking in a critically important experience. I recognize that it takes courage from the employee and commitment from both the school and the employer. But I can’t think of a better way to show appreciation than to see all sides of a teacher’s daily experience.

And finally, I’d love to see the state think big about how to reconfigure its Teacher Appreciation Grant. This fund currently sends a stipend to teachers around the state rated effective or highly-effective, but only 1% of educators were rated below this, so the amount teachers receive tends to be small and split among so many educators. Moreover, many teachers do not find the evaluation process to be fair. Instead of being tied to effectiveness ratings, why not allocate these funds for teachers who choose to work in schools that are hard to staff? We have so many shortages across the state in specific cities and neighborhoods. The vast majority of states offer this incentive, but Indiana does not.

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week to my fellow teachers. And to those that aren’t, I now think of you as future guest teachers. I can’t wait to see you down the hall, supporting students, sharing what you know, and learning about what’s going on in our schools. So happy Teacher Appreciation Week to you, too.

Ronak Shah is a seventh grade science teacher in Indianapolis and a member of Chalkbeat’s Reader Advisory Board.

I became a teacher at age 55. It’s been daunting — and thrilling.

2024-05-03T12:00:00+00:00

We grappled in 2020 with a pandemic and the senseless murders of several unarmed Black men that led to social unrest in our country. The murder of Ahmaud Arbery, shot to death while jogging, hit especially close to home for me. Watching the footage of those men stalking and killing him in cold blood recalled some of the worst moments of racism in our nation’s history.

In U.S. schools, we faced the palpable social, emotional, and economic impacts of COVID, and we were moved to reckon with the ways that racism pervades every aspect of American life — including education.

John Brown

It was in this context that I was asked to step into the (then virtual) classroom as an African American studies teacher at Freire Schools. I was 55 at the time and had spent many years as a basketball coach and a member of the Academic Supports team at Freire High, and decades as an associate minister at a church in West Philadelphia. Having never been a classroom teacher, I would need to begin the teacher certification process and prepare to teach a very timely course during a tumultuous time.

It was daunting — and thrilling. Many arrows pointed to saying no, but two bigger arrows pointed to yes: my faith and the needs of our students. Now, more than ever, the world needs teachers who are brave and unafraid to tackle difficult content, such as racism and antiracism.

One of our school’s academic values, as espoused by our namesake, Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, is to “make it possible for the students to become themselves.” The difficulty of students, especially Black students, “becoming themselves” in our culture cannot be overstated. Barriers in education, the economy, and elsewhere often send a message that they aren’t valued, that who they are isn’t beautiful, and that their gifts don’t have a special place in the world.

In front of me lay an immense opportunity to create a space where students’ voices were heard, where they could have a say in how they learn, and where they could practice being active, civically engaged citizens empowered to transform their communities.

As I was joining the teaching staff, the charter network was devoting significant time and resources to developing its staff to be antiracist educators. As one of 40 Freire educators to take part in a year-long training called Equity-Driven Leadership, I realized that I needed to wrestle with my ideas, perceptions, and personal experiences and consider how that impacted my teaching. Because I couldn’t help my students become themselves until I became myself as a teacher.

I did not choose teaching; teaching chose me.

Throughout the training, we discussed racism and bias in ourselves and our schools and how we could implement antiracist action in every aspect of our work. I discovered, for example, that I wasn’t always good at moving with empathy and connecting the dots between students’ in-school behavior and the adverse conditions many of them face outside of school. In my frustration with students who were disrupting the class with lots of questions, needed significant support, or were, perhaps, too quiet or disengaged, I didn’t take the necessary time to pause and ask, “Why?”

The answers were often that students were wrestling with grief after losing loved ones to violence, recovering from a night of work to support their family, or facing a number of other potentially traumatic circumstances. Through training and reflection, I realized that I need to meet students where they are.

I adjusted my class curriculum and culture, and the student feedback drove home why teaching is a sacred and rewarding calling. I root my classroom in this antiracist context by keeping the intended outcome at the center of my lesson planning. The goal of each of my lessons is to ensure there is total inclusion, representation, expression, and civic engagement.

In my classroom, I’m able to show students how white supremacy has obscured their views of self and identity and their academic potential. For example, in one of my classes, I asked my students to create identity markers — how they describe themselves (e.g., religion, ethnicity, gender, sexuality) and was surprised to see them struggle.

One student noted that they could not identify their culture because they had been oppressed for so long. The history and legacy of slavery have created a situation where many students don’t know their history. Another student expressed that she was scared to share with her peers that she was biracial. I could see how stereotypes were keeping students from being their true, authentic selves. It is my job to give them the tools and knowledge to dismantle these negative beliefs and step into their full potential.

Influencing and supporting students in this way was not always in my plan. Stepping into the classroom at age 55, I was apprehensive that I did not have the instructional experience. I’ve since been amazed by the ways my life has developed and transformed.

I did not choose teaching; teaching chose me. It chose me at a time when educators are on the front lines of change when it comes to youth mental health, racial healing, and other key issues. Yes, this job is challenging, and my road here hasn’t been easy. But teaching allows me to empower our students with an understanding of their history, their excellence, and their power to build the future.

That makes it all worth it.

John Brown, 12th Grade African American Studies teacher, at Freire Charter High School in Philadelphia.

Science teachers, math teachers, history teachers — we’re all reading teachers now

2024-05-02T13:00:00+00:00

I’m in my fifth year teaching science to fifth and sixth graders, but, like every other teacher at the K-8 charter school where I work, I also teach reading.

Literacy is a foundational skill for learning new content and as an upper elementary science teacher, my soon-to-be middle schoolers have ideally made the vital transition from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.” But pandemic-era school closures drastically cut into learning time, and literacy skills have been slow to recover.

Imagine — and if you’re a science teacher, you won’t have to — trying to get through a lesson on the water cycle with students struggling to sound out keywords like “condensation” and “precipitation.” These are longer, multisyllabic words that students can sound out if they have a basic mastery of phonics, but they become impossible if students lack this foundation. I’ll never forget the frustration I felt when I had planned to teach a lesson on food webs and had to spend the first half of the class teaching struggling readers how to sound out “interdependence,” and “ecosystem.” I can only imagine how frustrating it was for my students!

Ian Hartigan, a fifth grade and sixth grade teacher in Springfield, Mass.

In pre-pandemic days, it was normal to have a few struggling readers per class. Post-COVID, it has often felt like there are few readers who are not struggling. It was clear that a new approach to literacy instruction was needed — one that leveraged every teacher in our building and gave us ways to catch our older students up on second grade skills without infantilizing the content.

Luckily, training offered by my school, Springfield Prep in Massachusetts, has provided me with tools to help get students reading proficiently again. The school brought in John Bennetts, who specializes in foundational reading skills, to lead the professional development sessions, coach teachers and administrators, model lessons, and work one-on-one with struggling students.

He began by sending a handful of teachers out of the room. One by one, we were each brought back in to read a passage in which a certain percentage of words had been changed to nonsense words.

How could we embed these skills into our classes without falling further behind in our curriculum?

When I entered the room and read the passage out loud, I struggled to pronounce the unfamiliar words. And when John hit me with rapid-fire comprehension questions, it was clear that I had derived no meaning from the text. All I remembered was trying not to sound like an idiot and feeling like a failure.

To make meaning from a passage, John told us, a person needs to be able to read 95-98% of the words. I read the passage at 85% proficiency and couldn’t guess its topic. At 97%, the next volunteer was able to take some educated guesses and get most of the comprehension questions right. Suddenly, what my students had been experiencing over the past two years made perfect sense to me.

As we embrace the ‘science of reading,’ we can’t leave out older students

The message was clear: We needed to start teaching older students how to sound out and read unfamiliar words. But how could I do this without making my fifth graders feel like they were back in first grade? How could we embed these skills into our classes without falling further behind in our curriculum?

John taught us a word routine that day that gave us and our students a step-by-step process to follow when encountering unfamiliar words. I started using the routine in class the next week. “How many vowels do you see?” I would ask. Students could then figure out how many syllables the word contained by grouping adjacent vowels into one syllable and subtracting a syllable if there was a silent “e” at the end. This allows students to split the word into chunks they can sound out and then put together to pronounce the whole word. After a few months of daily practice, my students weren’t looking at me helplessly as often.

“Challenging” doesn’t even begin to describe the circumstances teachers were confronted with coming out of remote learning. Our school’s approach to reading instruction may not be perfect, but we are trying with everything we have to help our kids get back on track. The resilience and creativity of educators, students, and school leaders nationwide make recovery possible. It makes me proud to be a science teacher who teaches reading, too.

Ian Hartigan is a science teacher and a grade level chair at Springfield Preparatory Charter School in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Think my South Side high school is a ‘bad school’? Think again.

2022-02-08T12:00:00+00:00

When I say I attend Wendell Phillips, a public high school in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood, people who know me as quiet and studious are often surprised. They ask me why, out of all the high schools in Chicago, did I choose Phillips?

When I tell people that I go to Phillips, they often make untrue or unkind assumptions: That I’m not smart or goal-oriented, that I’m obsessed with sports, especially football, and that I couldn’t have gotten into a “better” high school.

But I’m proud to go to Phillips, even if I didn’t exactly choose it.

I moved to the U.S. from Nigeria in middle school, enrolling in school just two months before eighth grade graduation. I missed the standardized tests that more competitive high schools used to screen students. My elementary school counselor told me that the only school that would accept me is Phillips.

I enrolled there and have never regretted it.

Named for an abolitionist and an advocate for Native American rights, Wendell Phillips Academy High School was founded in 1904, and it would later become Chicago’s first predominantly Black public high school. Today, Phillips students are almost all Black and from low-income families.

At around 56%, the school’s four-year graduation rate is significantly below the city and state averages. That’s probably because so many of its students don’t have what they need to do well. The school doesn’t have enough teachers, mental health professionals, or after-school activities to support its students. There’s just one psychologist to serve the school’s more than 500 students.

Phillips students are required to pass through metal detectors, which occasionally pick up security risks, but more often make students late for class. Fights on school grounds are common. The security situation hit a low point this school year when a 14-year-old student and a security guard were shot right outside the school building.

You may read this and think Phillips is a “bad” school, but it’s not. It’s filled with intelligent teens who aim to do great things and positively impact their communities. Teachers and counselors who care sincerely about their students work there. But Phillips is a school where students and staff often don’t have the resources to do their best work. A lot of it boils down to money.

Inside a school that people often dismiss are bright and unique students who want to make a difference.

The school building is evidence of that. When I was a sophomore, the steps at the building’s main entrance collapsed, and you could see into the basement. The heating and cooling system is antiquated, and classrooms are almost always too hot or too cold. In one of the bathrooms, the ceiling looks about to collapse. There are stalls that don’t lock, broken washbasins, and leaky pipes. Phillips needs a real renovation – not just a patch on its most urgent wound.

Wendell Phillips is located in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood.

Problems with the building are just a part of it. Many Phillips students face challenges including food and housing insecurity. They don’t have Wi-Fi at home. Without the basics, it can be hard for students to focus on their schoolwork. For example, a student I mentor always comes late to school because he needs to care for his sister’s child. That makes him miss his first two classes, which he is failing. He needs more help than he’s getting.

Also, students need after-school jobs. I don’t know what I would have done without paid work. With the money I earned, I helped support my family. Many other students need to earn money for their families, too. But there aren’t enough jobs, and even if there were, we’d need more school staff to connect students with the right opportunities.

And you know what would also help? Giving Phillips students more of a say in how their school works. Yes, we have a student council, but its decisions are limited to things like prom and spirit week. But on issues that affect us most — from dress codes to scheduling to the need for female security guards, in addition to male ones — it feels like our opinions aren’t heard or valued.

But our broken building and the challenges that make daily living and learning so much harder aren’t the only things that define Phillips. The forces that keep a school like Phillips poor and Black, and without the money it needs to fight systemic racism and generational poverty don’t define us either. The challenges are vast and deep, but inside a school that people often dismiss are bright and unique students who want to make a difference.

I want to go to Columbia University, become a doctor, and work to lower maternal mortality rates among Black women. One of my classmates, Damien, a star high school football player, wants to work in real estate so he can build the kind of affordable housing he wishes he had access to growing up. Another Phillips student, Raheema, wants to go to business school and become a role model for the next generation of Black children.

When you think of Phillips, I hope you think of students like Damien, Raheema, and me. I hope you’ll think of the student I tutor. I hope you think of all of the students — those who are college-bound and those who are not on track to earn a diploma. Think of us, who we are becoming, and who we could be if we all had what we needed to thrive.

Ajibola Elizabeth Junaid is a senior at Wendell Phillips Academy High School in Chicago. She is a Student Voices Fellow at Chalkbeat.

I expected the America I had seen on TV. But life on Chicago’s South Side is a struggle.

2021-12-17T14:00:00+00:00

My name is Ajibola (pronounced ha-jee-boh-la). Try saying it three times, and I’m pretty sure you’ll say it wrong. Most people do. My name is Nigerian, and so am I.

I moved to Chicago almost five years ago, five days before my 14th birthday. Before that, we lived in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. Then my dad lost his job, and my god mom died. My mom, an assistant to the police commissioner, had quit her job to start her own shop so she could have time with my little sister and me. But thieves were constantly breaking into the shop, making it impossible for her to earn a living. So my parents decided to sell their house and move to the U.S.

We thought coming to America would end our family's adversity. I imagined an America of TV and movies, with nice tilled roads and fancy suburban houses. It seems silly now, but I really thought America was paradise on earth, an ideal country where everyone who lived there was rich. I never knew systemic racism existed and still exists here. I just figured that everyone would be treated equally.

I had to board two planes to get to America — one from Lagos, Nigeria, to Dubai, and another from Dubai to Chicago. I was on the plane for 23 hours. It was exhausting, but I believed I was on my way to starting a new life where I'd live like Angelina Jolie.

When we arrived in Chicago, my dad showed me where we'd be staying: an antiquated South Side apartment shared with about three other families. There was no privacy. There was no heat. Our lights and water were going in and out. There was one bathroom that we all had to share, which made me uncomfortable. My younger sister and I had to sleep on the floor.

I believed I was on my way to starting a new life where I’d live like Angelina Jolie.

Food was also very scarce because my parents had no income. My mom would go around looking for people who needed help cooking their meals. She'd work for free so she could bring home some of that food. That was what my family lived on for the first couple of months.

I started school in Chicago just two months before my eighth grade graduation. I might not remember my middle school classmates' names or faces, but I definitely remember the lockdown drill I experienced soon after arriving. My teacher explained that it meant we were supposed to act as if there was a gunman in the school. I remember thinking: Why would there ever be a shooting in a school? These drills, plus the reality of gun violence in my South Side neighborhood, made me realize I could be shot in class, or on my way to and from school, or while playing outside.

Ajibola met earlier this month with Barack and Michelle Obama at the University of Chicago Medical Center, where Ajibola is an intern.

Back in Nigeria, I had never even heard a gunshot. I used to play outside a lot there. Here, I imagined going to one of those fancy suburban parks every day after school. I was expecting a different version of America.

My living situation improved after my parents applied for asylum and got work permits. We moved out of that cramped apartment, but now my parents worked such long hours, six days a week. I barely saw them. Some days, they left our apartment, in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood, at 1 p.m. and didn't return until 2 a.m. Often, when I was up and getting ready for school my parents were sleeping; when I came back from school, they were at work. They still work long hours to keep our family afloat.

America is believed to be the land of opportunities, but America makes those opportunities very difficult to access for people who are not born into privilege. The American Dream narrative of "go to school, get good grades, apply for scholarships, and better yourself" is not that easy in an underfunded community where people don't have access to basic amenities. It is not that easy when everyone is fighting for their lives because of poverty and the threat of gun violence. (As of mid-December, more than 800 people in Chicago were killed by homicide, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.) It's not that easy when you attend a school where guidance counselors have too many students assigned to them, and where many students have never heard of the common application, which allows you to apply to multiple colleges, or the FAFSA, the federal financial aid application. So they graduate and get the next available job, like at McDonald's. By the time some students finally realize what they want to do, they may not have the knowledge, skills, support, or money to thrive. But by then, they must prioritize their basic needs, not their dreams.

Ajibola, seen here outside the University of Chicago Medical Center, hopes to attend college outside of Chicago, but she plans to return to the South Side after earning her degree. She wants to become a doctor.

Despite the challenges ahead — as an asylum-seeker, my immigration status makes it harder for me to get financial aid and some scholarships — I'm not giving up on my dreams. America is known to have some of the best colleges, and I've already been accepted at five schools. Since coming to the U.S., I haven't been anywhere but Chicago, and I would love to see and feel what it's like to live in another part of the United States.

Although I plan to go away for college, I don't plan to stay away. After I get my degree, I hope to go to medical school at the University of Chicago, here on the South Side. Because leaving this neighborhood isn't going to make it any better. But coming back, serving the community, working to get programs funded, and working to get guns off of the streets could make a difference for others who are born on the South Side or arrive here with big dreams of their own.

Ajibola Elizabeth Junaid is a senior at Wendell Phillips Academy High School in Chicago. She is a Student Voices Fellow at Chalkbeat.

The IEP recommended a special education classroom. We chose an inclusion school.

2024-04-25T13:00:00+00:00

Every year, on the first day of school, we take a picture of my now five-year-old son, Percy, by a chalkboard documenting his age, grade, interests, and more. I’m sure you’ve seen these pictures flood your Instagram every September.

In the blank for “when I grow up, I want to be,” most parents I know write in “teacher” or “firefighter,” as dictated by their child. But for my son, I write “an adult” because my dream has always been for him to someday be independent and live his life the way that he wants.

Cassie Hauschildt

Percy has moderate-to-severe autism spectrum disorder and has struggled his whole life to express himself, often lashing out physically in his frustration. Until last fall, he was entirely non-verbal.

My family and I have centered our lives around finding Percy the support he needs — from therapies for him to parenting classes for us. Yet, when it came to finding a school for Percy, we could not find one that wanted him and his diagnosis. The local school district gave him an IEP with no general education inclusion, and some local charters related that they had limited ability to serve Percy’s needs.

Educators saw a kid who was too hard, who lashed out, and whom they could not support.

Yes, Percy has behavioral issues, and I will be the first to tell you that it is not always easy to get him to do things. But Percy is so much more than just his autism diagnosis. He is also incredibly gifted and talented.

Around his fourth birthday, Percy started reading books and spelling words (in writing) at a breakneck pace. Going from knowing his alphabet to spelling more than 30 words on his own, Percy made it very clear that he was smart, capable, and really loved to learn. He especially loved to learn about the planets. Communicating with his talking tablet, he could name all the planets and their moons in the correct order.

We tried putting Percy in a special education-only environment, as the district recommended. It backfired. He turned to self-harm, banging his head against the wall to communicate his frustration and lack of stimulation. Every single day, he sobbed as we wrestled him into the car. Percy’s love of learning faded, even at home, as he regressed deeper into himself and away from the world.

It wasn’t until I took a wrong turn one day as I drove home from work that I stumbled upon a sign for a new school called Rocketship Explore Elementary. When I got home, I Googled it, and one of the first things I found was talk of “meaningful inclusion” being central to the Rocketship charter network. Students with disabilities such as Percy’s spend part of every day in a general education classroom, with their own paraeducator if needed, and another part of the day in a classroom for students with disabilities.

I enrolled him, and one month in, it was clear that Percy was getting the individualized support he needed to succeed. Today, Percy eats lunch, has recess, learns phonics, and goes on field trips with his general education peers.

I am so proud of Percy. More importantly, he’s proud of himself.

Every morning, his school day starts with a high-energy, school-wide morning assembly the school calls “launch.” This used to be a little overwhelming for my sensory-sensitive son, so he would not always participate, because forced inclusion doesn’t help kids.

But recently, as we walked in, Percy didn’t go on his normal path to his classroom. He watched, observed, found where his homeroom class was sitting, and joined the other students. Never before would he think to himself, “Huh, everyone else is sitting, so I’m going to also.” On that day, though, he sat down and stayed seated until the other kids stood. He observed this behavior and stood on his own! This would have been unheard of just a few months earlier. But meaningful inclusion has meant Percy can join his neurotypical peers at his own pace.

I am so proud of Percy. More importantly, he’s proud of himself. It is a joy to see. And there are so many kids out there like Percy who just need to be seen for who they are, for their exceptional gifts, not just their most challenging behaviors, and to be supported in their learning.

By embracing neurodiversity and providing tailored support for diverse learners, schools can not only transform lives but also reshape the narrative surrounding students with learning and behavioral differences.

Next September, when I pull out that first day of school chalkboard, I think I’ll let Percy fill in that blank himself. Because I know now that he will get to grow up to be anything he wants to be.

Cassie Hauschildt is a mom of two kids living outside of Fort Worth, Texas. Her children attend Rocketship Explore Elementary.

Acoger a los estudiantes inmigrantes, más que un desafío generacional, es una obligación moral

2024-04-05T16:21:09+00:00

Read in English.

No se puede negar el desafío que presenta la afluencia de estudiantes recién llegados. Existen requisitos de pruebas, necesidades de transporte y apoyos académicos y de salud mental en español, por nombrar algunos. Como hijo de padres inmigrantes y líder del distrito escolar más grande de Colorado, estoy seguro de que las Escuelas Públicas de Denver han asumido el compromiso de responder a las nuevas necesidades.

Dr. Alex Marrero

Denver cuenta con el mayor ingreso de estudiantes recién llegados al país per cápita entre todas las grandes ciudades de Estados Unidos que no están situadas a lo largo de la frontera sur. Desde julio de 2023, las Escuelas Públicas de Denver han dado la bienvenida a más de 3,500 estudiantes inmigrantes.

En los últimos meses, he caminado por los pasillos de más de cien escuelas de Denver y me he reunido con muchos de nuestros estudiantes recién llegados al país, con sus familias y con los educadores dedicados a servirles. He visto cómo el miedo y la tristeza en los ojos de estos estudiantes se transformaba en brillo y alegría. He visto el incremento de apoyos y servicios por parte de miles de maestros y empleados escolares al organizar colectas de ropa de invierno y sesiones informativas sobre el sistema escolar estadounidense. A lo largo de este proceso, nuestros líderes han evolucionado y nuestro Distrito se ha enriquecido.

Mi propia formación, como hijo de un refugiado cubano y una inmigrante dominicana, me dejó profundas lecciones sobre cómo las escuelas públicas pueden contribuir a que las familias recién llegadas prosperen. Décadas más tarde, me siento orgulloso de liderar la labor de las Escuelas Públicas de Denver para apoyar a nuestros estudiantes recién llegados al país.

Los seis centros comunitarios del Distrito han sido clave para apoyar a las familias recién llegadas a medida que rehacen sus vidas en Denver.

Ante la escasez de maestros en el área, las Escuelas Públicas de Denver crearon un Instituto Internacional de Educadores para reclutar a candidatos internacionales altamente calificados a fin de cubrir vacantes cruciales, incluyendo a educadores multilingües. Hasta la fecha, hemos contratado con éxito el 98 % de los cargos docentes presupuestados, con un enfoque en candidatos diversos para satisfacer las distintas necesidades de nuestros estudiantes.

Los seis centros comunitarios del Distrito han sido clave para apoyar a las familias recién llegadas a medida que rehacen sus vidas en Denver. Desde su inauguración en 2022, estos centros ofrecen ayuda con todo: desde asistencia alimentaria hasta servicios médicos y capacitación laboral. Aunque su mantenimiento es costoso, ayudan a garantizar que nuestros estudiantes dispongan de lo necesario para prosperar. El Distrito también ha asumido el compromiso de brindar transporte confiable, comidas nutritivas, apoyo para la salud mental y acceso a la tecnología.

Siendo conscientes del desafío que esto supone a nivel estatal y nacional, agradecemos a todos los distritos escolares y líderes que abogan por un apoyo financiero estatal y federal. Estos esfuerzos subrayan la importancia de la unidad y la responsabilidad compartida para abordar las necesidades educativas de los integrantes más nuevos de nuestra comunidad. Es más que una responsabilidad; es nuestra obligación moral como educadores.

Deseo asegurar a las familias recién llegadas al país instaladas en Denver que, a pesar de las circunstancias que los han traído hasta aquí, todos los niños que entren por nuestras puertas tendrán acceso a una educación de la más alta calidad. Aunque acoger esta gran afluencia de estudiantes recién llegados ha presentado desafíos en materia de personal y servicios, y ha tenido un impacto presupuestario que ahora asciende a decenas de millones de dólares, también ha demostrado nuestra determinación de defender nuestra misión de equidad e inclusión educativa para todos los estudiantes.

Mientras yo sea superintendente, las Escuelas Públicas de Denver seguirán defendiendo esta causa y alentando a todos los niños. Tenemos el compromiso de honrar el legado de quienes han allanado el camino de la equidad y la justicia, y hemos posicionado a nuestras escuelas como el motor que impulsa las oportunidades y el avance para todos.

El Dr. Alex Marrero es el superintendente de las Escuelas Públicas de Denver.

I turned my kitchen table into a classroom. Then I took the idea schoolwide.

2024-03-25T16:48:33+00:00

Each year when June came around, a handful of my students faced a dilemma: Knock out those last assignments, or extend their high school career one more semester.

These young adults had no time to lose. With many already bringing up kids of their own, they scraped together what they could to buy groceries and pay rent. Many claimed gangs. All had abandoned or been abandoned by traditional schools in their South or East Los Angeles neighborhoods and now attended our one-room alternative high school.

As students in an independent studies environment, they built their school schedule around their complicated lives and worked at their own pace to complete assignments for one subject at a time. There were no traditional classes, just me as the sole teacher to guide them through it all. Now, so close to the finish line, it only seemed right to give them what I gave my own kid: a kitchen table where we shared a hot supper before buckling down for some homework each night.

Shanley Rhodes

We kept the rules simple: No one under the age of 18 for liability reasons. No cell phones and all focus. Leave by 10 p.m., because my husband and I were already both too old for all-nighters. Keep the language clean, because my child was still in elementary school.

It worked. Fueled by Trader Joe’s snacks and their own grit, each June these “kitchen table students” put the finishing flourishes on their last essays and made peace with math. Once they did, these students proudly walked across the graduation stage.

Two years later, as a middle school principal in a similarly under-resourced community, I faced an interesting dilemma. Despite students’ strong standardized test scores, many courses had fail rates of 50% or more. “They just don’t sit down at the kitchen table and do their homework,” a teacher asserted.

“Let’s talk about why that is,” I said. “Let’s figure out a way to rethink what the kitchen table might be.”

Together as a staff we began brainstorming, imagining the literal kitchen table space as it might look for each student. For some of our students, that meant no table at all, because they lived in a motel or a car. Some had a kitchen table, but there were so many people in the house that there was no room to set up shop there. Some didn’t have electricity. Some didn’t have quiet. Some didn’t have adults at home in the evenings to get them going. Some didn’t have anyone at all to ask for help when they got stuck. Some had to make dinner. Some had to watch after younger siblings and cousins. Some went to church every night of the week. Some worked. Some ran the streets. Some conducted business in the streets.

We knew we couldn’t ensure all of our students had real kitchen tables where learning could happen. So we moved from the literal to the metaphorical. A “kitchen table” is a space where you can breathe easily, and where you are comfortable and safe enough to focus with confidence. There must be time, lots of time, without interruptions from family drama, from the street, from work that brings in money now but isn’t going to get anyone to college all on its own.

We resolved that we would list out the students who wouldn’t/couldn’t/didn’t do their homework. Every adult at the school would take on a cohort of these students to nudge and nag, to cheer for and cheer up. We couldn’t all be everything to our students. Some of us were great at answering algebra questions. Some of us knew the days each local food bank was open. The essential task was simply to keep tabs on our kitchen table students and connect them to the adults at the school or the agencies in the community who had what they needed.

Four years ago, COVID pandemic restrictions elevated the kitchen table to schoolhouse status. As a society, we did what we had to do to keep people alive. But we know now what we suspected even then: Many young people were locked down at home without a kitchen table — literally, metaphorically, or both. They paid a huge price. They lost out on learning. Their mental health suffered. Their hopes and dreams seemed and still seem further from reach. How, now, will we make up for lost time when so many students never really had a kitchen table to begin with?

I’m not suggesting educators take their work with them each night, but I do believe healthy school communities can make the metaphor real. At its heart, the kitchen table is hope held out for young people who might struggle to find it on their own. It is having somebody who asks “How are you?” each day and pays attention to the answer. It is adults knowing whether each student has a home today and who might not have one tomorrow. It is having someone to ask for help — with math or with life, or both. Both old-fashioned and radical, the kitchen table metaphor means every student has at least one space in the day to call their own, to feel safe, and to be seen.

Shanley Rhodes, Ed.D., has been a Los Angeles educator for 25 years. She has launched two high schools and spent many years working with formerly incarcerated youth and adults. She and her husband, an elementary school administrator, are the proud parents of a college sophomore.

I teach at an all-girls public school. Advocating for my students means prioritizing joy.

2024-04-01T11:00:00+00:00

I teach at my dream school — an all-girls public school rich in culture and diversity and in the same Detroit system where I was raised. From the day I started, I envisioned all the ways I would teach my students to have a powerful voice. I was convinced of the opposition they would face in the world as women of color, and I believed that I could help them grow up to be strong women.

Ironically, at the same time, I was exhausted from being strong.

I had come from another school where I was burnt out from the demands of hybrid teaching during COVID and making sure my students were OK during such a tumultuous time. Library shutdowns had negatively impacted Progressionista, the book club I started for girls in Detroit. All the while economic uncertainty, familial responsibilities, and social pressures loomed over me. My nervous system was in the worst shape of my life.

Shanel Adams

Yet when I came to work, I had something deeper than purpose; I had childlike joy. The pink uniforms that sprinkled my classroom and the light laughter that came from my third graders brought me back to my own girlhood. My desire to teach them to be strong melted away each day. We developed class songs that brought together our learning using melodies. We sat in circles and had beautiful discussions around identity. I re-braided hair and helped adjust hijabs back in place. Amid rigorous assignments and implementing the science of reading, I learned to breathe as a teacher. My classroom became a wonderland where joy was at the forefront.

But alongside the joy was grief. I grieved the adultification present in my own childhood attending Detroit Public Schools in the 1990s and early 2000s. Though I had incredible teachers, nothing about my classroom environments were soft or joyful. There were not many moments where I felt safe as a girl.

As early as third grade, I recall boys in class making comments about my body. Even rites of passage like my first period were humiliating. After a speaker came to our school and handed out menstrual products, a boy went into all the girls’ lockers and threw the products on the floor. All the boys laughed in unison at us picking them back up. I learned in school that being a girl was something to hide, riddled with shame, and I had to be strong if I wanted to navigate life as a woman.

I know that advocacy is only sustainable when balanced with joy and rest.

The lecturer and activist ebonyjanice describes in her book “All the Black Girls Are Activists’' that joy for Black women can be “an act of radical resistance.” Her work brings language to what my first-year teaching all-girls revealed to me. Teaching girls of color to be as strong as possible is inherently discriminatory. It rips away their right to be vulnerable and complex. It takes away their right to define their experiences as they see fit.

The joy we experienced in that third-grade class was revolutionary. As a self-proclaimed “strong Black woman” who was trained to be resilient by the dynamic women who raised me, too much joy made me feel guilty. To my fortune, I was taught how transformative joy-based pedagogy was to a classroom community.

We need books that center Black joy

That school year, I vividly remember welcoming two newcomers from Afghanistan into my classroom. It was my first experience with English Language Learners, and I had no idea how to connect with them. After buying children’s books in their dialect and having some basic English assignments prepared, I was lost at how to include them in the joyful community we’d built. One day, I decided to take my class to the gymnasium. The two Afghan girls, who had been quiet their first two days at school, were laughing and smiling alongside their classmates. There were no language or cultural barriers — just a group of girls and their teacher trying to get a ball through a net. Joy was the great equalizer.

In the three years I’ve taught at this all-girls public school, I have embraced joy I didn’t know was possible. I have remembered my girlhood.

While I know how important it is for my students to be able to write about the injustices they notice — using powerful women like Shirley Chisholm and Malala Yousafzai as role models — I know that advocacy is only sustainable when balanced with joy and rest.

After I complete lesson plans, I practice new cooking recipes. On school breaks, I scrapbook. During my lunch breaks, my students teach me to crochet. I embrace joyful hobbies to center myself amid the chaos that comes with strong womanhood. I celebrate my life, and I teach my students to do the same.

Shanel Adams is a teacher and literacy advocate committed to girls’ education, multicultural curricula, and project-based learning. She is the founder of Progressionista, a library-based book club program for girls where they meet a woman professional at each meeting. Adams is also an English and Language Arts teacher at Detroit International Academy for Young Women, the only all-girls public school in the state of Michigan.

It’s time to pay student teachers

2024-04-05T10:00:00+00:00

I fell in love with teaching while working as an assistant educator at a preschool 16 years ago. I had not studied education, so I enrolled in an alternative certification program specifically designed for people who were already working in education. There were many advantages: evening classes, minimum tuition, and, most importantly, no need to quit my job. My classroom, where I planned to continue teaching after student teaching, even counted toward my student teaching requirement. That program made a teaching license and a master’s degree accessible.

My coworker Liv, meanwhile, has yet to earn her license. When she started as an assistant teacher in my classroom nearly five years ago, she was nearing the end of her teacher preparation program with only the student teaching requirement to complete. To this day, her student teaching has remained beyond reach.

That’s because her program requires 11 weeks of student teaching and specifies that candidates cannot get paid. Liv already works at a preschool, and, as she put it, “leaving a job for three months is really challenging.” She relies on her income and on employer-sponsored health insurance.

Katie Viernum

Liv’s situation is not unique. While many other professions have shifted to paid internships or apprenticeships, student teaching continues to be largely unpaid. Many teacher preparation programs that prohibit paid student teaching offer no explanation for the practice; others justify it by saying that the requirement is part of the learning experience.

Considering the current teacher shortage, it’s time to rethink the teacher preparation and certification process. This is especially true in the early childhood space, where retention and advancement are notorious problems.

Student teaching should be authentic and valuable. It should not be a financial burden, particularly for people already working in the field. Paraprofessionals, unlicensed lead teachers, childcare providers, and teaching assistants like Liv make up a great pool of racially and economically diverse teacher candidates. These educators stand poised to fill essential roles. Additionally, their presence in classrooms will promote diversity and equity in the field. Removing any barriers to their advancement makes sense all around.

Many teacher preparation programs that prohibit paid student teaching offer no explanation for the practice; others justify it by saying that the requirement is part of the learning experience.

Here in Illinois, the State Board of Education specifies that student teachers may be paid for student teaching. While not all teacher certification programs have gotten on board, there has been progress. Grow Your Own and teacher residency programs provide limited financial support, and the Early Childhood Access Consortium for Education, or ECACE, allows participants to complete their student teaching in their place of employment if the teacher and site meet certain state and university requirements.

Recent data indicates that most programs participating in ECACE allow such flexibility for at least some portion of student teaching. The remaining programs should adjust their policies to allow that same flexibility for people already working in the field.

In a recent brief from Teach Plus Illinois Early Childhood Policy Fellows, my colleagues and I recommend ways in which the state education board, universities, and other stakeholders can further reduce barriers to student teaching. All programs should allow student teaching to be paid. To achieve this standard, the state must explicitly prohibit programs from preventing paid student teaching. For incumbent educators, that could mean student teaching for their regular salary at their place of employment.

Allowing educators to student teach where they work would require no additional funding. It would necessitate fewer transitions and offer more stability for children. In addition, schools would not need to fill positions temporarily while staff left to student teach elsewhere. For people not currently working in a classroom, the state or individual school districts should provide stipends to student teachers. The Teacher Vacancy Grant Pilot Program offers an avenue for school districts to support student teachers financially as a way to strengthen teacher pipelines.

Teachers, education organizations, and the Illinois Education Association have drafted a state bill, HB4652, to establish a stipend program for student teachers in Illinois. If passed and fully funded, it would provide a $10,000 stipend for a full semester of student teaching.

As a Teach Plus fellow, I worked with fellow educators, researching the history of and current policies around student teaching, and surveying educators about their needs. Our research-based recommendations helped inform this bill.

Because of the flexibility of my alternative certification program, I obtained my professional educator license and became a lead teacher. It has given me a stronger voice in the classroom and the school, a higher salary, and the ability to assist others on their professional journey.

But five years after joining our classroom, Liv still is waiting on her teaching license. We need to make changes to allow Liv and other teacher candidates to advance in their careers and help fill teacher vacancies in Illinois.

Katie Viernum is a lead teacher at Loyola University Preschool in Chicago and a 2023–2024 Teach Plus Illinois Early Childhood Educator Senior Policy Fellow.

I’m a student climate activist in NYC. The fight is local, and it’s personal.

2022-08-05T12:00:00+00:00

A summer storm in New York City again proved how unprepared our neighborhoods are for intense rainfall and other climate-induced extreme weather. In Washington Heights, where I live, there were pools of water at crosswalks with nowhere to drain. When I finished work on July 18 and returned to our basement apartment at around 5 p.m., my mother was emptying the water seeping into our entrance. She’d been at it for almost three hours.

I waited outside until the water drained enough and I could jump over the steps to get inside my home. I’m used to it. Our house floods almost every time we have a massive storm. Hurricanes and tropical storms are the worst, but even a heavy rainstorm, like the one last month, brings pools of water to my home, and elsewhere throughout Northern Manhattan.

Iovanni Romarion

As climate change causes increasing and irreversible damage to communities like Washington Heights, what are families like mine supposed to do? Just get used to it and hope the next storm isn’t as strong? Due to poor sanitation management in some areas of the city, trash and debris are more likely to pile up on the streets, which can strain the city’s sewage system during storms. Furthermore, bacteria from waste can enter runoff water and impact the health and well-being of our local ecosystems, vegetation, and residents.

While our city needs improved infrastructure, trash matters, too. With intensified climate change and more massive storms, one fix is to make sure garbage doesn’t clog drains, thus preventing flooding by improving the quality and consistency of sanitation.

Keeping the streets of Washington Heights clean is a climate justice issue.

When I think about environmental and climate justice, I consider the long history of resistance, transformation, and youth leadership. Specifically, I think about the summer of 1969, when the Young Lords (a political and civil rights organization), responding to an overflow of garbage on the streets of El Barrio, or East Harlem, turned uncollected refuge into street barricades. They set some of it on fire, and the incident became known as the garbage fires of freedom.

Fast-forward half a century, my peers at Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School and I have dedicated ourselves to the youth-led Clean Air Green Corridor, which empowers Black and brown high school youth to reimagine and reclaim public spaces. We are working to transform five blocks along 182nd Street between Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway into a hub for building community power, healing, climate change resilience, and grassroots action in Washington Heights. We have our work cut out for us.

Because climate change means severe storms will increase, and they will disproportionately impact marginalized communities in flood zones.

According to the Rainfall Ready NYC Action Plan, “New Yorkers can expect rainfall volumes and intensities that our city’s infrastructure was not designed to capture.” Since low-income neighborhoods of color, like Washington Heights and Dyckman, have less green infrastructure than more affluent neighborhoods, residents of these neighborhoods must contend with the most severe effects of climate change. Put simply: If the city does not invest in my community’s environment, my family’s home will deteriorate.

Keeping our streets clean is also a racial justice issue.

I have lived in Northern Manhattan, east of Broadway, my whole life. Many low-income, Latinx, immigrant, mixed status, and Spanish-speaking New Yorkers live there. Asthma rates are high. The conditions, cleanliness, and access to sanitation services for our streets do not compare to that west of Broadway, where the population is less dense, more affluent, and, yes, whiter.

I applaud the efforts of our New York City Councilmember Carmen De La Rosa, state Sen. Robert Jackson, and neighbors in Washington Heights — all of whom have come together to advocate for and lead community trash clean-ups (on city streets and in local parks) Such clean-ups recognize city streets are where we live, work, play, pray, and learn. As we continue to emerge from COVID and prepare for the increasingly harmful impacts of climate change, I hope that the city responds to our community’s need for a cleaner, greener environment and invests in valuable green infrastructure projects, like our Clean Air Green Corridor, which is working to connect six schools and thousands of community residents to open, green space along 182nd Street.

I also hope that this moment empowers members of our community to advocate for more waste management services in our neighborhood. Regardless of ZIP code or circumstances, we all deserve to live in a clean, healthy, thriving, and beautiful neighborhood.

Iovanni Romarion, a lifelong resident of Washington Heights, is an environmental Intern at Futures Ignite. He is a proud 2021 graduate of the Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School, or WHEELS, and a rising sophomore at the University of Chicago.

I am a veteran history teacher. Let me teach history.

2021-05-25T19:29:20+00:00

A couple of years ago, as I listened to a radio report about how North Carolina’s strict voter ID law “targets African Americans with almost surgical precision,” my eyes welled with tears. I wondered: Why do they hate us so much? Now the headlines in North Carolina, the state where I live and teach U.S. history, civics, and economics, read: “North Carolina House approves bill to limit teaching of race.” My reaction this time is different: This cannot and will not continue.

And it’s not just North Carolina. Lawmakers in states around the country are attempting to block the teaching of critical race theory, which looks at how racism continues to affect individuals and society. (One such bill was signed into law in Tennessee this week.)

Valencia Ann Abbott

I am a Black woman, and teaching my history — telling the truth about it — should not be controversial. Teaching historical facts in context should not merit a parent email that turns into a parent conference with the administration. An award-winning, vetted book should not be why calls are made to the district central office. Teachers are professionals, and while every lesson is not perfect, each teaching moment has the potential to challenge students, help them grow, and inspire their love of learning.

As a history teacher, a professional educator with years of experience in the classroom, my main job is to teach historical truths. Each year I attend so many professional development sessions that I sometimes don’t even turn in all of my continuing education credit certificates because I have surpassed the requirements for teacher recertification. In addition, I regularly connect with colleagues and organizations on social media to bring my students the most comprehensive and contemporary understanding of my content area. Finally, I often spend weekends at historical sites or walking trails while listening to the latest book talk on relevant topics. I do this so that I can be better, stronger, and know more for my students — and also because I have a passion for the study of history.

I come to my classroom prepared to teach, with hours of planning and research under my belt. Yet, after several recent incidents, I have left the classroom deflated, accused, and filled with anxiety. For example, one of my recent lessons about how the First Amendment protects the right to protest included an article about the Black Lives Matter movement that was met with criticism from a parent.

“They don’t do that in our home,” the parent told me.

Do what, I wondered. Learn about a current event that is gripping the country? Understand that that history is steeped in protest and civil rights are hard-won? See value in the lives of people of African descent? What do they think the American Revolution was, if not a big, old protest?

During the 2008 presidential election, I was teaching in Virginia. Soon after the media called the state of Virginia for Barack Obama, my youngest daughter sent me a text thanking me for living in the state that would give the country its first Black president. To me, that is my most precious memory of this historical moment.

During the 2020 election, I was teaching through a computer screen. I could see my students’ names, but that’s about it; their cameras were often off and their mics muted. To state the obvious, it wasn’t the ideal space to have organic political conversations with teenagers. But watching parades of trucks waving gigantic Confederate and Trump flags and seeing heinous postings on our social media platforms, I understood the polarization that continues to grip us and is making its way into my virtual and physical classroom.

This is not to say all of my efforts to teach “controversial” topics have been met with hostility. I had a 10th grade student tell me he was glad that I came to teach at her school because she had not learned about Black history until I got there. This student had spent over a decade in the public school system — and just now was having her first lessons that centered Black people. Not that it matters, but that student is white.

Another student sent me an email full of emotion after reading the book “Enrique’s Journey,” a true story about an undocumented immigrant family. It was the first time she had her culture reflected back to her in an educational setting, she wrote.

I hung a poster on the classroom wall of Harvey Milk, California’s first openly gay elected official, on the classroom wall, alongside images of Thomas Jefferson and the Constitution that I got from James Madison’s Montpelier. I did this because intentionally choosing to incorporate those underrepresented voices in the teaching of the curriculum is what an effective teacher does. Knowing that these voices matter to all students is what a caring teacher does.

The point is that none of this should be “controversial” to teach. My job is to teach historical truths, to help my students become critical readers and thinkers and skillful and persuasive writers. Revealing long-ignored history gives students a more comprehensive understanding of the past, which in turn gives us a deeper understanding of ourselves.

I make sure that my students’ identities are reflected in the lessons as I teach in civics and economics and American History I and II (which should be titled United States History I and II) so that my students understand the power that they hold in the world.

But the classroom has become a minefield of political dos and don’ts. Some educators have told me that there are now certain topics (truths!) that they will not touch or teach out of fear that it will put their jobs in jeopardy. Legislative attempts to block the teaching of critical race theory and The New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project only raise the temperature. I am tired and mad that in the 21st century, I’m still fighting for people to see humanity in our Blackness, still forced to convince people in power that our stories are worthy of being taught.

Valencia Ann Abbott is the social studies department chair and a history teacher at Rockingham Early College High School in Wentworth, North Carolina. Abbott spearheads “The Civil Rights Movement Beyond 1968: Griggs vs. Duke Power Company” project, marking the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling in a landmark employment discrimination case.

‘Parents are not allowed in the classroom.’ Here’s why that’s a problem.

2024-03-01T12:00:00+00:00

Just before my daughter’s second birthday, I excitedly emailed her preschool teacher to coordinate a birthday celebration with peers. Then came the teacher’s response, “Unfortunately parents are not allowed in the classroom but we can take some pictures for you!”

Her response left me hurt, disappointed, annoyed, and angry.

Even though I read, write, and research on family-school relations, I had somehow chosen a school with “come if we call” tendencies. In these schools, the staff decides who enters the building. Parents are expected to get advance permission to visit and to show up when invited. This approach suggests parents don’t actually belong and aren’t truly welcome.

Shannon Paige Clark

I could have asked questions. I could have requested we compromise. I could have reached out to the principal to express my displeasure. But I did not want to be that parent, especially as one of few Black mothers with children in that school. That parent — as in the one who gets labeled angry or difficult for their advocacy.

Instead, I told a colleague about the incident, “Can you believe her teacher told me I was not allowed in her classroom? That’s a dealbreaker for me. Had I known they had policies like this, I would never have sent her there.”

I’m a parent who sends holiday cards with gifts and who delivers treats for special occasions. Yet, in just one sentence fragment — “parents are not allowed in the classroom” — my desire to do anything more with the school or for the teacher was smoldered.

For decades, policymakers and school personnel have had the unilateral authority to decide who is welcome in schools. In some districts, there are policies that limit approved visitors to people who have passed background checks, drug tests, and completed an arduous volunteer screening. Others decide on the basis of a range of superficial biases, such as attire or hairstyle. In extreme cases, some parents find themselves forbidden to come within a certain number of feet of their children’s school.

I understand that schools must enact policies that enable them to maintain a safe learning environment. But I’m not convinced that all policies do so.

My own email exchange with my daughter’s teacher made me less likely to do the things the school assumes “good” parents do, like volunteer and participate in school-organized social activities. I simply don’t feel welcome. If I cannot come in when I ask politely in advance, why should I come in when you call? Many institutions have visitation policies. I get that. But why can I visit the classroom to volunteer but not to sing “Happy Birthday”? Is my presence only safe when I am fulfilling a school need?

The benefits of engaged families outweigh the risks avoided by keeping parents out.

Perhaps my example sounds trivial. For me, it was anything but. Because if I was treated this way over birthday festivities, what happens when there is an issue that affects my child’s learning or well-being?

As a former elementary school teacher, I know that another set of eyes can foster angst. I understand that guests can interrupt routines. I do not expect teachers to drop everything to accommodate parents, nor do I expect them to always say yes. But I do expect a dialogue that invites alternatives.

What’s clear to me, as a parent and researcher, is that there are too many practices and policies that suggest families stay out of schools and keep their mouths shut. In a group of parents I interviewed about making peace after an unpleasant interaction with school personnel, one mother explained, “I didn’t [resolve the problem] because I have really bad anxiety, and that teacher is a character, and I already knew she was going to tell me I had to schedule a meeting that conflicted with my other obligations.” While this mother wanted to discuss an incident by phone, school policy required a face-to-face meeting, which made the mother anxious and would require her to take time off work.

I would have been content if my daughter’s teacher had written, “Unfortunately, we haven’t been allowing parents in the classroom since the pandemic began. If it’s very important, you can visit for 15 minutes.” They could have asked me to wear a mask or show the results of a negative COVID test.

Or she could have said something like, “I know how important birthdays are to many parents of young children, and I’m sorry to be the one to tell you that parents are not invited in the classroom because …” At least then, I would have felt like she empathized with my situation and had given my request serious consideration.

In my research, I characterize interactions among families and schools by their warmth and openness. I use these terms because they convey feelings that influence how people interact. If a teacher or a parent exudes warmth and openness in their tone, body language, and word choice, there are increased opportunities for proactive two-way communication and the ability to find common ground.

While the offer to take pictures conveyed some warmth on the part of my daughter’s teacher, I did not feel enough openness to my desires as a mother, and I replied accordingly.

It is my sincere hope that, as my daughters grow, I will find schools for them where I can have trusting relationships characterized by mutual respect — schools where my presence in the classroom would never be perceived as a threat. Teachers deserve parents who can be there when they need them. And parents deserve to be welcome in their children’s classrooms.

The benefits of engaged families outweigh the risks avoided by keeping parents out. But most of us are too afraid to find out what happens when schools embrace parents because we have been conditioned to see otherwise.

I really wish my daughter’s teacher would have simply said “Come on in!”

If she had, I would not be second-guessing my decision to enroll her in that school. I would not wonder whether there are some parents who are allowed in the classroom. Most importantly, I would not doubt that her teacher understood the significance of honoring parent requests like mine; I simply wanted to celebrate a milestone.

Shannon Paige Clark, Ph.D., is a mother of two young children. She has worked in and with public schools for nearly 15 years, first as an elementary school teacher and then as an instructional coach. Dr. Clark is a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University. She researches Black families’ experiences with schools.

We don’t have to choose between academic recovery and social-emotional learning

2022-12-02T13:00:00+00:00

National test scores showing dramatic declines in student achievement have prompted some politicians and school board candidates to call for education to go “back to basics.” Now is the time to focus on core academic subjects, they say, not things like social-emotional learning.

As a former teacher and school principal, and as the mother of a third grader and sixth grader, I believe academic recovery is paramount. But any claim that suggests schools exclude a focus on social and emotional learning, or SEL, misses the real “basics” of student learning.

Dr. Aaliyah A. Samuel

I lead an organization that promotes social and emotional learning, and I often hear from people who see academics and SEL as a zero-sum game. Some of them believe it’s a choice between core academic subjects and attention to social-emotional skill-building, such as learning to manage emotions, make responsible and caring decisions, and show empathy for others.

From where I sit, I know the opposite is true. Independent studies have shown social and emotional learning to be a powerful tool for boosting academic achievement. But you don’t need researchers to tell you why this is the case. Any parent or teacher knows the basics of learning involve supportive relationships, joy, and skills like perseverance and effective communication.

With my younger son, I’ve seen firsthand that productive academic learning doesn’t happen unless students feel valued and heard in the classroom. Last year, he struggled socially and was teased by other children about his braids. Because he didn’t have a strong relationship with his teacher, he didn’t tell her. Had his classroom prioritized SEL alongside academics, I believe he would have felt empowered to ask for help. Instead, he said, he was just trying “not to be seen.”

Any parent or teacher can tell you the basics of learning involve supportive relationships, joy, and skills like perseverance and effective communication.

Now, as a third grader, my son is engaged and excited to learn. His teacher’s focus on social and emotional learning has helped him develop connections with educators and classmates. Not only does she teach them strategies for asking for help and building relationships, she makes connections to students’ interests, models kindness and empathy, and carves out time to support every child.

The pandemic has impacted education in ways we won’t fully understand for years. What is clear is that real recovery will require schools to help students engage, connect with content, set and achieve goals, and focus on learning. A recent survey from Pew Research found that 93% of parents said it’s important that schools teach their students skills such as respect, cooperation, perseverance, and empathy. That doesn’t mean they want SEL to replace math, English, and science. Rather they see SEL as I do: a prerequisite for academic success.

Similarly, district administrators also ranked mental health as a top priority in a recent poll. And research shows that academic activities that spark emotion or give students opportunities to interact socially with each other lead to deeper, longer-term learning.

Schools and families need a multi-pronged approach to address the pandemic-related losses kids have experienced. That includes a deep focus on academic learning as well as bringing joy back to schools and cultivating relationships between students and teachers. We have to get back to what makes school the fun and supportive learning environment that we know it can be. As a teacher myself, I know that students could care less about what you are presenting to them unless they trust the adult teaching it.

The question of whether or not academics are critical is not up for debate. The real question is how educators actually go about teaching academic content in a way that allows students to engage with it.

I’ve seen the benefits of social and emotional learning in real time. Recently, when my younger son had an opportunity to miss school for a day, he insisted on attending, saying: “Mom, Mrs. H says I’m the light of her day, so I have to go to school.”

Dr. Aaliyah A. Samuel is the CEO of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, or CASEL, a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child, and a former NWEA official.

The U.S. government says I’m white. That’s not how I see myself.

2022-12-06T10:00:00+00:00

Peering over my father’s shoulder, I see him twirling a pen as he considers this question on the 2020 Census: What is Person 1’s race? My dad hesitates, and I look closer at the paper to see why he looked so unsure of which box to check.

These were the choices: American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and White (with further selections for various Hispanic and Asian sub-groups). None of these “labels” apply to our family.

So, what are we?

Douae Maarouf

My parents immigrated from Morocco. Most of my grandparents have Arab ancestry with the exception of my maternal grandpa, who is Amazigh, a group indigenous to North Africa and parts of Mauritania, northern Mali, and northern Niger. With white skin and deep roots in Africa, I don’t identify as white, African American, or any other categories on the census. The federal government, however, calls those of us from the Middle East and North Africa — from Morocco, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and elsewhere in the region — white.

But as someone with an ethnic name who has encountered weird stares and biased remarks for being a hijabi Arab American, I believe that the privileges that come with being white do not necessarily align with my experiences. The laughs I hear after the teacher mispronounces my name while reading off the attendance sheet or the occasional snide remarks about terrorism from students are just a couple of the instances when I have felt like an outsider.

After watching my dad consider the census categories and ultimately pick White, I returned to my room and thought hard about my origins and identity, seemingly limited by the choices on a federal form. I didn’t feel adequately represented or seen in my entirety by any of the racial categories on federal forms.

Sure, the census offers a fill-in-the-blank option, but the form lists people from countries in North Africa and the Middle East, such as Egypt and Lebanon, under White.

Nada Maghabouleh, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Toronto, has said that many people of Middle Eastern and North African descent aren’t perceived — and don’t perceive themselves — as white. As she told NPR, “some of their experiences were actually closer to communities of color in the U.S,” given the discrimination many of us face.

With white skin and deep roots in Africa, I don’t identify as white, African American, or any other categories on the census.

I discovered that my friends and other family members shared the same experiences. Zineb Hbabou, a friend from New York City, was frustrated by the lack of representation on college and government-issued forms and surveys. She believes that the allocation of services for these groups is hindered by this exclusion, with “major implications for social justice.” My cousin Ayah Maarouf described her struggle like this: “We are put under the title of one thing, yet, the treatment we receive from the media and the people around us is nowhere near the same. I feel more closely connected to communities of color than the white collective.”

A scroll through TikTok or Instagram reveals that many others feel ambivalent about checking a racial category on government forms, as well as college and other applications. I am a high-school senior and have begun to apply to colleges. Questions about my ethnicity, with no Middle Eastern/North African, or MENA, option, make me feel uncomfortable and unseen. With so many institutions labeling us as white, people of Arab ancestry are often rendered invisible in official statistics, which health and education researchers may rely on.

Although MENA is not an official category on the U.S. Census yet, I’ve realized there are still so many ways I can promote this change, retain my identity, and connect with others who share a similar background. I repost social media threads to shed light on the lack of representation for MENA individuals, engage in discussions with friends in and out of the MENA community, and sign petitions to add another racial category to official forms. I also join clubs and attend events for Arabs, North Africans, and people of Middle Eastern descent. I feel especially proud of my heritage among others who share it. There is so much work that needs to be done. But these small initiatives have brought me closer to understanding who I am and connected me with those whose experiences mirror my own.

Douae Maarouf is a senior at the Baccalaureate School for Global Education. She is an Arab and Amazigh Moroccan who lives in Queens, New York. Douae is a food photographer, blogger, and recipe developer for Sarah’s Kitchen. In her free time, she finds joy in reading, creating episodes for her podcast Talking Under the Stars, exploring NYC, and binging “Criminal Minds” episodes.

Out of the classroom, I feel less jaded but also less joy

2022-12-07T13:00:00+00:00

One teacher quit because they were tired, another for a salary that made their jaw drop when they saw it, and another still to work on an organic farm.

Last year at the high school where I worked, roughly a dozen teachers left between the beginning of August and the end of the school year. Their reasons for leaving were varied; they were also consistent. They were anxious from hard lockdowns, worn out by extra duties, stressed about student data, and worried for their students. Teaching gave them skills that someone else would pay for. It didn’t have to be this hard.

Kate Essig

I am now among them — writing from a place where you don’t have to send an all-staff email to take a bathroom break. I stopped teaching 11th grade English to start a doctoral program in Education in the fall. Now, when people ask me what I’ll do with my degree, I mutter something about research and then confess that I still want to teach.

So why does the classroom beckon? My husband is good company when I work from home, but he doesn’t shimmy through the door with a goofy hello the way my students used to do. Microwaving leftovers is lonely without a colleague to conspire with, and nobody’s practicing TikTok dances in my own hallway. Sure, I can take a midday phone call like I never could while teaching “The Great Gatsby,” but I’m not as present, intellectually engaged, as I was in those lessons either. I have the confidence of knowing my to-do list is surmountable without the challenge of knowing I can never master my craft. I sit more. I laugh less. I check emails during the time I used to check in with people.

Out of the classroom, I am much less jaded, but I also experience much less joy. The author Annie Dillard once wrote that the world is full of “unwrapped gifts and free surprises,” like “pennies cast broadside from a generous hand.” When you teach, those mundane miracles are as dense as the door at dismissal. A student brings you the beginnings of a sci-fi novel they’ve written in their notebook, while two others share sour punch straws that still taste good at 9 a.m., and you remember that, even in a time of increased isolation, schools are places where community happens whether we’re paying attention or not.

I pause when appeals to would-be teachers rely on sentiment without systems of support.

During a particularly challenging moment in the 2020-21 school year, I asked a senior who worked on the school newspaper what he wanted to write about. We were meeting on Zoom, and in the silence before he unmuted I predicted he’d say politics, the pandemic, or punitive discipline policies. “I want to write about how much we — students — care for each other,” he said. “No one really talks about that.”

I want to talk about that.

Still, I pause when appeals to would-be teachers rely on sentiment without systems of support. We know the meaning teachers have. What we don’t always know is whether or not our profession will treat us like professionals. And as states and districts consider bold measures to combat teacher shortages, I think some of us would come back for things that don’t feel radical. A wage commensurate with hours, education, and experience. The ability to schedule doctors’ appointments without docked pay or added guilt. Decision-making processes that feature teacher input, where their perspectives hold the significance their experience has earned.

My decision to leave the classroom came after my two teacher role models chose to leave their schools. These were the kind of people you want teaching your children: smart, caring, creative, and devoted to their craft. Neither of them looked for reasons to leave but both of them found them. The problems they faced weren’t personal but systemic. I followed them out of the classroom, hoping in grad school I’d learn more about why those systems exist and how much they can change. I don’t know how they change, but I’m keeping my resume updated, just in case.

Now, when I hear teacher friends talk about their schools I listen like a thief. Are they valued? What’s their principal like? Do they have a stipend for professional development or access to an in-school sub? Some of them have found places where they feel less jaded and more joy. They exist! I wish there were more of them, for teachers and students, too. I’d trade in unlimited bathroom breaks to teach well and be well.

Kate Essig used to teach in Brooklyn and now lives in St. Louis.

I’m stepping down from the Chicago Board of Education. With change coming, some thoughts on its future.

2022-12-07T18:38:16+00:00

When I was appointed to the Chicago Board of Education in June 2019, I knew my prior experiences — as a teacher, a Chicago Public Schools employee, an educator collaborating with over 30 districts, a CPS parent, and a member of a Local School Council — still might not prepare me for the duties of effectively governing our large and complex district. What I didn’t know was what awaited us in the months and years to come, including a global pandemic.

The heroic efforts of educators and district leadership have kept our district running, and we’ve even made progress in some important areas. CPS launched its equity framework. The Office of Safety & Security reimagined an approach to whole school safety. The board livestreamed and recorded its meetings, and opened new and revised policies to public comment. We’ve engaged community members to inform policy on school programming, funding, and accountability.

Sendhil Revuluri

Today is my final board meeting. As I step away from the toughest and most rewarding volunteer role I’ve ever held, I want to share some reflections I have about the changes and challenges our district has in store.

Our educators focus on student learning outcomes. Our school board should, too.

School systems exist to improve student outcomes. Having great buildings, happy parents, balanced budgets, or satisfied teachers are incredibly important and valuable. But they are the means, not the ends.

Over the last few years, my fellow school board members and I have committed many, many hours to the role, far beyond those visible in public, holding office hours, attending events, visiting schools, talking with stakeholders. But the current reality is that much of our time, attention, and energy is spent not on student outcomes — what matters most to our students and their families — but on the methods used to get there.

Our educators focus on our students to guide their practice. But in some of our most contentious board discussions, on topics such as school reopening, COVID mitigation, or the role of School Resource Officers, the loudest voices often centered adult interests, values, or concerns.

The school board should represent the voice of our community.

Our role as a board is to represent the vision and values of the community. Our main duty as a board is to listen to the community, form a coherent vision, then set, resource, and monitor focused goals that advance that vision.

So while discussions and decisions about effective methods are essential, they’re not our job as a board, but the domain of district leadership. For example, if we hear our community say “it is important that our students read well,” our role is to set a clear goal about student literacy outcomes. What approach or curriculum to use, selecting staff, and so on — that’s the responsibility of district leadership. Then the board must monitor the progress toward that goal.

Our community has varied ideas about which student outcomes matter most, and which means should be used to achieve them. As board members, we have different experiences, opinions, and priorities. We may not agree on everything, including which student outcomes are the most important. As a fellow board member once told me, “if we all agree, then some of us are superfluous.” But when we find areas of broad agreement, we will know where to set our goals.

Whoever is on the board, however they’re selected, what matters most is how they work.

Many Chicagoans have (and have shared) strong opinions about how board members are selected. These discussions often focus on beliefs about what is more democratic, but it’s far less frequent that people ask what will most benefit student outcomes. I believe that the composition of the school board or the method of its selection is far less important than whether it is governing effectively.

Advocates of an elected board have embraced democracy and argued for parity with other Illinois school districts. One can agree with them on these beliefs — as I do — and yet push further, to ensure that the board, however it is selected, governs the district in a way that delivers educational experiences that work better for all of our students.

This is especially crucial right now. Recent results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress show that our students’ current achievement has been set back by the multiple effects of the pandemic. We must ensure this unfinished learning does not lead to a loss of future opportunity, especially given the challenges many of our students face accessing post-secondary education.

Our students need us to govern effectively, and there are tangible, evidence-based, and feasible steps to move in this direction. The steps are both well-defined and adaptable to local context, and with commitment and focus, can be accomplished in six months or less. We owe it to our students not to be distracted from these steps toward effectiveness by political preference, power dynamics, or adult needs.

Just as a classroom teacher assesses their students’ learning, the school board and the public will be able to see and monitor progress towards these outcomes in the whole district, allowing for adjustment and improvement along the way to deliver our students what they deserve.

We must ensure that board members, regardless of the selection process, are informed about their role, and skilled in how to govern to get results for our students. They must be ready to listen to the community, set clear goals, and be held accountable for student outcomes.

And the community must engage on the desired results — and not just at election time. Whether appointed or elected, I hope future board members will be selected based on their commitment, focus, energy, and ability to keep student outcomes first and foremost, rather than the opinions they embrace, the allies they bring, or promises to adopt specific methods.

If we don’t face facts about our buildings and budget, we will shortchange our students.

Like many large urban districts, our student enrollment has changed significantly — including an almost 20% drop in the last decade. While it’s helpful to understand the reasons for this decline, I believe it’s most important to best serve the students who are enrolled in the district now.

That won’t be easy with a finite and inadequate budget, as measured by the evidence-based funding methodology adopted by the state of Illinois. Data compiled by the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University shows that in some schools we spend far more per student while providing neither strong learning outcomes nor the rich and broad experiences they deserve. Our budget is currently balanced, thanks to a once-in-a-generation infusion of federal COVID relief. But as a recent report shows, in just a few years, continuing to do what we’ve always done will lead to annual deficits of hundreds of millions of dollars.

It is a time to choose: between preserving features of how the district has worked in the past and ensuring that our students’ futures are secure. We can’t move our buildings, but we can choose policies and spending to give our students the best possible educational experience we can with the resources and population we have.

At some point, choices to keep our existing buildings, addresses, or school names will impede the quality of students’ educational experience and their learning outcomes. While those spaces may have value to a person or a community, we can’t put that in front of whether our students are safe, learning, and thriving. We must look forward to their future.

One key lever that CPS could apply is making budget projections more visible. This form of long-term financial planning is a best practice recommended by the Government Finance Officers Association and is used by both the City of Chicago, under the direction of both Mayor Emanuel and Mayor Lightfoot, and Cook County.

When each of our students may be with our district for 14 years, a long-term perspective is essential. We are in a car heading for a fiscal cliff. While turning the car off our well-traveled road may be a bit bumpy, the reality of our finite resources means that the only alternative to making changes now is to turn abruptly in several years — causing nausea or injury.

Our choices will determine how well we deliver what our students need and deserve.

Like any big event in our own lives — a graduation, a wedding, or the birth of a child — this moment of governance transition may bring stress, but it also brings the joy of possibility. This is another opportunity to deliver what our students need and deserve. But if we don’t face and accept our current reality, it will be hard for us to change it.

To change, to adapt, to grow is hard — so hard most people don’t even try. But we can do hard things. And we owe it to our students to do so. Their futures, especially those most vulnerable and who are currently furthest from opportunity, are in the balance.

Sendhil Revuluri is a parent of two CPS students, a former teacher, and has served as vice president of the Chicago Board of Education since June 2019. He is stepping down this month.

How a group chat changed me for good

2022-12-13T13:00:00+00:00

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Nothing was more distracting to me than the constant sound of text notifications when I was at the gym. After a while, it became a game for me — the dings keeping pace with my weighted jump rope as it hit the floor. It created a beat of sorts to distract me from the pain. Notifications from the group chat I hadn’t even asked to join in the first place were relentless.

Enoch Naklen

Back then, I didn’t really see the point of the chat. In the years leading up to high school, I had experienced my share of trauma: I had confronted the realities of being a young Black man in today’s society; I had faced down poverty, initially hiding my situation from my peers. In the process, I was determined to rely on the only constant in my life: myself.

I believed that I had to understand myself completely before I could enjoy the company of others. The idea that others could help me figure out or forge parts of my identity never crossed my mind. So I focused on my school work, even when we were learning remotely, and keeping my body in shape at the gym.

The group chat wasn’t a priority, and I mostly ignored it.

But those dings were constant the summer before my junior year of high school. It would be several months before I began casually reading the group chat, surprised to realize that some of the participants shared my interest in basketball and Japanese manga. And here, I thought I’d be the only Black kid at Brooklyn Latin who watched a little anime. But these guys got all the references. Soon, the seven of us were chatting so regularly, we decided we needed a name for our group.

After some back and forth, we named ourselves after the superstar players in the manga “Kuroko’s Basketball.” They called themselves “The Generation of Miracles.” We called ourselves “The Miracles” to symbolize the great potential in each of us and, especially, our collective potential. Together, we shined brighter. We chose a group chat photo from “Kuroko’s Basketball,” and found uncanny similarities between the characters and ourselves. I was the “Aomine” of the group, who was strong and versatile but didn’t like to rely on others.

I did place a high value on independence and self-reliance, and that often meant forgoing group activities. When the rest of the Miracles would set time aside to play basketball or sit together to bond, I mostly opted out to focus on my schoolwork or to craft a new piece of writing. I never considered that my behavior concerned them.

Then one day, in our group chat, I summarized a point one of our favorite rappers had made in an interview. He just said that if he changed his name to Muhammad, people would “accept his new name before questioning why he changed it to something so significant,” I explained. In my reading, he was highlighting the lack of engagement and empathy in today’s society, which can cause misunderstandings between groups of people. I was expecting a resounding “MMMM” in acknowledgment of this idea. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Ding! “You are literally the ones he’s talking about,” one of my friends responded. “Enoch is that person. He’s too prideful to ask.” Ding! “Your ego is sky high, but your humility is very low,” another friend weighed in. Others on the text chain agreed.

I did place a high value on independence and self-reliance, and that often meant forgoing group activities.

I was genuinely confused. What did that quote have to do with ego? And how did sharing a quote turn into a bashing fest, targeting me? I was dismissive and defensive, and I concluded that they don’t know me as well as I know myself.

In quiet moments, though, I wondered how much validity there was to what my friends were telling me. I asked my partner to “give it to me straight.” Gently, she validated what my friends had been saying. What I saw as self-reliance and self-preservation born of past trauma sometimes came off as self-centeredness and a lack of interest in others. I understood now that my friends’ reactions to the quote weren’t malicious. They weren’t trying to pick on me. They cared about me, and they wanted me to consider how my actions affected others.

In a world full of hardships, we may try to shield ourselves from the judgments and distractions of others. But sometimes the protective shield also blocks us from making progress. The Miracles taught me that growth sometimes requires humility, letting our guard down, and listening to those we trust.

I had long lived by the adage that “the most consistent person in your life is yourself.” I still believe that, but also I know that I’m not the only person I need. Those “dings!” — I understand now that they serve a purpose.

Enoch Naklen is a senior at The Brooklyn Latin School and a Chalkbeat Student Voices Fellow. He encourages young adults to have challenging conversations.

After a gun scare, our school district is reeling from the trauma — and the financial toll

2022-12-13T20:35:00+00:00

Months after a threat locked down the school district I work in, students and staff are still reeling.

On June 3, we received a report of a gunman at one of our middle schools. While multiple police agencies searched the building, the rest of our district was on lockdown, unsure of what was happening.

Eventually, we learned a student had called in a false report. But the fallout was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. As prepared as we were to protect our students, the crisis left a lasting impact on every member of our school family. Some of our children no longer see school as their safe place. Some teachers struggle, too.

After the incident in June, we spent hours debriefing. We worked with law enforcement agencies. We shifted professional development time away from reading and math instruction so we could run safety drills with teachers instead. We went above and beyond the state-mandated hours of training on physical security. And all of that took resources that hadn’t been budgeted for school safety.

Likewise, we found ourselves revisiting recent renovations to our elementary school because of a small detail with potentially huge impact. The doors were designed to lock with keys – which means a person needs to run over and manually turn them – rather than flip locks. We’re spending more than $40,000 to fix this so that teachers can more easily protect students from a potential shooter.

Was it worth it? Of course. It also meant we were unable to update our outdated learning spaces. Likewise, local residents would like us to add a school resource officer. But at budget time, we will have to make a choice between that officer and a teacher.

The reality is that, in most cases, every dollar allocated to advance safety is money taken from teaching and learning.

Our district is not alone when struggling under the rising cost of security. In 2021, schools and colleges spent $3.1 billion on safety precautions. Yet, as The New York Times reported, researchers at John Hopkins University found little evidence that major infrastructure modifications have stopped violent school events. An article in The Washington Post went so far as to say, “Experts call it ‘school security theater’ – the idea that if a school system buys enough technology or infrastructure, it can keep its children safe from the horrors of a gunman.”

Even so, what is so tough about these decisions is that students and teachers’ feelings of physical safety make a big impact on our schools. As administrators, teachers, and parents continue to see how school violence is threatening our kids’ emotional health and their education, I hope legislators can lessen the financial burden on districts that are making every sacrifice possible to defend our students.

The U.S. Department of Education has announced $1 billion in grant funds will be available through the Bipartisan Safety Communities Act, one step in that direction. Now, legislators must monitor where spending is most effective. Lawmakers should be under the microscope to determine if their decisions to allocate funding to school safety is the best way to defend our most vulnerable, just as schools and teachers must defend their spending and curriculum decisions.

In my district, we work hard to create a welcoming environment for all students every day. We also have to pause throughout the day to remind students what to do in case of a threat. What to do in the classroom. The cafeteria. The playground.

The reality is that, in most cases, every dollar allocated to advance safety is money taken from teaching and learning.

We want to continue to prioritize social-emotional support – not only for the trauma students and educators experienced in June, but for what they may continue to experience as we practice lockdown drills. And that’s before we even get to working on social-emotional skills to cope with the normal situations they encounter in their day-to-day lives.

Schools everywhere are weighing these costs. Since 1999, more than 300,000 kids have been on campus during an act of gun violence, according to a Washington Post estimate. Unfortunately, districts nationwide have been left to fortify their schools while also trying to address other overwhelming issues.

During COVID, we picked up the banner of mental health, made sure our kids are fed, and stepped up in so many other ways. But protecting our kids from guns with limited funding, too? It’s too much.

It takes tremendous courage for school leadership to weigh these competing priorities and make difficult decisions. I feel called to help others understand how hard it is for us to eliminate safety threats and still accomplish all of our other educational goals, too.

Kelly Carpenter-VanLaeken is the chief academic officer of the Gananda Central School District in New York. She began her career in education as a social studies teacher and then became a principal. Kelly is a member of the Institute for Education Innovation and a board member of the GVASCD.

How I found my voice as a Black student at Brooklyn Tech

2022-12-15T13:00:00+00:00

I was excitedly talking with my friends about our high school plans when one of my eighth grade teachers stopped me in the hallway and asked which school I got into.

“Brooklyn Tech,” I said with a smile, thinking of the months I spent studying for the specialized high school exam, or SHSAT.

“Oh, good,” she said. “You know they only accepted seven Black students at Stuyvesant this year? It’s sad.”

Etana Williams

I wasn’t sure what to say. I knew that specialized New York City high schools like Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Tech enrolled a small percentage of Black students. In 2019, the year I was accepted, merely 5.7% of students at Tech were Black; that’s 341 Black students out of a total enrollment of 5,940. When I was first admitted, those demographics didn’t bother me.

Black students were underrepresented at my elementary and middle school, and I still felt comfortable in those spaces. I was younger, and my idea of “inclusivity” was whether my schoolmates would let me play tag with them or share their snacks with me.

But that fall, after the first-day excitement wore off, I began noticing certain patterns. Like how I was one of, at most, three Black faces in my classes. And how none of my teachers looked like me.

History lessons about slavery became uncomfortable as I noticed eyes quickly shifting towards me, and then away when I met them. Stereotypical comments coming from other students about how “Asians are smart” and “work harder” due to strict parents and cultural upbringings made me wonder what other stereotypes they believed were true.

Regularly hearing slurs coming from the mouths of my peers and snickering at racially charged jokes that shouldn’t have been made — it agitated me. I tried expressing this frustration to one of my non-Black friends in hopes of getting an ounce of understanding or acknowledgment of my situation.

Instead, I heard, “It was just a joke, they didn’t mean it. You’re overreacting.”

I didn’t stand up for myself, and I didn’t have a space to share my feelings of isolation and powerlessness. In previous years, I didn’t mind the lack of diversity in my friend groups. Now it bothered me that I only had one Black friend at the start of my freshman year.

Then at a club fair a few weeks into the school year, I saw a table where a group of Black students was socializing. I made eye contact with one of the girls there. She smiled as she approached me and asked if I would like to put my email down to join Brooklyn Tech’s Black Student Union. Before then, I had no idea that this club existed. I enthusiastically agreed.

The following Monday, I walked into my first Black Student Union meeting. I remember seeing a sea of Black faces and wondering how there could be so many of us here when I barely saw enough on a daily basis to count on one hand. I took a seat and looked around, excitedly.

“We know how small the Black population is here at Tech, so we wanted to have a space where we could all come together,” said one of the group’s leaders. “We want to create a family.”

That day, we played games, listened to music, shared food, and talked about our experiences at Tech. I found myself nodding a lot in agreement and laughing at everyone’s jokes.

Mondays at the Black Student Union became an anchor of my time at Tech. It was where I could have in-depth, honest conversations with peers. We processed George Floyd’s death and Kyle Rittenhouse’s acquittal. We talked about our experiences in and out of school, and shared our sadness, pain, anger, and also joy.

Junior year, I tried out for (and made) the step team. It was a majority Black space; and I soon realized that the Black Student Union wasn’t the only place I could feel comfortable and accepted.

I was spending most days after school in spaces surrounded by people who looked like me. I got to know the Black students I had seen in the hallways and in my classes. The microaggressions and uncomfortable stares didn’t stop, but the way I approached them did. Rather than staying quiet, I responded:

Why do you think that’s OK for you to say?

That’s not funny.

Your words have an impact, you should choose them more wisely.

Pointing out ignorance still wasn’t easy, but I knew I had a network of Black friends and Black teachers that I met through my clubs to confide in. I not only wanted to defend myself but also all of the Black students at Tech who’ve experienced the same things but didn’t know how to respond. Letting these comments slide was a form of compliance that I was no longer willing to accept.

It shouldn’t have been so difficult to feel welcomed in my own school. Something is wrong when students feel alienated in the space where they spend the majority of their time. My experience is part of a bigger problem. Black students remain vastly underrepresented at New York’s elite specialized high schools.

This doesn’t mean that Black students should avoid applying to these schools. Just the opposite. Simply enrolling as a student of color creates more inclusive spaces for future students. While it hasn’t been easy being one of a few Black students at my school, finding accepting communities has made the experience worthwhile.

Etana Williams is a 17-year-old African-Caribbean student living in Brooklyn. She is a senior at Brooklyn Technical High School, and she enjoys crocheting, reading, and writing in her free time.

I am a high school student with a visual disability. Here’s how I learned to ask for the help I need.

2022-12-19T13:00:00+00:00

Throughout my life, it has been impossible for me to ignore my disability. People I talk to look like they have two heads due to my eyes’ inability to fuse. Any vista in front of me is blurry. Little floaters decorate my field of vision.

But while I learned to adapt to my visual impairment, it took me much longer to embrace my identity as a person with a disability.

When I was born, the nurses immediately clutched me out of my mother’s arms upon seeing my eyes. Deep, smoky clouds permeated both of my corneas.

Ava Stryker-Robbins

Doctors conducted tests and referred us to eye specialists. Over the next few years, I underwent many surgeries and was diagnosed with Axenfeld-Rieger Syndrome, a congenital eye disorder.

In addition to being visually impaired, I was told that I have a 50% chance of developing glaucoma, an eye disease and that this disorder can be associated with other health issues. I would also have to wear a patch over my right eye for hours every day to ensure my left eye did not go blind.

Upon starting school, my disorder impacted not only how I saw, but also how I was seen.

As my peers sprinted around the school courtyard, I worried that they pitied me for silently sitting alone on the semi-circle-shaped bench. I wanted to be chosen for teams for freeze tag, but no elementary school student seemed to want a kid with blurry vision. My disorder made me feel inferior. I did not want to draw even more attention to my disability, so I never asked teachers for the help I needed. For example, I could make out what was written on the board from the front row of my elementary school classrooms, but as I neared the back, all I could see were blurry blobs of ink. I frequently zoned out and did not understand even simple assignments.

I have had an Individualized Education Program, or IEP, since I was 3, giving me support outside my many doctors’ and visual therapy appointments. At first, my IEP included a paraprofessional, who kept me from the playground for fear I would get injured, and an occupational therapist who helped address the low muscle tone that prevented me from walking until I was 19 months old.

I was taken out of class several times a day to receive dilating eye drops in the hopes they would improve my vision. While I no longer have those accommodations, I still have a vision instructor who advocates on my behalf at school. Whenever I struggle visually in class, I can ask for additional support or for my vision instructor to communicate with my teachers. This person, for example, has supplied me with a dome magnifying glass — something I have come to rely on — and acts as an ongoing support system.

Upon starting school, my disorder impacted not only how I saw, but also how I was seen.

My IEP provided extra help. But it could not stop the ubiquitous commentary about my patch. After removing it once I had reached my daily quota of hours, kids and teachers stared at me as if I had done something wrong, or they would comment about how I needed to listen to my doctors. I felt like they could not see past my patch.

In fourth grade, I got the exciting news that I no longer needed to wear a patch. I thought that everything would change, but I still did not have the 20/20 vision I fantasized about and had to face the daily struggles of living in a blurry world.

When I wore my patch, it was obvious that there was something abnormal about my eyes. People who approached me noticed a patch before they knew who I was and what I was like. But when I stopped wearing my patch, others did not necessarily know about my disability. Even if others did not judge me, I judged myself. The zebra-striped, polka-dotted, or colorful patches physically covered my right eye and blocked me from seeing half the world. But they also stopped me from seeing myself as “normal.” Why did I define myself by my disability?

Perhaps no one chose me for tag because they could not see me on the distant bench I opted to sit at. Perhaps all the patch commentary was because people cared about my visual health. Perhaps my refusal to seek help only made me struggle more. Why did I believe that nothing could change, socially or academically?

Once I began to realize that having a disability did not define me, I could finally come to terms with it. I learned to speak with teachers about getting a front-row seat and to start seeing myself as an equal to my peers.

While it is still anxiety-inducing to put myself out there and ask for help, I have understood that I need certain accommodations to be able to integrate myself into an ableist society.

Yes, there are moments when people have not offered me the help I need. There was one awful time when a teacher teased me about my request to move the front row by asking me “how many fingers” he was holding up when he was holding a pencil. On numerous occasions peers have questioned my need for accommodations, implying that I am getting an unfair advantage.

I will always need some assistance in order to fully achieve my academic goals, but that does not make my achievements any less valuable. Voices are powerful things, and everyone who has struggles should learn to use them without feeling guilt or shame. Other people’s ignorance or active disrespect should not deter anyone from asking for help. It no longer deters me. And I now know that it is OK to label yourself as disabled even if others face greater and more visible challenges.

I am a proud member of the disabled community and will continue to be for the rest of my life.

Ava Stryker-Robbins is a junior at the Beacon School in New York City. She is the head of design at her school’s literary magazine, writes a weekly food column for The West Side Rag, interns for the City Limits Accountability Reporting Initiative for Youth, and takes part in the New York Civil Liberties Union’s Teen Activist Project. In her free time, Ava loves to play classical guitar and knit.

As school gets back to normal, things are better — and worse

2022-12-20T12:00:00+00:00

“Things are better this year, right?” I am asked again and again. The short answer, from this high school administrator, is yes and no, depending on which aspect we choose to focus on.

On the surface, things are mostly back to normal. We’re not in masks or tracking COVID cases or on a hybrid learning schedule. We’re having assemblies, sporting events, band concerts, and school dances. Hallway shenanigans are back. We had a senior prank last year. A couple of boys rounded up some local ducks and let them loose in the main hall.

I wasn’t even annoyed. It was nice to have the pranks back.

Brandon McCoy

This school year, I haven’t taken a single angry phone call from a parent about COVID restrictions (too loose or too rigid) and haven’t sat on a committee to determine the safest way to keep schools open. I haven’t heard the phrase, “We’re building the airplane in the air,” in many months. These are all victories in my mind and indications that the worst is behind us.

There are, however, some unfortunate realities that are far more prevalent now in a post-COVID high school world. The two primary culprits I see regularly are student apathy and a lack of perseverance. When students learned in a virtual setting, either fully or partially, the “school muscles” that they had been developing since kindergarten, didn’t get much exercise. The routine — one that so many students relied on to thrive — was broken.

I found that the kids who learned online only during the 2020-21 school year struggled the most with readjustment to campus life. Learning largely in isolation, some overwhelmed students fell behind; some gave up on their studies altogether. We are now trying desperately to catch them up academically, but we are starting to have difficult conversations with families about graduation being a semester or year later than expected for some learners.

We are also reminding our students how to exercise those “school muscles.” But apathy, which shows up mostly in the form of school days missed and assignments not completed, can be difficult to counteract. The overriding sentiment seems to be, “Why does any of this matter?” It’s especially prevalent among underclassmen, who were in middle school during the height of COVID learning. As such, they missed some vital developmental skills — grit, time management, self-advocacy, social communication, and even just how to handle their bodies — that the middle school experience provides.

The overriding sentiment seems to be, ‘Why does any of this matter?’

Juniors and seniors seem to have adjusted better. Juniors, after all, had made it through most of eighth grade, and seniors were already high school freshmen by the time schools shut down in March 2020. They are missing fewer pieces in the “this is how we do school” toolbox. The older kids also seem wiser than in years past. They’ve been through a lot.

We are, of course, experiencing our share of low lows this semester. We’ve seen students facing severe mental health crises, including those too anxious to come to school and those who have run away from home. We are hearing from parents struggling with how to help their children. Through a partnership with a local organization, we are offering free, on-campus therapy for students. And our days as administrators are booked solid with students who are still relearning how to “do” school.

Through it all, though, our teachers continue to show up with compassion and tenacity. But unlike in the spring of 2020, when parents — trying in vain to guide their students through virtual learning — heaped praise upon them, educators today are working under a dark cloud. Recent years have brought loud outside voices weighing in on everything from how we teach about race and gender to which books are in the school library.

There is more trepidation in teaching today than I have seen in my 15 years as an educator. But there is resolve, too. We went through COVID. We can do this.

As for the ubiquitous questions about whether things are better this year: On a day-to-day basis, they really do feel better. COVID took away social interactions and ate away at our school culture. We’ve reclaimed that culture; we’re in the process of catching students up on the academics they missed, all the while sharpening the school skills they need to be successful. There are victories each day.

Dr. Brandon McCoy is a high school administrator in Kansas City, Missouri, where he lives with his wife and three children. He writes about life, and public education at The Worst Kids Always Become Principals.

My first year teaching was demoralizing. It led me to my dream job.

2022-12-22T17:45:00+00:00

In March 2018, two months before graduating from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, I was recruited and hired to teach in a small city outside of Charlotte. I was beyond psyched that my dream of becoming a middle school teacher was finally within reach. I had plans for engaging my students in meaningful and developmentally responsive lessons. I imagined learning and sharing among supportive colleagues.

But by October, two months into my first year as a sixth grade ELA and social studies teacher, my excitement had morphed into disappointment. I was not included in planning meetings, beginning teacher conferences, or any other professional development opportunities. I should familiarize myself with the materials they gave me, school leaders told me.

Eric Gaestel

The expectation was that I reverse-engineer my lessons from the piles of worksheets and graphic organizers left on my desk each week. Many first-year teachers struggle with classroom management, and I was no exception. Teaching on the fly, which isn’t at all my style, made things worse. I felt anxious walking into the building each day.

After speaking with administrators to no avail, I decided to ride out the year as best I could, building meaningful relationships with my students, some of whom struggled daily with behavior at school. I listened as they told me about challenging situations at home. I wanted them to know that I cared and would advocate for them.

Through it all, I never doubted that I wanted to teach; I just knew that I needed to find a school that was a better fit. So in January, I quietly began looking for a teaching position for the following fall.

I realized then, as I do now, that while my first-year experience was disappointing, it was not a total loss. I started to think of it as a “Beginning Teacher Playbook” of sorts. I was now armed with interview questions about teacher mentorship, professional learning community expectations, and how I would be expected to contribute to my new teaching team. I understood what I needed from my next school and what I desperately had to avoid.

In June of that year, I attended a jobs fair in the Charlotte Mecklenburg district, where I met a McClintock Middle School principal. He told me about his expectations and listened. I expressed what I needed to be a successful teacher — all without speaking ill of my first school. A new partnership was forged that day, and I was offered a job teaching eighth grade ELA on the spot.

I felt anxious walking into the building each day.

On my first day there, I was assigned a mentor teacher, Mr. Jenkins, who observed my classes and provided specific and meaningful feedback. He helped shape my classroom management, teaching me to be fair, firm, and consistent. I still have a Google Drive folder named “Mentorship” filled with complete lessons, assessments, and other materials that I use to this day.

Now in my fourth year at McClintock, I am the chair of our school’s Faculty Advisory Committee and serve on multiple other committees, too. This year, one of our administrators approached me about being a teacher mentor. It truly warmed my heart — now I can offer up the support I so badly needed back in 2018. My mentee and I meet daily, so she can talk through her day and ask me any questions that she has. In the new year, we will be observing each other’s classes.

During my first meeting with my mentee this fall, I shared that “Mentorship” folder, happily passing along what my own mentor shared with me more than three years ago.

At McClintock, I have found the school I dreamed of during college, and I worried I’d never find that first year in the classroom. I can’t imagine ever leaving.

Eric J. Gaestel is an English Language Arts teacher at McClintock Middle School in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The Capitol insurrection changed how I teach about American democracy

2023-01-05T12:00:00+00:00

Late in the evening of March 3, 1801, just after signing the last of the judicial appointments of loyal Federalists to an expanded federal judiciary, President John Adams wrote out another order. He suspended habeas corpus. He ordered the small U.S. Army detachment in the new capital city, Washington, D.C., to establish a cordon around the U.S, Capitol, where the next day’s inauguration was to take place.

Richard Schwartz

He issued a warrant for the arrest of leading Republicans, including James Madison, Aaron Burr, and President-Elect, Thomas Jefferson. Federal marshals arrested each man for violating the Sedition Act. Adams’ order explained that the threat from the Jeffersonian Republicans to the United States was severe, and he could not in good conscience honor the election results, such was his devotion to the nation. So Adams canceled the results of the Electoral College and blocked the first peaceful exchange of power in U.S. history.

Up through 2020, I annually narrated the above story on a winter’s day in my chilly Jersey classroom. And my high-achieving, eager-to-please 10th graders bent over their notebooks, scribbling down every word. But each year a small handful not only wouldn’t write this down. They would look back at me with a sort of smirk that suggested they were in on the ruse. I’d smile tightly and continue telling the story.

It ended, after a pause, when I would say, “Of course, none of this happened.” The students who had been dutifully taking notes slammed down pens, squawked, and stared at me stunned. You lied to us!

I would explain to them that Adams didn’t like the results. But instead of getting in the way of a peaceful transfer of power, he left town, unwilling to watch Jefferson’s swearing-in.

And I would say, “Of course, Adams gave way to Jefferson. This is the United States, right?”

Then I’d explain that, actually, it’s not just because we’re the USA. It’s chiefly because John Adams chose to do the right thing and follow the U.S. Constitution. And we’d then write down in our notebooks (for real) this: Adams’s ceding of the presidency to the electoral victor, Thomas Jefferson, constituted the first peaceful exchange of power in United States history. And every other president followed Adams’ precedent.

I would always add, “There are nations in our world today that still have not figured out how to do this.”

January 6, 2021, did many things, some of which we’re still discovering, but it absolutely torpedoed this lesson. The tale that I wove each year around Adams’ refusal to recognize the legitimate presidential election results, sad to say, no longer appears that outlandish.

‘Of course, Adams gave way to Jefferson. This is the United States, right?’

The conundrum for a public high school social studies teacher teaching about the January 6 insurrection is not to sacrifice one’s credibility while also not pushing one’s own political beliefs on students.

My approach before I retired last year allowed students to speak up as freely as they wanted under the terms of a classroom compact (agreed to by one and all) while pointing out that much of what happened that January day was not “normal” to American democracy.

I had an advantage that other teachers trying to thread this needle may not have. I enjoyed the support of colleagues, administrators, students, and parents. You may be a high school teacher working in a less generous environment — one in which local and state politicians have trained their sights on teaching history. You have my thanks and deserve the thanks of all our fellow citizens for your dogged, noble work on behalf of American democracy.

Two years on, I still worry as a citizen about many things relating to then-President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede the election he lost — and the deadly attack by many of his supporters on the U.S. Capitol. But from a teaching standpoint, I worry for our students. Born in the mid-2000s, they’ve come of age in a nation that witnessed a violent attempt to overthrow an election. When in the future a charismatic leader scornful of norms and contemptuous of constitutional democracy rises to power, from the right or the left, will our students view that January 6 invasion as somehow “normal,” a legitimate precedent?

They won’t, at least not if we do our job as social studies teachers. That starts with defining for them what democracy means and does not mean at the very outset of any course in American history or government. And let’s drive our students just a little crazy by regularly asking them to cite and analyze evidence of the relative health of American democracy, both at specific points in history and today.

Let’s enthusiastically reinforce the lasting value of the actions of wildly diverse Americans across time who strengthened “government of the people, by the people, for the people” — and hold up for scrutiny those who sought to thwart that cause.

Richard Schwartz taught social studies at Whippany Park High School in Whippany, New Jersey, for 43 years before retiring in June 2022. He is the author of “The Prairies on Fire: Lincoln Debates Douglas, 1858.”

I am a Black female educator. In 2023, I need boundaries and intentions — not goals.

2023-01-05T14:00:00+00:00

I am not the only one, I suspect, who is anxious about going back to teaching after the holiday break. Over the past few days, I have read two books, spent quality time with my son, reconnected with friends, and worked out.

During the break, I was not stressed about any of the following: students being on their cell phones, having my lesson plan printed by 8:30 a.m., an inappropriate statement that one student made to another that might cause violence, getting caught up with grading. And on and on it goes.

Abigail Henry

These stressors could cause anxiety for any teacher. Yet, as a Black female educator teaching Black children in West Philadelphia, I have an additional demand of being perceived and judged over student achievement and compliance. That’s because other educators may assume that Black women instantly know how to give “tough love” or, even worse, will automatically be authoritarian. Such misjudgments and biases place additional pressure on Black teachers.

So about that anxiety — what am I going to do differently in 2023, even if this might be my last year in the classroom? Well, I am going to set some intentions.

I had this wonderful conversation with my best friend over the break about the new year. She said she set some intentions for 2023, and then we had a good laugh about the difference between a goal and an intention. Our agreed-upon definition was that an intention is something you have to engage with cognitively and be mindful of; a goal, by contrast, is some achievement received or fulfilled by a certain date. I like this distinction because as I set both professional and personal intentions for the new year, they seem more about my humanity and well-being each day, rather than some hoped-for finish line.

These are my intentions — things I will NOT do when I return to my classroom this week:

I will not do work around my son during the limited time I get with him after work.
I will not read/grade every single word/sentence of 120 student essays.
I will not respond to students’ or parents’ texts after 6 p.m. until the next day.
I will not let students not “getting” something in class mean that I (and my lesson plans) have completely failed.
I will not let the noise around Critical Race Theory distract me from teaching Black history.
I will not compare myself to other teachers, especially to other Black educators.

These are my intentions — things I WILL do when I return to my classroom:

I will continue to teach about institutional racism, colorism, and white privilege; I will seek Black liberation for my students.
I will meditate during my prep time if I feel triggered by a student earlier that day.
I will do school work at 6 a.m. for 45 minutes, so I can have the after-work time with my son.
I will continue to let my students know how much I love them.
I will schedule one specific time on Thursday to catch up on grading and contacting parents.
I will continue to bring Black joy to my Black students.
I will print out these two intentions lists and put them on my classroom desk.

What I love about what I just did is that I set boundaries for myself. What is interesting to me, too, is that none of what I listed above has to do with physical fitness. Yet I know the above intentions will allow me to get in a workout and eat healthier so I can meet fitness goals (not intentions) as well.

Now, will my lists solve all the challenges I am going to face at work? Absolutely not. Just like many other educators, I am exhausted. I frequently question the sustainability of teaching full-time in a classroom, and yet I know just by showing up every day, I am providing consistency for my students. I am optimistic that these intentions will help me survive the rest of the school year.

A version of this essay first appeared in Philly’s 7th Ward. It is republished with permission.

Abigail Henry has been teaching African-American History at Mastery Charter Shoemaker Campus for the past 11 years, and she is the Content Lead for the network. Last year, Abigail won a Pulitzer Center Grant to incorporate the 1619 Project into curriculum. This past summer, she worked as an adjunct professor for St. Michael’s College, where she developed the course “African American History for Teachers,” Henry has also provided African-American History consulting for Villanova University, PBS, and the Trellis Foundation.

How teachers can harness ChatGPT for good

2023-01-06T19:15:00+00:00

They say that it will kill the college essay. Some people think it’s a threat to education itself.

I don’t. I’m excited.

This potential school-slayer is ChatGPT, a new Artificial Intelligence interface that displays remarkable prowess. It can write novel poetry, compare literary characters, and evaluate arguments. Google has a similar program, not public yet, that’s apparently even better.

AI has arrived, and I’m watching educators wrestle with the ramifications of this revolution.

It has me thinking back to my childhood. Whenever I got fidgety, my mom would give me a calculator to play with. No rules, no directions — just me, a handful of buttons, and the chance to explore. It was heaven.

Ben Talsma

Back then, elementary teachers were in agreement: calculators were cheating. Kids needed to know their math facts, for goodness’ sake, and if they just asked the calculator all the time, they’d never learn.

But I did learn them and learned them well. I looked for patterns, made predictions, and constructed my own understanding. When I learned math in class, I had deep prior knowledge. I was always the best mathematician in my class, won statewide math competitions, and use math voraciously in my work and life today.

It all started with a piece of technology — the same tool that millions of teachers felt was cheating.

That feeling was perfectly normal. Every time a transformative technology comes along, we’re skeptical. Socrates worried that widespread literacy would make our species degenerate and forgetful. Spell check was considered cheating for years because people “ought” to know how to spell without assistance.

It’s human nature: When technology renders previously important skills obsolete, we feel offended.

ChatGPT inspires a similar fear in many educators, I know. So many students lack foundational writing skills, and teachers spend their time trying to fill those gaps — and to make writing joyful, too. I see how this program could seem to undermine those objectives, offering students a way around assignments meant to help them develop as writers and thinkers.

And yet.

I’m convinced that if we let our concerns — however legitimate — overtake our thinking on this topic, we ignore the history of technology and the possibilities offered by AI. Humanity benefits when we allow people to use whatever we can to learn. And students benefit from experimenting with technology in school settings and being able to discuss its use with their teachers. Banning something just increases the likelihood that students will use it in ways that don’t help them learn.

As a learning specialist, my job involves working with teachers and technology, so I’ve already seen many put ChatGPT to use, from kindergarten through high school. AI can help teachers model the concepts they want students to understand. This works for all sorts of things, from comparing and contrasting different characters to telling the difference between complete and incomplete sentences. Teachers can, in a matter of minutes, create dozens of examples for students to rate, rank, sort, or comment on.

This is a wonderful, inquiry-oriented way to explore ideas. As humans, we learn so much from observing and interacting with examples, and now teachers have an almost infinite supply of them readily available.

We must also prepare students for the world they’ll inherit. In the next few years, it will become increasingly important for humans to edit AI-generated work. Right now, I’m seeing teachers provide students with samples of AI-generated work, then working with them to improve it. This is an engaging way to open up deep conversations about writing.

ChatGPT often makes factual errors; having students fact-check ChatGPT’s writing is a wonderful way to improve information literacy. A fifth-grade teacher I’m working with recently provided small groups of students with AI-generated content and reported that they loved working to try to prove the articles wrong.

I’ve also seen teachers using ChatGPT to provide a first round of feedback on students’ work. Teachers can simply ask students to input their work into ChatGPT and ask it to provide feedback for improvement — the results are surprisingly good. Don’t believe me? Check out its analysis of this article. When teachers let AI provide preliminary feedback, it takes something off their plates and allows them to engage in higher-level conversations later in the process.

There is still value in having students learn to compose their own five-paragraph essays — just as there is value in teaching students their multiplication facts, even when they will always have access to a calculator.

But AI can allow students to do things that they previously couldn’t. Making use of AI might feel scary or strange; useful innovations always do. By understanding the power and possibility of AI, however, we can help students use their powers for good.

Oh, one last thing: ChatGPT can draft lesson plans. That alone ought to pique your curiosity.

Ben Talsma is a Learning Solution Specialist for Van Andel Institute for Education, a Michigan-based education nonprofit dedicated to creating classrooms where curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking thrive.

I recruit future teachers. I’m not always sure I’m doing the right thing.

2023-01-17T20:15:41+00:00

I recently read an essay in Chalkbeat written by Jasmine Lane, a former Teaching Fellow for the organization I recruit for. In it, she relates her personal experience entering the teaching profession in the U.S., from the financial challenges of student teaching to being treated as an outsider as a Black teacher at her first school. Eventually, she leaves to teach in another country.

Lane put a spotlight on the frustrations I hear from many teachers leaving the job. Her words brought up issues I wrestle with every day.

I am the national director of recruiting for Breakthrough Collaborative, now in my fifth year of recruiting college students for our summer program. For many, our program is their first step toward becoming a full-time teacher, and I recruit prospective Fellows with equal parts conviction and inner conflict, concern, and hope.

My conviction comes from piles of research showing that students are uniquely inspired when they see themselves in their teacher. For that reason, Breakthrough intentionally seeks to build its summer program with highly diverse teaching staff. More than two-thirds of the college students who participate in Breakthrough’s Teaching Fellowship are students of color.

But my conflict and concern come from other things we know are true about teaching.

One is the sad reality that, for college students, there is greater potential for economic mobility in choosing a profession other than teaching. I hear many say they are in college to break the cycle of poverty. Oftentimes, this climb is not only a personal endeavor but a collective one as well, with communities back home invested in their success.

Another is that our public school teachers do not reflect the racial diversity of public school students in the U.S., and schools are often unwelcoming places for teachers of color.

Am I asking Black and Latinx students to perpetuate the wealth gap? Am I setting college students of color up to find themselves in schools where they are unable to make a difference? As a white man, I struggle at times with the reality of my work.

This isn’t to inflate my role. Obviously, the capable students who join Breakthrough have agency as individuals to determine the best pathway to their goals. But every day, I am very aware of the tradeoffs in what I am asking of those with whom I engage.

I know I’m not the only one struggling with this dilemma. I am not sure, however, that we are talking about it nearly as much as we should.

Anything less than navigating a complicated “now and for the future” leaves people behind in a way that I can’t in good conscience be OK with.

Lane, for example, is exactly whom we aim to bring into teaching. Yet, she writes that it was unsustainable for her to make the impact she wanted. As we recruit more teachers of color, we must acknowledge and respond to the environment they will face: one, as she states, where teachers of color must “break down barriers of resentment” the American school system has created over hundreds of years.

How do we do that? I think it involves acknowledging two realities: There are fundamental issues with the teaching profession that require deconstructing old systems and building new ones over many years. There are also issues that can be addressed now, by doing things like making the pathway to becoming a teacher more supportive and financially sustainable. Anything less than navigating a complicated “now and for the future” leaves people behind in a way that I can’t in good conscience be OK with.

Lane’s essay shows why we cannot fix our education system simply by adding more teachers of color. A million more Lanes can’t be the answer unless they are allowed to contribute to change and have opportunities to lead.

So we must be intentional about naming and removing the barriers, including inhospitable school environments, that prevent teachers of color from thriving. And we must continue to recruit, train, and prepare them, without letting the fact that it’s not the whole answer prevent the meaningful gains that we can make now.

There is no perfect solution. As my dad used to say, “I prefer the way I’m doing it wrong more than the way you’re not doing it at all.”

Am I going to keep looking for opportunities to change the system? Of course I am. Do I hope for deeper change that would allow someone like Lane to thrive in our classrooms? Of course I do.

Jonathan Appleby is a national college recruiter focused on diversifying and strengthening the teacher pipeline in America. He lives in San Francisco and finds joy in exploring the surrounding coastline with his wife and two teenage sons.

I was once a struggling math student. Now I teach the subject that terrified me.

2023-03-14T12:00:00+00:00

It’s Friday, and I slide into my seat. I look up and feel the nervousness trickling in. I hear our fifth grade teacher tell the class we are about to take our weekly math test. She says not to worry about it. If we practiced our problems at home, we should be fine.

“Yeah, right,” I thought. “I’m sure this will be easy.”

Braxton Hall

All I can think about are the literal tears that covered my homework paper from the nights before. I take some deep breaths and tell myself, “It’s only 10 questions. How hard can it be?” Then I hear the teacher passing out the papers. Each time a paper flutters and lands on a desk near me, it sounds to me like glass shattering. When a blank test arrives on my desk, panic overwhelms me. Everything seems like a blur as I rush to finish.

But as I hand my paper to the teacher, I feel surprisingly good — maybe it’s because the test is over, and maybe (just maybe) it’s because I got a grade I could be proud of. Before the end of the day, though, she hands back the tests. “I thought you would have tried harder after last time,” she tells me. I look down. Another C.

Growing up, math was a struggle and filled me with anxiety. Only thanks to a dedicated teacher who worked with me the summer between elementary and middle school did I gain the foundational knowledge I needed to move forward. From then on, math felt more or less tolerable. Never thrilling. By the end of high school, I vowed never to take another math class if I could help it.

So you might be surprised to hear that I am now an elementary school math specialist who, with the help of encouraging college professors, learned to love math and went on to earn a graduate degree in math education.

Today, I spend my days helping children embrace the subject that long filled me with dread. It’s meaningful and even joyful. Because who better to demystify this often-feared subject than someone who knows first-hand what math anxiety feels like — and also what it feels like to be on the other side of it? That’s me.

I emphasize flexibility by slowing down and backing up, as needed, and by giving students multiple ways to show me they have mastered a concept.

I often think about why so many students find math scary, and I think it has something to do with how we teach students to “plug and chug” numbers without developing the critical thinking skills needed for math reasoning. That’s why my goal is to teach math as a way of thinking, not a system of algorithms.

Two simple ideas guide my lessons: “make the content attainable for students” and “teach students to look at math as something they will always work on” — rather than something they will learn and move on from.

Attainability means I emphasize flexibility by slowing down and backing up, as needed, and by giving students multiple ways to show me they have mastered a concept. It means not grading solely on a right or wrong answer but taking process into account. It means determining where each student is in their math journey and developing a plan for where they need to go. This can be done through vetted assessments, reviewing the results, and working with students to set attainable goals.

Fostering a growth mindset is important no matter the subject. But it’s especially important among students who have internalized the message that math is not something they are good at or even capable of doing. I remind them that math is a skill you never stop learning and perfecting. There will always be something you haven’t yet mastered, and that’s OK. It’s also OK to struggle along the way. We, math teachers, must show our students that it’s not the end of the world if a problem needs to be corrected; it’s an opportunity to learn and grow.

I think it helps that I talk openly about my own math journey. I tell them when we are working on content that used to be a huge struggle for me and recall my past mistakes. They know that I was once where they are now, and now I am teaching them the very subject that once filled me with self-doubt. I model math perseverance.

Braxton Hall has been an elementary school special education teacher for the past six years. As an educator and coach in Kentucky, he works to instill a growth mindset in all of his students — teaching them to face challenges head-on and develop a love for learning new skills.

Racial violence can follow students into the classroom. Here’s how tenderness can make a difference.

2023-03-14T19:33:29+00:00

As a product of the Detroit public school system, where I now teach high school English, I care deeply about my students. From time to time, I like to ask them how they’re doing. But my check-ins aren’t always welcome.

A student once asked, "What did I do?" when I reached out to him. He was only 13, but this Black male student had already learned to expect a reprimand when teachers called his name.

N’Kengé Robertson

Black students are constantly dealing with the effects of what Dr. Lamar L. Johnson, an associate professor at Michigan State University, calls racial violence. It teaches children like my 13-year-old student to confuse the attention of caring adults with punishment. In the classroom, this violence can play out through language and curriculum, too.

Learning materials approved by the state and local school districts often omit critical conversations about the intersections of race, gender, religion, language, and sexuality. What's missing, in other words, is the lived experiences of students who are supposed to engage with the text.

Instead, Black children are molded into a life that is not theirs. Many of the books I'm told to teach to my kids center Eurocentric narratives and beliefs and whiteness. I am required to teach Abraham Lincoln and how he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but not about the felony disenfranchisement that keeps many of my students' families from experiencing true freedom.

A recent NYU Metro Center report evaluated three commonly used elementary English Language Arts curricula: McGraw Hill's "Wonders," Savvas Learning Company's "myView," and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's "Into Reading."

When students, parents, and educators from across the country assessed how the texts, teachers' manuals, and lessons honored students' diverse cultures and identities, they noted that the teachers' manuals for all three curriculums rarely guided teachers to connect lessons to students' lives. One evaluator observed, for example, that an elementary school teaching manual trivialized the devastation of colonialism and used dehumanizing language to describe Native Americans.

The assessment's disappointing (but unsurprising) results suggest too many students spend their K-12 years without the affirmation and support they deserve.

One approach to addressing racial violence and repairing the harm done to students of color is Becky Thompson's Teaching with Tenderness. This practice encourages educators to confront injustice directly while creating space for students' emotions and experiences. It's an approach I have adopted in my classroom. Over the years, going from pre-service teaching to being one of the district's 2022 Outstanding Educator awardees, I have seen its transformative power.

He was only 13, but this Black male student had already learned to expect a reprimand when teachers called his name.

This approach encourages teachers to understand who is in their classroom and use this knowledge to build the curriculum. You can't center your students' cultures and identities if you don't know their cultures and identities.

What does this look like in practice? In 2019, I worked with my 11th graders to research our classroom's curriculum.

We asked, "Who is this book made for, and why?" I won't soon forget our discussions. Students asked why the curriculum didn't include texts about powerful people who looked like us rather than "sad stories that look down on Black people."

We worked to improve the situation by compiling new resources, reshaping our lessons, and moving away from Eurocentric narratives in our classroom.

Teaching with tenderness is one way to address some of the well-documented challenges in Detroit schools and across the nation. Eighty-two percent of Detroit Public Schools Community District students are Black, and 13.6% are Hispanic/Latino. My district's National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, test scores in math and reading are the lowest among big-city school districts for fourth and eighth grades. I have taught high school students reading on a third-grade level, and the majority of the students I engage are behind in literacy proficiency.

My district also has one of the worst chronic absenteeism rates in the country. Almost 80% of Detroit district students were chronically absent — missing at least 10% of school days —in the 2021-2022 school year. Nationally in the same school year, at least one-third of students were on track to be chronically absent.

While teachers and faculty are scrambling to keep students in their seats, systemic racism pushes many of our children out of school because they feel safer in their community than in the classroom. Culturally responsive curriculums — lessons in which students see themselves reflected — can nurture a sense of belonging, thereby improving student engagement, attendance, and academic performance.

When children are not used to being loved wholeheartedly, their hypervigilance can perceive tenderness as a threat.

Our children deserve love and dedication from highly trained teachers who can identify and dismantle racial violence. This requires fully funded schools and community-based wraparound services.

We must not relent in the face of budget cuts, discipline disparities, and detractors who think softness is an unessential luxury. Tenderness can be the hardest skill to cultivate.

An educator, steering committee co-chair, and curriculum lead for National Black Lives Matter at School, N'Kengé Robertson is a voice for new, innovative educators in Detroit working to change educational paradigms for youth. She is a high school English teacher, a '22 NCTE Early Educator of Color Leadership awardee, and a proud native of Detroit.

This story has been updated to reflect that Teaching with Tenderness is an approach promoted by Becky Thompson, not Becky Johnson.

My high school is exempt from Regents exams. Other schools should be, too.

2023-03-28T10:00:00+00:00

I lived the first 10 years of my life in Shanghai. From a young age, there was an emphasis on the gaokao, China’s nine-hour, multi-day college entrance exam. It was such a big deal that I can remember parents talking about preparing their children for the test while I was in the third grade.

When I moved to America and started middle school in New York, standardized testing took on a different form: state tests. During state test week, there was always a tangible aura of stress at school. I wondered about the purpose of these tests, which seemed to promote rote memorization.

Alexander Calafiura

In high school, students spend years studying for their end-of-course Regents exams, which, for most New York public school students, are necessary for graduation. But a rich and meaningful learning experience is possible without these often-dreaded exams.

I know this because I attend East Side Community High School, a consortium school that is one of 38 New York public schools that are exempt from all Regents exams except one (the English exam). Instead of taking state exit exams in other subjects, students at my school prepare “exhibitions,” a series of writing and oral projects that culminate in extensive research papers and creative projects. (For decades, students in New York state have been required to pass Regents exams to get their high school diploma, though a state commission is now considering whether to eliminate them as a graduation requirement.)

I wanted to attend a high school that prioritizes student life, learning, and extracurricular pursuits over standardized testing.

After middle school, attending a consortium school held a huge appeal for me. I wanted to attend a high school that prioritizes student life, learning, and extracurricular pursuits over standardized testing, and my high school years have been incredibly rewarding.

In biology, for example, I took what I learned in class and combined it with theories of game design to create a fun and engaging DNA replication-inspired game using UNO cards. In the process, I learned many things beyond the scope of a high school biology class. My research had me studying mitosis and meiosis, amino acid transport, and protein synthesis in-depth. I wasn’t regurgitating information; I was applying my knowledge. And by the time I handed in my assignment, I felt like an expert on DNA replication.

Although every student was required to conduct their own written explanation, we were encouraged to work with classmates to create the game. In my group, we delegated responsibilities, and everyone seemed to value the methods and manners others brought to the project.

Without the pressure to memorize definitions, facts, and timelines for the Regents exams, my teachers have more creative liberty. In our U.S. History class, we got to explore African American history in depth, without cutting our conversations short in the name of moving through the content. We dedicated time to reading and analyzing books by Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs — works that exemplify Black resistance and joy.

And in Algebra II, we wrote a research paper with statistics on the connection between workplace regulation and consumer satisfaction. We also explored ways to incentivize major shoe companies to pay their South American workers a living wage.

Proponents of standardized testing say eliminating these assessments would lower high school standards. In reality, consortium schools raise the bar. Students at my school hone sophisticated research and writing skills and contribute to the community in profound ways. As a New York state commission mulls eliminating the Regents as a graduation requirement, I want them to know that my peers are some of the most brilliant, responsible, and upstanding people I have ever met. Our high school experience has taught us to be free and independent thinkers. We are more than prepared for college and beyond. I wish all New York City public school students had the opportunities that we do.

Alexander Calafiura is a junior at East Side Community High School in New York City. In his spare time, he enjoys folding origami, reading classic literature, and having a nice cup of coffee on a rainy day.

Preschool suspensions are harmful — and surprisingly common

2023-01-18T19:22:30+00:00

I am a Black woman, a mother of two, a former preschool and special education teacher, and a doctoral student in early childhood education. Although my kids are no longer in preschool, I think back on the experience in their early childhood program with mixed emotions.

My older son was quiet and learned easily the expectations of being in school, while his younger brother did not. Our preschool often expressed how much they loved our family, but comments shared during a period when my younger son struggled revealed a different story. “He just needs more time” — that was the conclusion that my spouse and I arrived at and the message that we communicated with the directors. Unfortunately, they did not share that view.

Tara Kirton

That meant each day was filled with anxiety as I wondered what I might hear about my son from the staff during pick-up or drop-off. I feared what they might suggest or do to reduce the behavior that they found concerning.

The situation was not healthy or sustainable for our family, so we began seeking alternative programs where our son might feel more at ease and where the staff would see his child-like behavior, such as biting and crying, as precisely that, the behavior of a child not yet 3.

Around the same time, our preschool approached us to have him evaluated for special education services. I worried about our son becoming another statistic about a Black boy who “needed” special education when he really needed patience, understanding, and affirmations from the staff. Black children have long been disproportionally represented among special education students and under-referred for gifted programs. But we went ahead with the evaluation, hopeful that we might actually be able to figure out if targeted supports could help him feel more successful.

At the time, I was a graduate student in early childhood and special education, so I knew all too well how Black children and children receiving special education services can be mistreated in schools — including preschools — and how, for example, they face a disproportionate number of suspensions and expulsions, even in early childhood.

I feared what they might suggest or do to reduce the behavior that they found concerning.

Research shows that Black preschoolers, just 18% of enrollment, account for nearly half of all preschool suspensions. And those suspensions, even expulsions, aren’t as rare as you might think.

The National Survey of Children’s Health found that 250 U.S. students a day are suspended or expelled from their preschools. In fact, preschoolers are expelled three times more often than their K-12 counterparts, and Black, Indigenous, and multiracial preschoolers receive a disproportionately high number of suspensions, according to federal data.

Preschool often represents a child’s first educational experience and can set the tone for how children and families interact with educators for years to come. For many young children, it is also the first time they are away from a family member or loved one for an extended period. This experience comes with new expectations to complete with some independence tasks such as toileting, cleaning up after themselves, and self-regulating when they become upset. That’s a lot to ask when you consider how at the age of 3 or 4, a preschooler has only been out in the world for roughly 36 to 59 months.

Things become even more complicated when you consider cultural differences between the family and staff, language delays and other developmental variations, the needs of a child who is an emergent bilingual, and the different expectations at home and school.

Zero-tolerance policies are not interventions; they simply remove children from the learning environment, which doesn’t set them up for success upon their return. Thankfully, some states, such as California, have moved to ban preschool suspensions and expulsions.

Early childhood programs must live up to the promises they make to families to provide a safe and nurturing environment for every child to learn, grow, experience joy, and see themselves reflected in the curriculum. That promise will not be fulfilled if children can be suspended and expelled for “behavioral issues,” both real and imagined, due to ignorance about the practices of various cultures and an inability to recognize how biases impact young children.

As kindergarten approached and my family transitioned out of the preschool, we received an apology from a staff member who admitted they might have rushed to judgment about our son and the best way to support him at the time. While I am grateful that our family’s experience resolved itself respectfully and that our son was able to make friends, learn, and enjoy being a part of the classroom community with the right supports, I sometimes wonder how things might have been different if the program had shown a bit more patience and understanding.

Our younger son is now finishing middle school, and he is thriving in all areas, thankfully. He has always been a curious child, and we are glad to see that hasn’t changed. He no longer receives special education services; those ended right around the time he finished preschool. Our son loves reading, math, and science and knows a lot about many things, such as basketball and geography.

Most days, I can think of the challenging times and the happy times when I reflect on our son’s preschool years. Cognitively, I knew how helpful special education services could be. Still, emotionally, it was a different story and one that was filled with questions about the role of identity in how our son was being treated and why he was being referred.

Families deserve respect, care, and support when working with their preschools to make a decision that is best for their child and family — not one based on biases or a desire for a temporary solution in the form of a suspension or expulsion.

Tara Kirton is a doctoral student in early childhood education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Kirton has held numerous roles in education at the early childhood level and in postsecondary education, including preschool teacher, special education itinerant teacher, and adjunct instructor and fieldwork advisor for undergraduate and graduate students.

The books we ban are the books we need

2023-03-30T11:00:00+00:00

It was my older brother who turned me on to books.

His enthusiasm for “Huckleberry Finn” came first. Then it was “The Swiss Family Robinson,” “The Outsiders,” “A Wrinkle in Time,” “The Grapes of Wrath,” “1984,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “The Great Gatsby.”

When he burst into my bedroom one evening, madly waving his copy of “The Catcher in the Rye,” I finished it in one night, riveted by a voice that channeled my 13-year-old brain. Finally, I thought, an author had given us something real, a character who validated my growing despair. It was 1968; Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy had just been murdered, and I stood at the edge of adolescence. I felt understood.

My love of books eventually inspired me to a 33-year career in public education, first as a high school teacher and later as a professor and academic dean at a public college. Now, as I watch states and school districts sanction the removal of essential books from school libraries, I see young people being robbed of their own heroes and anti-heroes, or kept from a frank look at our history in the interest of whitewashing truths. The effect on education is only one casualty; the effect on personhood is the real loss.

This loss was brought into sharp focus for me as I read the words of George M. Johnson, author of a recently banned book, “All Boys Aren’t Blue.”

It stirred a painful memory from 1964. My brother and I, home alone during summer vacation, sat reading. I noticed him paging through the Life magazine he’d just pulled from the mailbox when, suddenly, he stopped short, pulling the magazine closer. I strained to see over the top, intrigued by what might be so compelling. I caught a glimpse of a few men standing in the shadows of a darkened room, a mural behind them their mirror image.

When I asked, “Whatcha reading?” he became unusually defensive. In moments, he dashed away — the magazine stashed under his arm — ran into his room and locked the door. His hasty retreat was confusing and hurtful. He almost never shut me out.

One day, I sneaked into his room hoping to get a look at whatever had upset him. I checked his bottom drawer where he kept his treasures. There, stuffed under his crayons and comics, his Communion catechism, his silver dollars, and his six-foot Teabury gum chain, I found it: the June 26 issue of Life. I paged to the article with the scary-looking men in the picture. Then I read, “These brawny young men in their leather caps, shirts, jackets and pants are practicing homosexuals … part of what they call the ‘gay world’. . . a sad and often sordid world.” I didn’t know what some of the words meant, but I knew “sad” and “sordid.”

Whenever I recall that episode, I imagine the devastating effects that language must have had on this boy I loved with my whole heart, a boy growing up gay in a small upstate New York town in the 1960s. The memory evokes the pain the hateful words must have caused him, this beautiful boy whose gayness was as much a part of his DNA as were his green eyes and thick dark hair. I remember his loneliness, his unrelenting feelings of otherness, the way others bullied and berated him. And I cannot not help but think, if only he had read these words, by George M. Johnson, instead:

“As a child, I always knew I was different,” Johnson wrote in “All Boys Aren’t Blue.” “I didn’t know what that meant at the time, but I now know it was okay to be that different kid. That being different didn’t mean something was wrong with me but that something was wrong with my cultural environment, which forced me to live my life as something I wasn’t … I learned that kids who saw me as different didn’t have an issue until society taught them to see my differences as a threat.”

“The Bluest Eye,” “The Hate U Give,” “Beloved,” “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “Flamer,” “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” are all among the 30 most banned books in America last school year. Number two on that list: “All Boys Aren’t Blue.”

Jennifer Boulanger is a writer living in upstate New York, who recently retired from a 33-year career in public education. Her memoir, “Unending Duet: A Sister’s Memoir of a Brother Lost to AIDS,” is forthcoming.

My students and I talk about gun violence. This week, I was out of words.

2023-03-30T21:15:00+00:00

After a weekend of violence in our rural Illinois town and nationally, I sat down with the students in my creative writing college class and tried to create a space for us to discuss where we’re at.

I am struggling, perhaps more than I’ve struggled before. I want to talk without breaking down crying about how on Friday, a man walked into a house party in our town, killing one person and injuring 10 others while dozens of college students and their friends ran for their lives. I mourn the traumas these students carry. I mourn the lives lost or broken. I mourn that this shooting happened a block from my house.

Freesia McKee

When my partner and I first moved to town two years ago, colleagues warned us not to move into this neighborhood. Too many students, they said. Too many loud parties. But being in community with students is one of the things I love about serving as a professor. I love being able to walk to work, seeing a former student waving to me out their car window, and showing up, my partner and I, as a visibly queer couple in this small town whenever we walk the dog. We’ve loved this neighborhood.

My partner and I spent this past weekend at home, listening to sirens with unusual frequency, gleaning scraps of information from city press conferences. I logged onto an app where people can post anonymous messages for others in their geographic area, though I realized quickly that the app served as a rumor mill, and the messages on it were often racist.

About 12 hours after the shooting, I sent an email to my students encouraging them to lean on their loved ones and reach out to those who support them, echoing the messages the school had sent everyone with links to the campus counseling center. Then, the school week started, and a person walked into an elementary school in Nashville and killed six people, including three 9-year-olds. I was out of words.

On Tuesday evening, after devoting the first few minutes of class to silent journaling, I invited students to share their reactions to the events of the past few days. I will admit that my wish was for hope, for solutions, and for a way forward.

Many of the students in the class are English education majors, meaning that they will start teaching their own classes at middle schools and high schools in just a couple of years. During our discussion, multiple students brought up the idea of a special class within the major devoted to dealing with active shooter situations. Students said that the risk of this happening to them as teachers “is not zero.” Maybe training would help.

Can we, in good conscience, train college students to become future English teachers, knowing that they may be subjected to murderous violence at work?

Students said the vibe on our campus was different right now. Friend groups who were at the party were still processing how this could happen. Students connected the epidemic of gun violence with racism and climate change, and they complained that Congress is more focused on banning TikTok than on stopping the accumulating body counts in front of us.

The English education majors brought up that someday, they may have to make the decision whether to live or die for their students. I sat in front of them, my students, my beloved students, right in front of me, and I could not get my brain to register this question. Would I die for my students? I still can’t comprehend it, won’t allow myself to think it. I do not want to die for anyone. I want to live.

The question I was able to ask myself: Can we, in good conscience, train college students to become future English teachers, knowing that they may be subjected to murderous violence at work? And though I asked myself the question, I also know that there’s no realistic alternative to training teachers. Our society needs public education. Students deserve to be in classrooms taught by humans, not robots or AI. And yet, we shouldn’t be forced to love teaching so much that we are willing to die for it. This shouldn’t be the bar for who decides to remain in teaching and who decides to take cover somewhere else.

The reason the shooting in Macomb, Illinois, where I live and work, made only local news is that it was not on campus but in a neighborhood, even though it affected current and former students. The Covenant School shooting in Nashville made national news because it happened inside a school and involved the execution of 9-year-olds. Tragedies cannot be compared, but what I do think we need to remember is this: for every mass shooting we hear about, there are countless other acts of violence that make only the local news.

I am teaching members of a generation who look towards the future and see violence. This reality has felt so heavy for the last few days that I have not known how to do my job. I am worried especially about students who have shared their mental health challenges and fears of showing up in public spaces. What do I say to them? How do I support them?

When I take my daily walks in the neighborhood, I think about the conversations I have with students about their mental health, about their worries for the world, about who they wish to become. The past few days, my worries for my students have all but drowned me.

I do not want to care less. But to survive as a teacher, I may have to.

Freesia McKee (she/her) works as an instructor of English at Western Illinois University. In the fall of 2022, she served as the poet in residence at Ripon College.

I’m a trans student. Here’s what my chosen name means to me.

2023-03-31T12:00:00+00:00

When I was 11 and cut my hair short for the first time, a male friend saw me and said, “You look like a boy.” It felt validating, especially coming from a boy.

A few nights later, I sat cross-legged on the bed in my dark room, illuminated by my laptop screen. A quick Google search provided the further validation I was seeking: “Why do I feel like a boy if I’m a girl?”

I’m transgender. That’s what the word glowing on my laptop told me.

Deep down, I’ve always felt this way, but slight unease escalated to full-fledged dread as I went through puberty and entered middle school. Up until then, I had built my entire personality on what was expected of the girl I wasn’t — dresses, makeup, and boys — when I had no idea who I was.

Identifying with the word “transgender” helped me recognize that conforming to what other people wanted and expected meant suppressing the real me. For the first time I asked myself, “What do I want?” and, after struggling with my sexuality and gender identities for as long as I could remember, they fell into place with ease. Wearing boys’ clothing and my new, short haircut felt as second nature as breathing. When I looked in the mirror, I saw myself for the first time as the person I’d always been inside.

Unfortunately, as I began researching what it means to be trans, I came across hateful and ugly messages online, which made me afraid that I would be bullied or harassed at school if people found out. I didn’t have support or guidance at home, either. My deeply conservative parents refused then, as now, to accept that I’m trans. As painful as their denial is, it doesn’t change who I am. It does mean that I have to make my own path.

I came out to my friends and asked them to call me a more masculine version of my deadname, thinking it would make the transition easier for them. But this new name didn’t feel right — it didn’t feel like me. And it didn’t make my transition easier for my friends. After my name change, my friend group rejected me outright, saying that in their eyes I’d “always be a girl.”

During this time I started working on a novel, and named the main character “Spencer.” At first, he was everything I thought I could never be: tall, strong, masculine, and confident. But I realized that even if I wasn’t the tallest or the most masculine guy in the world, I could still go by Spencer because it made me happy.

My new name helped me gather the courage to start socially presenting as a boy. While I didn’t say it aloud to anyone yet, I changed my name on Discord and my social media profiles, and started dressing for the joy of feeling like myself, rather than to meet the expectations of others.

Almost two years later, I arrived on my first day of high school. Coming from a small middle school where everyone knew me as someone I wasn’t, I was eager for this fresh start in a new school with about 4,000 students. I was ready to let people see me for the first time, but I was also terrified of what they would think or say.

Getting ready to leave my house, I spent nearly an hour fussing in the mirror, stressing the question, do I pass as a boy? Wearing my tightest sports bras underneath the most masculine clothing I owned, I started the 30-minute walk to school.

In my global history class with Mr. Monte, I sat in the back, as far away from the teacher as possible. What-ifs swarmed in my head. What if he doesn’t call me ‘he’? Or won’t call me Spencer? What if someone makes fun of me? What if I get bullied?

Mr. Monte took attendance, and I winced when he called out the name I was assigned at birth, but I couldn’t find the courage to tell him my real name just yet. It wasn’t until later in the class that I shakily raised my hand.

I was ready to let people see me for the first time, but I was also terrified of what they would think or say.

He walked over to me with a warm, reassuring smile. “Is it OK if I have a nickname?” I asked.

And he responded, “What’s your nickname?”

“Spencer,” I said, and it felt real. For the first time, I was Spencer. I’d said it out loud, and I knew, finally, it was me. Then he asked, “What are your pronouns?” and I relaxed a little.

“He and him.”

He nodded, wrote it down, and then said, “I understand.” I suddenly felt less alone — there was someone who knew and accepted me.

It was an act of kindness that changed the trajectory of my high school life. Had he not offered me his understanding and respect, I probably wouldn’t have had the courage to share my name with my other teachers, and I’d have been stuck living and presenting as someone I never was.

But not all of my teachers were as understanding as Mr. Monte. They’d call me Spencer, but still she — no matter how many times I told them my pronouns. That took a toll.

Worrying that I’d be misgendered by my teachers made it hard for me to want to raise my hand. The hardest part was not knowing whether they were even trying, whether they were making genuine mistakes or were deliberately dismissing me.

A 2014 study in the journal “Self and Identity” showed that participants expressed feelings of low self-esteem surrounding their appearance and identity when they were frequently misgendered. Similarly, being misgendered made it harder for me to look in the mirror and see Spencer, and to be sure of myself. I wondered, What’s the point of being out of the closet if most people don’t see me as him?

Because I’m a minor and my parents don’t support my transition, I haven’t received a gender dysphoria diagnosis, and I’ve been unable to start medically transitioning, or even use puberty blockers.

The school doesn’t have a clear policy for someone like me when it comes to bathrooms, locker rooms, sports teams, etc. I live in a gray area, among other trans people who aren’t able to transition yet. To put it bluntly, it sucks.

During one of my uglier experiences at school, a student in my gym class called me a homophobic slur. Another time, after sharing my pronouns, a sophomore boy snidely asked about my genitalia. Harassment like this has become a common part of my high school experience.

I don’t know how I would have dealt with these negative emotions and the bitterness they created in me without the support system that I started building at school.

I formed a group of friends who call me “he” without issue. We all got to know each other through Drama Club, which seemed to attract a lot of other LGBTQ students. When we’re together, I don’t have to hold my breath whenever they’re about to refer to me in the third person.

My Drama Club adviser and algebra teacher, Mr. Lasher, struggled with my pronouns sometimes, which stung and made me wonder if I was doing something wrong. Should I not talk because my voice is an octave higher than it should be? But I knew he didn’t mean it. What was most important to me was that he tried.

“I get it,” I told him one day, “It takes time. Even I misgender myself sometimes.”

“I know,” he said, “And I know it hurts you more, but it hurts me, too. To be messing up this much.” I almost cried as the father-like compassion of his words struck me. It was the first time since coming out that I felt something like parental support.

When I shared with him that, “everyone is still calling me she,” referring to my other teachers, Mr. Lasher reached out to my guidance counselor, and she sent a gentle email to all of my teachers reminding them that my pronouns are he, him, and his. From then on, he became the trusted adult in my life.

Eventually, I want to be a teacher, too, so that I can give other kids the support that Mr. Lasher and my counselor have given me.

Now, as a sophomore, I’ve learned to take a deep breath when I’m misgendered, to count to 10, and remind myself that I’m still Spencer. I’m proud of how far I’ve come.

My friends elected me president of the Drama Club, and I do my best to maintain it as a safe space for them, just as they made it a safe space for me where I can be myself. When I’m surrounded by their smiling faces and laughter, I know who I really am. I’m Spencer, defined by my personality and actions.

I used to be scared of being myself. I wouldn’t even use my chosen name for something silly like my Starbucks order. Back then, Spencer represented a version of me that I thought could only exist in fiction. Now, it’s a symbol for choosing myself in real life. Telling people my name reminds me that I’m writing my own story.

Spencer Katz is a sophomore at James Madison High School in Brooklyn. He began writing at a young age and aspires to be everyone’s worst nightmare: an English teacher. He hopes to inspire other queer youth to be their authentic selves and never shut up.

A version of this piece was originally published on Youth Communication.

I train future teachers. Gun violence has them on edge.

2023-03-10T16:30:00+00:00

At the end of third grade, I wrote an essay in response to the prompt: “If you could wish for anything, what would it be?” My mom recalls that my response — “I want to feel safe in school” — nearly broke her heart. Since it was 1999, and I was a third grader at an elementary school just blocks away from Columbine High School, where gunmen had killed 12 students and a teacher just months prior, my response was not all that surprising. And yet, nearly 25 years later, my wish remains the same: I want to feel safe in school.

This wish remained front of mind when I was a third-grade teacher guiding my 8-year-old students through active shooter drills. The exact same wish often overcomes me as I try to ignore the relentless news stream of gun violence and drop off my two young children at school each day. Now, as a teacher educator in the School of Education at the University of Colorado whose work focuses primarily on preparing future teachers, I hear the same wish coming from my students. They, too, want to feel safe in school.

Deena Gumina

Incidences of gun violence are so commonplace that they can barely hold the 24-hour news cycle. In the past two weeks, there were three separate incidents within a square mile of our campus, and many of my friends and family didn’t even hear about them. And despite the prevalence of mass violence, including school shootings, we have to show up each day to teach, just as our students will be expected to when they have their own classrooms. We are all tired, but we have to go on.

As a teacher educator, I am expected to model the types of behavior with my students that I hope they will then enact in their future classrooms. I work to facilitate difficult conversations and hold space for their fears and anxieties while also pushing forward and instilling hope.

But what happens when I, myself, begin to feel hopeless? What happens when they look to me for answers I don’t have? Of course, there are many situations in my work where I don’t have the answers, and my students and I try to find them together. I intentionally position myself as a learner rather than an expert, just as I hope they will with their students someday. Though making peace with not knowing is much easier when it doesn’t feel like lives are on the line.

In recent years, the perception of teachers as martyrs has shifted from metaphor to reality.

As a profession, teaching is often framed as an act of martyrdom. Society will expect you to work long, difficult hours with few resources and little pay because the job is noble and thereby involves sacrifice. In recent years, the perception of teachers as martyrs has shifted from metaphor to reality. Future teachers are asking themselves, Would I be able to step in front of a gun for my students? And if the answer is no, Should I really become a teacher?

Much of my work centers on helping teachers find the power to imagine what is possible amid constraints instead of focusing on what they can’t do. Together, we work to find space to dream of what could be as a way to transform education from the inside out. Right now, though, everything we are doing feels colored by either real violence or the fear of it. My students want change; we all do. We want to know that if we are going to commit our lives to this work that those in power are committed to making it safe. Safety does not mean teachers coming to school armed. Safety means not having to think about guns at all while you work with your students.

I find myself wondering where these spaces for change might be. What if we refused to believe that our current reality is all that could be? Imagine if more educators unions took on gun lobbyists. Imagine if school boards called on state legislatures to make laws to protect children from gun violence. Imagine if elected officials banned the kinds of firearms being used to shoot children with the same ferocity and urgency that others are banning books and drag shows. Maybe reaching our breaking point finally gives us the opportunity to build something new.

Dr. Deena Gumina is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the School of Education at CU Boulder. Her work focuses on preparing teachers to work with and advocate for culturally and linguistically diverse students and their families. She lives in Colorado with her husband, her two children, and their chocolate lab.

For teachers and students, safe classrooms feel like a fairy tale

2023-01-20T13:00:00+00:00

I once taught a shooter. He wrote me a scathing letter about my class a year before he murdered his mother and reportedly planned to attack the school.

During a safety training at my school, we were taught that if a student is trapped in the hall during a lockdown and they knock on the door pleading to come in, we must refuse them entry in case they are feigning fear to gain access. Would I have been able to make that emotional pivot after working for a year with the boy who killed his mom?

Alicia Wein

I had spent that year trying to learn his vulnerabilities and passions, caring, pointing out his successes, and helping him unlock his writing from its stiff reserve. Would I have been able to turn away from him and register him not as a lover of history, an advocate for kids with disabilities, a beloved younger brother and only son, but merely as a threat? The idea alone breaks my heart.

Welcome to the mind of an educator in 2023, where lesson plans must jockey for space with the specter of gun violence. The news that a 6-year-old shot his teacher earlier this month in Newport News, Virginia, was just the latest disturbing reminder.

I remember when emergency preparedness in my classroom had nothing to do with violence. If a student asked me for something I didn’t have, I made sure I’d have it the next time. I filled a closet with tampons, band-aids, stain removers, duct tape, screwdrivers, hair ties, safety pins. If someone needed tape, it was a point of pride to reply, “carpet, book, scotch, or duct?” Students laughed and compared my room to Mary Poppins’ magical bag.

Now, they cheerfully say: “When we are in a lockdown, this is the room I want to be locked in!” I take this as a compliment, as it was intended. But 27 years into my career as an educator, I need to step back, breathe, and let myself be horrified by the implications of teaching against a backdrop of peril.

After a neighboring district went into lockdown due to a student threat, I spent 90 minutes of planning time emptying a second closet in the back of my room. Teacher friends told me what lockdown was like — the initial terror, and the five-and-a-half hour-long wait to be cleared from lockdown even after they knew they were safe. Attention turned from quieting anxiety to dealing with the physical discomfort of full bladders, thirst, and empty stomachs. They told me how they dug up snacks, shared water, and tried to negotiate a modicum of privacy when students had to urinate in the trash can.

In a department meeting, we made a plan to send gift baskets and well-wishes to those colleagues, then swapped ideas of how to mitigate a similar circumstance. I removed books and shelves and replaced them with lockdown supplies: glucose tablets and emergency blankets in case students go into shock, snacks and water bottles, and a red plastic bucket that students could use as a toilet during a long lockdown.

From my next paycheck, I will purchase kitty litter (for silencing streams of urine), a camping toilet seat that screws on the bucket, and a light to mount in the closet. There’s a pack of masks because if we have to huddle together, assuming we survive, we don’t want to catch COVID.

After my closet reorganization, I awoke in the night thinking I should bring old towels to school in case I ever needed to staunch bleeding, a circumstance for which I have zero training. On my drive to work, I used to mentally rehearse my lesson plans. Now I rehearse the “run, hide, fight” protocol.

‘When we are in a lockdown, this is the room I want to be locked in!’

At times this fall, I considered going on anti-anxiety medicine to address my stress level. At teacher training sessions, I wondered if I’d be better off hearing from experts on second-hand trauma and PTSD in soldiers. I ask my brother, who has over 20 years of experience as a sniper for Baltimore SWAT, for his advice about arranging my classroom furniture.

Teaching and learning, perhaps especially in a writing classroom like mine, are built on relationships, which depend on safety. My classroom works best as a protected space that fuels connection and vulnerability and helps students construct their understanding of their world and themselves. But now the looming fear of physical violence is throwing my classroom out of balance. With retirement a few years away, I’m increasingly skeptical that damage caused by fear in the classroom will ever be acknowledged, much less repaired.

Twenty-seven years into my teaching career, I still treat my students with tenderness. I remain friends with graduates and read their writing when it’s published outside school walls.

But this generation is internalizing the idea that being in public means putting your life in danger. For them, the idea of a safe classroom feels like the stuff of fairy tales. I don’t want to teach students that school is dangerous, but I fear I’m imparting that lesson through my own vigilance.

Abigail Zwerner, the Newport News teacher who was critically wounded by a 6-year-old in her class, was lauded in the news as a hero for clearing her room of students and asking about her students first when she woke in the hospital. Her actions are heroic, but we need to ask why they were necessary.

We have to resist perpetuating an understanding that constant physical peril is an acceptable way of life. We must speak up for legislation that funds infrastructure improvement, mental health support for students and educators, and reasonable gun control measures to keep weapons designed for murder out of the hands of children who can’t even get their driver’s licenses for another 10 years. We must refuse to let anyone tell educators to “fight back” without including specific instructions on how or allowing questions about why we are in danger to begin with.

Let dedicated educators restore an equilibrium in which we can expect more than to survive, and to be more than guardians of children’s bodies, more than stewards of this unacceptable new normal.

Alicia M. Wein is a secondary school English educator of 27 years, most taught at Guilderland Central School. She lives in Albany with her partner and beloved dogs, and is an avid reader, writer, and painter. She is especially interested in creating a school setting that allows for the inclusion of all students, and she works closely affiliated with The Capital District Writing Project. She is the 2023 recipient of the Bertha E. Brimmer Medal of Honor, a SUNY Excellence Award.

Why I didn’t want my friends to see where I lived

2022-12-08T13:00:00+00:00

After we moved to the Bronx from the Dominican Republic when I was 4, my mom, a home health care aide, worked long shifts and sometimes overnight. When she was at work, my friend’s mom babysat me.

I spent most afternoons and some nights in their apartment, where my friend had the pinkest room I had ever seen. It was something I thought was only possible in movies. There was a giant Barbie house and a toy chest overflowing with board games and stuffed animals. Sometimes, I thought, why can’t I live like this — in a home with cable TV and a PlayStation, with presents under the tree at Christmas?

Ashally De La Cruz

For most of my life, my mom and I lived in a studio apartment. There was a room divider separating the bed from the small kitchen, and there was a broken clock on the wall. I didn’t have toys like the ones I played with at my friend’s house. But I had a phone to communicate with my mom. On it, I could watch YouTube videos of other people playing games like Minecraft and Call of Duty. When I was at my babysitter’s home, I could play those games, too.

Our studio was a place to sleep, and I’m grateful for it, but it never felt like “home.”

So even when I was old enough to come back alone, I would spend days at a time at friends’ places. But I was constantly making excuses for why they couldn’t come to mine. I’d tell them my mom was cleaning the house or didn’t want guests — not because it was true, but because I was scared that my friends would judge me if they stepped even one foot inside. They probably would think it was weird that our whole apartment could fit in their living room.

I didn’t want people to know how much we struggled. When my friends went out for pizza, sometimes I’d only have a slice and no drink. Sometimes, I’d just tell them I wasn’t hungry, even if I was. Sometimes, I would ask the guy at the corner store near my school if I could pay him later. He’d known me since I was little and trusted that I’d give him the money when I had it.

I share this because it feels good to admit the things I have always been afraid to tell others. Maybe kids whose families struggle — or just don’t have as much as their friends do — will feel less alone. Maybe they will feel proud of the sacrifices their immigrant parents have made.

My mom has always been as generous as she could be. When she has an extra $5 or $10, she gives it to me so I can go out with my friends. After she pays the bills, she prioritizes things I need or that will make my life easier. If she sees a nice coat and she knows I need it, she’ll buy it for me instead of getting something for herself. During remote learning, she bought me a laptop. She really couldn’t afford it, but it was important to her that I stay on top of my schoolwork.

That hasn’t always been easy. I did my homework on the bed, since there was no desk or dining table, and tried hard to concentrate even as my mom talked on the phone on the other side of the room divider. We didn’t have WiFi, so if I needed internet, I’d have to go to my neighbor’s place or stand outside of it so their WiFi could reach my device. If I needed privacy to FaceTime with friends, the only option was to close myself in the bathroom.

Growing up, I knew it was important to my mom that I do well in school. She didn’t pressure me or scold me when I fell short. It didn’t matter though; I put plenty of pressure on myself. If I got an 80 on a test, I’d come home crying — having convinced myself that if I made one mistake my whole life would be ruined. I worried that all my mom’s sacrifices would be for nothing.

Sometimes, I’ve wondered why she came to the U.S. in the first place. In some ways, life in the Dominican Republic seemed more comfortable. My dad lives there and has a two-bedroom apartment to himself. But my mom saw a better future for me in the U.S., even if it meant working long hours and living in a studio apartment with little privacy and a broken clock. The schools here are much better, she told me. She wants me to go to college and become a professional. She wants me to have nice things and not be scared all the time.

That is my dream, too. I don’t want to worry about how I’m going to be able to pay the rent or take a day off if I’m sick. I want to finally take a vacation. I want to learn the budgeting and investing skills that generations before me never had a chance to learn. I want my mom to feel a sense of relief. I want my own kids to have a painted room and a toy chest. I want us to feel what it’s like to breathe, instead of fighting for the air we need.

That future feels closer than ever, now, as I prepare to graduate high school and begin college.

Ashally De La Cruz is a senior at Central Park East High School in New York City. She is in the process of applying to colleges.

Perder mi español es como perder parte de quien soy

2023-01-27T13:00:00+00:00

Read in English.

El español era mi primer idioma; de hecho, era el único que hablaba hasta que cumplí 5 años y empecé a ir a la escuela en Estados Unidos.

Al principio, ir a la escuela me daba miedo porque no hablaba inglés. Lloraba y buscaba cómo explicar de la mejor manera que me dolía el estómago y necesitaba ir a la enfermera. Luego le decía a la enfermera que tenía que irme a casa.

Ashally De La Cruz

Ahora me resulta difícil imaginarme batallando con el inglés, porque el inglés me resulta mucho más natural que el idioma en el que dije mis primeras palabras en la República Dominicana. A los 17 años, escribo, pienso y hasta sueño en inglés.

Pero mi mamá nunca aprendió inglés bien. La mayor parte de mi vida, le he traducido los documentos del gobierno al español. He traducido formularios escolares, reuniones de padres y maestros, mensajes de texto, correos electrónicos y hasta canciones de la radio.

Hace aproximadamente un año, mi mamá (que es asistente de salud en el hogar) me llamó desde el trabajo. Mayormente trabaja con gente que habla español, pero la paciente nueva solamente hablaba inglés. La mujer quería un pan específico del supermercado y había perdido la paciencia intentando explicarle eso a mi mamá.

La gente tiene muy poca paciencia con los que hablan poco inglés. Preguntan, con un tono de prejuicio en la voz: “¿Cómo es posible que hayas vivido tanto tiempo en Estados Unidos y todavía no sepas hablar inglés?” Suponen que mi mamá, después de 12 años aquí, es perezosa o simplemente no quiere aprender el idioma.

No obstante, verdad es más complicada. Aprender un nuevo idioma en la etapa de adulto requiere tiempo y energía, y no es fácil contar con eso cuando se trabaja muchas horas, a veces de un día para otro, solamente para poder subsistir. Los inmigrantes deberían contar con opciones fáciles y a precio razonable para aprender un idioma nuevo. Mientras algunos países ofrecen cursos gratuitos e ilimitados para aprender un idioma, e incluso les pagan a los inmigrantes para que aprendan el idioma local, Estados Unidos no lo hace.

Yo trato de tener eso en mente cuando ayudo a mi mamá y cuando me piden que interprete para los clientes de Old Navy, donde trabajo los fines de semana. Hacerlo toma tiempo y esfuerzo, y además me distrae de mis responsabilidades en el trabajo, pero la expectativa es que yo lo tome como si no fuera gran cosa.

Últimamente ha sido aún más difícil porque siento que mi español se me está olvidando. Los investigadores conocen esto como “desgaste del idioma natal” y es común entre las personas, especialmente los niños, que pasan largas temporadas lejos de su país y de su idioma materno.

Después de 12 años en Estados Unidos, hay palabras en español que siempre se me olvidan. Digo “thing” en vez de “cosa”, por ejemplo, y a veces necesito utilizar Google Translate solo para poder conversar con mi mamá. Como ya no hablo español tan bien como antes, mis conversaciones con ella son cada día más breves. Lo que antes era una larga conversación ahora se convierte en hablar sobre cosas sin importancia. Y la realidad es que la conversación no se siente genuina.

Cada vez que me cuesta recordar una palabra o frase en español, me desespero. Siento que las mejillas se me calientan y se enrojecen. Sé lo que estoy tratando de decir, pero no recuerdo cómo hacerlo. Busco otras palabras, pero terminan sonando raras. A veces me rindo cuando no consigo transmitir lo que quiero porque sé cómo decirlo en un idioma, pero no en el otro.

En esos momentos, se siente que estoy perdiendo una parte importante de quien soy: la parte dominicana. Mi mamá y yo no celebramos muchas de las tradiciones dominicanas. Lo único que nos conecta a nuestro país natal es nuestro idioma español y la comida dominicana (como mangú con queso frito que suena al masticarlo, tajadas delgaditas de salami crujiente y tostones con sal).

Este año, una de mis resoluciones de año nuevo es hablar español todos los días con mis amigos que lo hablan. A veces deseo haberme esforzado más por mantener mi nivel de español, pero era algo que nunca pensé que perdería.

Aprender un idioma nuevo es difícil. Pero también es difícil mantener uno que ya se sabía.

Ashally De La Cruz es estudiante de duodécimo grado en la Escuela Superior Central Park East de Nueva York. Hasta ahora ha sido aceptada en 10 universidades y está en proceso de elegir una.

Traducción: Milly Suazo-Martinez

NYC high school admissions is overwhelming. It rewards parents like me.

2023-01-30T19:30:00+00:00

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Just before midnight, attempting to make the deadline for extra materials required for admission by some of New York City’s most selective public high schools, I sat watching the upload time for my 13-year-old’s video extend from six minutes to 11 to 15.

I’d been trying to upload it for two hours. I’d cleared my cache, rebooted my computer, toggled my Wi-Fi, and checked the Applying to High School in NYC Facebook group. According to the city website, I should rename the file, make sure it was less than 500 MB, try a different browser. When the upload failed for the eighth time, I was struggling not to cry.

The only thing left was changing the file format. With my husband peering over my shoulder, I frantically found a free file converter online. It was 12:15 a.m., but, miraculously, it worked.

Afterward, as I lay in the dark, adrenaline still coursing through my body, I thought about how this step might have gone for someone who didn’t have a computer or Wi-Fi at home, whose data limits on their cell phone plan couldn’t handle eight failed upload attempts, who didn’t have an adult who could spare two hours trying to figure it out, who didn’t speak English.

It was yet another hurdle in a high school application process that, according to Chancellor David Banks, aims to increase access for “communities who have been historically locked out of screened schools” while also rewarding students who’ve earned high grades. In practice, it rewards parents and caregivers like myself who have the time and resources to navigate an incredibly complex system.

Even as someone who has advocated for integration and equity for years, I got sucked in by the Hunger Games mentality that the system seems designed to provoke. I felt compelled to play along because my son really wanted a high school that might be more challenging after a middle school experience that often felt too easy. I struggled to find a way through the ethical compromises. Meantime, the process, perhaps by design, kept me so busy and overwhelmed that I had little opportunity — or incentive — to dwell on the inequities.

To start, caregivers and parents must sift through 700 high school programs while trying to wrap their heads around five different admissions methods with varying additional requirements (entrance exam, art portfolios, auditions, essays, and videos). Then you must try to secure a spot for school tours that can get snatched up quicker than a Taylor Swift ticket. Once you begin to narrow the selection down to the 12 choices a student can rank on their application, you are left to calculate the impact of a student’s academic tier, priority group, and 32-digit lottery number alongside each school’s applicant-to-seat ratio to determine their chances of being matched with a school by an algorithm so complex it took a Nobel Prize winner to design it.

It’s no surprise that the process spurred a Facebook support group of 4,000 members, with parents sharing “decision trees” and spreadsheets to keep it all straight. I dutifully made my own spreadsheet, hustled to secure my son spots on tours, and scoured the posts for intel on “hidden gems.” It felt more and more unfair that he should get a leg up simply because his mother had the time, energy, and privilege to master the system.

Throughout the process, I saw some parents with privilege perceive the system as working against them. They pointed out their disadvantage as many selective high schools participate in Diversity in Admissions, which allows schools to set aside a portion of their available seats, ranging from 12 to 88%, for families who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, are English Language learners, or share other criteria.

Principals sometimes fed into these feelings. At a tour of one selective high school last November, a principal reassured a mostly white audience they “shouldn’t worry about” the DIA set-asides, because those seats don’t usually get filled. The school supported DIA, he went on, “as long as they could maintain their academic standards.”

And yet I’m heartened by how some of my peers in the Facebook group have come to recognize the high school application process’s inordinate demands. Parents volunteered to do research for overwhelmed parents, inspiring me to offer my help to other parents in my son’s grade, with a few of them taking me up on it. Members shared articles about the inequities of the system, encouraged parents to consider schools outside “the usual suspects,” and checked racially coded comments about a school’s climate. The group administrators created documents to simplify the process for DIA families and English language learners, though these parents represent a small portion of the overall group.

As the application deadline loomed, an anonymous poster who identified themselves as a DOE employee asked members what could be done to make the process more equitable. The suggestions came pouring in: get rid of academic screens and essay requirements, provide more translation services, offer open houses at different times and in different languages, encourage middle school guidance counselors to bring students on high school tours, bring back the printed high school directory, provide transportation to high schools, better training for guidance counselors, and work to combat the scarcity mentality that pits student against student and creates the impression that there are only a few high-quality choices.

Spending time researching the hundreds of school options does reveal that New York City high schools offer something for everyone: flight simulators to study aerodynamics; a planetarium to study the stars; a chance to work on sailboats or airplane engines or for fashion brands; certificate programs in plumbing, construction or coding that sets up students for high paying jobs that don’t require a college degree; professional-level training in drama, dance, music, filmmaking, and art; recording studios and 3-D printers; internships at hospitals or restaurants or research labs; options to study Arabic, Mandarin, Russian, Japanese, or sign language, and an opportunity to learn alongside classmates who bring different lived experiences to the classroom discussions.

As for me, I’d quickly abandoned my spreadsheet and lost my energy for scouring school websites and attending tours. I got tired of playing along. It was hard enough to get my son to write his application essays. When I filled up the bottom of his list of 12 high schools with choices we never visited or even knew much about, picked mostly because they didn’t have additional requirements, I felt a pang of guilt that I was failing him.

It’s possible it won’t matter. He could get an offer from a specialized high school, another admissions process – based on a single test – that can hardly be described as equitable. (The ethical questions don’t end, despite my efforts to start an afterschool test prep class at my son’s school, open to all.) While I think his academic drive and easygoing nature will help him succeed wherever he lands, I also know that if it turns out to not be a good fit, I have the resources to find something better for him next year.

While the city fiddles at the margins to “increase access,” big changes to this process seem unlikely. Each of us, then, is left to muddle our way through and help one another. I hope parents and caregivers can continue to shift our mentality from high school Hunger Games to one where every student can win.

Bliss Broyard’s journalism focuses on racial and economic justice and has appeared in the New York Times, New York Magazine, and the New Yorker, among other publications. She’s the author of the award-winning memoir, “One Drop: My Father’s Hidden Life–A Story of Race and Family Secrets,” and is at work on a sequel. You can find her on Twitter @blissbroyard.

What we lose when we whitewash Black history

2023-02-01T13:00:00+00:00

Dear Fellow Socially Conscious Teacher,

I have been thinking about you so much, what you and I are going through, and how to be there for each other. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision to ban AP African American Studies in his state has made me think of the writer James Baldwin’s powerful 1963 speech “A Talk to Teachers.”

Speaking in front of a group of educators, he stated:

“...you must understand that in the attempt to correct so many generations of bad faith and cruelty, when it is operating not only in the classroom but in society, you will meet the most fantastic, the most brutal, and the most determined resistance. There is no point in pretending that this won’t happen.”

In this speech, Baldwin goes on to say that educators should encourage Black students to seek liberation. His warning about resistance and his strong desire for teachers to uplift students of color couldn’t be more relevant today.

Abigail Henry

An African American History teacher in West Philadelphia, I learned of DeSantis’ ban after a long day of planning how to teach Reconstruction — my most challenging unit. (Philadelphia, for its part, requires high school students to take an African American history course to graduate.) Upon hearing the news out of Florida, I asked myself: Why would a leader deny Black students a chance to learn about the origins of the KKK, read a speech by Hiram Revels, the first Black U.S. Senator, and compare and contrast the Supreme Court decisions in the Dred Scott case and Plessy v. Ferguson.

And why is the assumption that any teaching of African American History involves some sort of forced discussion of white privilege on white students?

The current discourse prioritizes a false need to protect some students at the expense of the education of Black students (and teachers of color). I wrote about this unfortunate phenomenon for the Pulitzer Center, where I had been part of the inaugural cohort working to incorporate Nikole Hannah-Jones “1619 Project” into curriculum.

Teaching students that racism exists matters. Teaching students that Black people were recently 3.64 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis highlights to them that, yes, institutional racism still exists in this country. Teaching the extent to which millions of Americans profited from forced enslaved labor will promote student understanding of the racial wealth gap. Teaching students about the beauty of Zora Neale Hurston’s writing, Bessie Smith’s music, or Lois Mailou Jones’ artwork provides students the opportunity to celebrate a positive Black identity. My families want that for their children, and what Black families want in classrooms matters, too.

So what are we socially conscious teachers to do? Well, a lot. First, I think it’s important for educators to reach out to families in their community. Share their curriculum and show families the appropriate lessons students are learning in their classrooms. Reach out, especially, to families of color; I am concerned that their voices are being lost in these curriculum battles.

Here are recent responses I got from a student and a parent about why they believe any African American history course is important.

One former student and current college sophomore told me:

“Learning about African American history in high school has benefited me from learning more about my culture and history in this country since it is not really taught with greater emphasis than just black people were slaves, they were free, segregation, segregation ended, black people are all good. When that’s not the complete truth! … African American history is American history. Without it you’re not telling the complete truth about this country!”

[Baldwin’s] warning about resistance and his strong desire for teachers to uplift students of color couldn’t be more relevant today.

And a parent of one of my current African American History students explained:

“I don’t think that it’s just important for my child to learn African American History. I think every child should learn it. I really think it helps to deal with racism. It teaches my child what his ancestors went through and some of the things they’ve overcome. I think that learning our history may help our people to be more productive citizens, to want to better their communities. I think it may help other races to understand what issues we have gone through and may help them to want to come together to become allies and better Americans.”

Families at my school community have expressed support for my curriculum. Yet, I am fully aware that this is not the case for all educators. One tip I have learned from those in states that have banned critical race theory is to frame a lesson around the standard and not the historical content. For example, in teaching about Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, or Fred Hampton, teachers may integrate common standards such as “compare and contrast treatments of the same topic in several primary sources” and “cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources.” This framing helps provide coverage for educators because if there’s a backlash or complaint, a teacher can identify the specific skill students are learning.

Black educators need to respond to educational racism by leaning on our ancestors. My grandmother was a descendant of enslaved people. She was born in Grenada and did not know how to read or write. On some plantations, if an enslaved person was caught reading or teaching another to read, they were tortured and murdered. Denying Black people education has been a primary tool of oppression to keep white people in power.

We socially conscious teachers need to remind administrators, politicians, and policymakers about education’s racist past — and point out hypocrisy. The state of Florida apparently has no problem with students taking AP European History. Those courses never seem up for debate.

I know this work is challenging, frustrating, exhausting, and infuriating. Yet, dear socially conscious teacher, we must not forget our true “purpose of education.”

As a young Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in a 1947 college newspaper article:

“We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate. The broad education will, therefore, transmit to one not only the accumulated knowledge of the race but also the accumulated experience of social living … ‘brethren! ’Be careful, teachers!’”

I believe in us and the work we do.

Yours in partnership,

Ms. Henry

A version of this essay first appeared in Philly’s 7th Ward.

Abigail Henry has been teaching African American History at Mastery Charter Shoemaker Campus for the past 11 years, and she is the Content Lead for the network. Last year, Abigail won a Pulitzer Center Grant to incorporate the 1619 Project into curriculum. This past summer, she worked as an adjunct professor for St. Michael’s College, where she developed the course “African American History for Teachers,” Henry has also provided African-American History consulting for Villanova University, PBS, and the Trellis Foundation.

What I want to be when I grow up often surprises people

2023-02-07T13:00:00+00:00

I’m a high school senior, and as graduation approaches, people are always asking, “Dashawn, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

Those who know me expect me to say something along the lines of a psychologist or a corporate wellness director. After all, I helped my Newark high school start a wellness council and class, and I’m always looking for ways to make our community more empathetic and equitable. So people often give me a surprised look when I say “investment portfolio manager.”

My family taught me at an early age the importance of saving and budgeting; I did chores around the house, and in exchange, they put $2 in my piggy bank. Back then, money mainly meant that I could buy my own candy.

I became interested in finance for real when I was 9 and saw a television depiction of a chaotic Wall Street trading floor. I was a quiet kid back then but seeing the actors run around shouting different finance terms awakened something in me. I started running around my house shouting “Dow index” and “Bloomberg” without knowing what those words meant.

Wanting to know more about Wall Street, I begged my mom to take me to the library, where I checked out books like “Rich Dad, Poor Dad.” That book, while controversial, highlights the importance of financial education and shows how decisions can impact a person’s ability to build wealth. It got me thinking about building my own wealth. I realized that there was a world in which I could travel, help support struggling family members, and still have enough to buy all the Pepsi and Nutty Bars I wanted.

Until then, I honed my skills with Roblox’s Trading Simulator. It allowed me to buy, sell, and trade digital items with other players. At first, I couldn’t get anyone to buy my inventory, but with some practice, I was turning a profit — an imaginary one, but it was a start.

By high school, I was done with Roblox but still convinced that I wanted to go into finance. The summer before my senior year, I secured an internship on the fixed-income team at the investment firm BlackRock. On my first day, I worried that the traders would be arrogant, as they are sometimes depicted in the movies. I worried about making a mistake. I wondered: Do I really deserve to be here? I’m only 17. But as I was shown around the Manhattan trading floor, like the one I’d been dreaming about since I was 9, and met some key executives, my nerves subsided.

Here’s what a typical day at my internship looked like: I’m sitting at a desk, staring at the three different computer monitors perched there. On the center monitor, there’s an investment committee meeting going on; I’m feverishly taking down notes while trying to remember some of the “Wall Street lingo,” like BPS, which is pronounced like “bips” and refers to as one-hundredth of a percentage point. The computer screen on the left tracks the stock market down to the millisecond, and the one on the right flashes the firm’s security protocols as I enter the investment firm’s database.

At first, it felt hard to keep up with so much information coming in, but after asking my manager a plethora of questions, I began to think of it as a mystery, and here I was trying to guess whether certain stocks would go up or down.

I started running around my house shouting ‘Dow index’ and ‘Bloomberg’ without knowing what those words meant.

That summer, my manager tasked me with monitoring trades, conducting research on companies in the S&P 500, looking at how Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts impact stock ratings, and monitoring social media for political trends that could impact the market. I learned about client relations and accountability, and I honed my problem-solving skills.

I’m confident in my career choice, but telling people about it can be awkward. When they hear “investment portfolio manager,” I hear subtle disapproval in their response. They have seen onscreen (and stereotypical) depictions of Wall Street bankers, too.

But I know that finance can be a force for good — and that I can be a force for good in the world of finance, which is currently a white-dominated field. As a Black man and a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I know that I have a role to play in helping under-resourced communities access financial information and capital that can help them build wealth.

I dream of creating affinity groups in my future workplace, where employees of color and LGBTQ+ employees could meet regularly to support each other and strengthen our sense of belonging. We could also work together to promote diversity in our workplace.

Outside of work, I imagine starting a nonprofit that teaches financial literacy to middle and high school students. I want other kids to have financial information that makes them feel informed and empowered. I want them to learn how to budget, use cash-flow spreadsheets, and even save for retirement. You’re never too young.

Dashawn Sheffield is a senior at North Star Academy Washington Park High School. He aims to educate students and faculty on the symptoms of mental health issues, and promote school-based mental health support. Dashawn will attend Lafayette College in the fall.

The other thing locked classroom doors keep out

2023-02-08T13:00:00+00:00

At the beginning of this school year, the Maryland school district where I teach imposed a new regulation: All classroom doors are to be locked when students are in the building. Of course, we’ve had exterior doors locked and a strict visitor check-in policy for most of the 20-plus years I’ve been teaching at this high school.

The new mandate grew out of the recommendations of the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission, which reported, “There has never been an event in which an active shooter breached a locked classroom door.” I’m all for protecting our students and staff and am well-versed in the debates over locking mechanisms and who should be deputized to open a locked door when someone knocks. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned about the policy’s effect on our school culture.

Jamey Melcher

We’re well into the school year now, and teachers areteaching, students are engaged, and classrooms are full of lively activity. But the hallways are now wonderful places for teenagers to disengage, stare at their phones, or roam around unnoticed. Exactly what we have been working so hard to combat in our post-pandemic school communities. Classroom activities and discussions that used to filter into the hallways and even draw passersby into them, now seem to exist within their own bubbles, and the overall feeling of community has decreased dramatically.

It’s easy to blame attendance policies or school administrators for not disciplining students when they skip class. But the blame game or heavier disciplinary consequences don’t really address the culture of isolation that we are now getting used to. As teachers, we see that students are more withdrawn when we deliver our lessons only on screens or otherwise overuse technology. Now, we’ve created a physical environment that also separates and isolates young people.

Until this year, students in my English classes would use the hallway as a practice and staging area when rehearsing their assigned scenes from “Macbeth” or “Antigone.” On performance day, they would grandly enter the classroom in their ridiculous paper crowns, fake beards, and other items from the prop box.

And I miss hearing students in the physics class across the hall propel race cars down the corridor or stretch giant springs and measure the force or torque or whatever it is they used to do out there. The French class students who would sit on the floor in small groups, spreading out into the hallway so they could work on conversational skills, are also gone now.

Open classroom doors fostered inclusion and unity within our diverse high school.

I miss hearing students in the physics class across the hall propel race cars down the corridor.

By locking our school’s interior doors, are we overreacting to the dangerous world around us? I think we probably are. I’m afraid that we’re also unwittingly contributing to the pervasive decline in interpersonal skills among our teenagers. We didn’t really understand the emotional and social damage caused by moving schools online for an extended period of time until we returned to in-person learning. In a similar way, I fear that our attempts to keep students safe by creating a lockdown atmosphere in schools every day is also damaging the social and emotional growth of many students.

Is the solution to be carefree and ignore the lessons of the tragic events that have occurred and continue to bring us to tears each time they happen? No. But we do need to react with a measured response. We haven’t stopped going to malls, restaurants, or concerts because fatal shootings have happened in those places. We continue to engage with each other because we need places that bring us together and create community; our students need that even more than we do.

Jamey Melcher is currently a Work Based Learning Coordinator and a former English teacher for Frederick County Public Schools in Maryland. She has been teaching and learning from her high school students for 26 years.

Dear teachers: As a future educator, I have one request

2023-02-13T13:00:00+00:00

Dear teachers,

I have been reading your Facebook posts laced with struggle and sorrow. My TikTok feed is filled with explanations for why you have chosen to leave the classroom — issues such as a lack of administrator support, burnout, and difficulties with the students in your classrooms. The last few years were draining, and I’m sorry for what you’ve endured. My mother always told me that it’s difficult to love and care for others when you don’t receive the love and care that you need.

I know your jobs have expanded far beyond teaching. Counselor, caretaker, advocate — your list of duties only seems to grow with time. No matter how much you give, or how little you’re paid, our society always seems to want more. I want you to know that your blood, sweat, and tears don’t go unnoticed.

As a college student working toward my teacher certification, I’ve closely followed your struggles, especially during the pandemic. But I have to admit that the constant news about teacher burnout is weighing heavily on me.

Hadley Hicklin

I’m full of hope for my future career. My parents work in education, and many of my role models were teachers. I didn’t choose this path for the money or the fame, but because I want to impact the next generation. Last semester, I got the chance to lead a few lessons with 10th graders at a local high school. Their joy about everything from their book choices to learning about argumentative writing techniques was tangible, and it gave me excitement for the possibilities of my future classroom.

But even as I look forward to a future in teaching, I am constantly exposed to overworked and overwhelmed educators. There is validity in both stories of struggle and success, but I fear I am losing hope. So, with apologies, I am about to ask you to put yet another item on your to-do list.

As you share your struggles, I wonder if you could also share the differences you are making in students’ lives.

As you share your struggles, I wonder if you could also share the differences you are making in students’ lives. I’m not asking for toxic positivity. I’m asking you to open up about the truly happy moments that make your time in the field worthwhile. I would love to see the letters of praise from your students, the projects being completed in your classroom, and instances where you see the direct impact of your influence. My teachers impacted me on a daily basis with their wisdom and encouragement. I could use a reminder that such relationships are still possible.

I am planning to graduate next year, and I often question if I have the ability to provide the help that my future students may need. Sometimes I wonder if I am naive to think I can make a difference; I am not alone. Conversations with my peers studying education often revolve around the same subjects: teacher burnout, mental health struggles, staffing shortages, and growing academic gaps. We know the profession can be difficult, and we question whether we have the capacity for change that we once believed we did.

Teachers, your work and advocacy for students and their needs has carved out a pathway for the next generation of teachers, and I appreciate it. I’m just asking you to remember how you felt when you first became a teacher. And then, think of me and my future colleagues.

Sincerely,

A future educator

Hadley Hicklin is a student at Missouri Southern State University, where she is pursuing a bachelor of science in education, English 9-12. She is a senior this semester and is looking forward to student teaching in the fall. Hadley credits her choice of becoming a teacher to all of the amazing educators she has been influenced by, including her parents.

How ChatGPT made my lessons more engaging

2023-02-16T12:00:00+00:00

Much of the education narrative around ChatGPT has focused on the potential downsides of the AI tool (think Skynet from “The Terminator”). But as a high school teacher who has experimented with the sophisticated word predictor app in my economics, U.S. History, and speech and debate classes, I’ve found that ChatGPT provides opportunities to engage the students in class activities. Here’s how I’ve harnessed a tool that is here to stay (no matter how many school districts try to block it).

Spencer Burrows

I welcomed our first “speaker,” ChatGPT.

Our student learning is anchored around Harkness discussions, an educational approach in which students discuss class readings, course material, and other texts. Students learn how to prepare for a discussion, have difficult conversations, understand different perspectives, and meaningfully participate. While many students grasp the notion of voicing their ideas, teaching them to build upon another student’s point is more difficult.

In Economics, we spent one class analyzing the dot-com bubble at the turn of the millennium. To prepare, I asked ChatGPT what caused the bubble, and here was the response:

“The dot-com bubble was caused by a combination of factors, including:

Irrational exuberance: Investors were overly optimistic about the potential of internet-based companies, leading to a huge influx of investment capital.
Overvaluation of tech startups: Startups with no revenue or profits were valued at extremely high prices, leading to a bubble.
Lack of regulation: The SEC failed to adjust its regulations to the new realities of the internet and the stock market.
Hype around internet technology: There was a lot of hype around the potential of the internet, which fueled the bubble.
These factors combined to create the Dot-com Bubble, which burst in 2000-2001 causing many internet-based companies to fail, leading to a significant loss of investment capital.”

In class, I asked the students to respond to or build upon the ChatGPT answer in 2-4 sentences. Next, the students considered what facts or context would make the ChatGPT response more accurate or complete. Then, the students created three Harkness questions based on the ChatGPT response: a clarifying question, a curiosity question, and a probing question.

Student questions included: How could the government help prevent a future dot-com bubble? What are the measurements that determine whether the stock price of a company matches its value? How would an investor utilize bubbles to increase the value of their investment before leaving when the going is good?

Finally, I input the student questions into ChatGPT, projected the app’s responses live on the board, and asked the students to build upon the app’s response in a live discussion.

After going back and forth with ChatGPT, the class reflected on how the AI tool produced its content. We discussed, for example, whether the word predictor technology focused on certain keywords to produce generalized information regarding a financial crisis, most of which could be generalized to any financial crisis, including the 1929 stock market crash. Through this exercise, students learned to build on a prior discussion point, think on their feet, and better develop arguments.

I asked teens to fact-check ChatGPT’s answers.

Right now in my U.S. History class, we are studying Reconstruction. During a recent lesson, I asked ChatGPT, “What is Radical Reconstruction?” The app replied:

“‘Radical Reconstruction’ refers to the period of American history from 1867 to 1877 in which the federal government, under the leadership of the Republican Party, actively sought to rebuild the Southern states that had seceded during the Civil War and to provide civil rights and political representation for the newly freed slaves. This period was marked by the passage of several important pieces of legislation, including the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, which granted citizenship and voting rights to African Americans. The period was also marked by conflict and violence, as white Southerners resisted the changes and the federal government’s efforts to enforce them.”

Students learned to build on a prior discussion point, think on their feet, and better develop arguments.

I then asked the students, working in pairs, to critically analyze the ChatGPT response. What is accurate about this response? What is inaccurate? What facts or context could be added to the response to make it more complete?

Working in pairs, some students observed that though the start and end dates were accurate, the response was very vague and could benefit from referencing notable people, quotes, amendments, and laws. Other students noted that because Radical Reconstruction was more of a movement rather than an event, it is difficult to establish the exact dates. Many online sources report that it ended in 1872 rather than 1877. Why is there a discrepancy regarding the exact dates? That prompted a discussion around historical accuracy, historiography, and how we choose to report and sequence events. Further, some students noted the 15th Amendment only applied to African American men.

This lesson reinforced that one must always view online content with a critical eye. One of the most important skills to teach students today is how to discern which online sources are credible, and which are not.

I had students debate the app.

In Speech and Debate, one of the hardest skills to teach students is to think on their feet and deliver rebuttals. In Parliamentary debate, students are given a topic and a short time to conduct quick research before the debate begins. This format requires participants to construct arguments on the spot and respond immediately to their opponents.

To practice for the upcoming debate tournament, I fed sample debate resolutions to ChatGPT, projected the app’s responses, and had the students respond in real time.

To begin, I gave ChatGPT the resolution, “Should 16-year-olds have the right to vote?” Students were quick to identify weaknesses in the app’s argument, and they delivered their rebuttals. For example, one of my students argued that 16-year-olds should not be able to vote because their prefrontal cortex is not fully developed (a keen observation from a fellow 16-year-old). Other students argued that 18 is an arbitrary age that confers the maturity of an adult (if not yet the ability to purchase alcohol) — so why not 16?

Students reflected that using ChatGPT in debate prep was valuable because the app was able to launch the debate, outline arguments, provide a foundation of the issue, and retrieve useful points that the students could later adapt and refine.

AI isn’t going anywhere, which means it’s up to us, educators, to find creative ways to engage with it in our classrooms. We are still smarter than the machines, for now!

Spencer Burrows is a history teacher and the 11th grade dean at Pacific Ridge School in Carlsbad, California. He is a Teach Plus and Coro Lead LA alumnus. Burrows serves as education adjunct faculty at National University and on the Board of Directors of TEACH Public Schools in South Los Angeles.

I’ve been code-switching since kindergarten

2023-02-17T13:00:00+00:00

I’ve been code-switching since I was 5. Back in kindergarten, when I wanted something from my teacher — a sticker, say, or an extra prize — I would raise my voice to the highest pitch my vocal cords would allow, tilt my head, and twinkle my eyes. After receiving the sticker or prize, I could relax and talk to my friends with my natural voice, which is lower.

My younger self couldn’t tell you then what code-switching meant, only that I realized that altering my voice and demeanor endeared me to my teacher.

Enoch Naklen

Code-switching, a term coined in the 1950s by the linguist Einar Haugen, refers to the process of moving between languages and dialects. More recently, researchers writing in the Harvard Business Review defined code-switching as changing one’s language, mannerisms, or appearance to “optimize the comfort of others in exchange for fair treatment, quality service, and employment opportunities.”

In the U.S., the onus of code-switching (and making others comfortable) often falls on people in marginalized communities who are expected to talk and act like people in power — very often, white people. Code-switching is just one facet of an uphill battle marginalized communities face trying to survive in a society not made for us. Back in kindergarten, it seemed like a harmless way to get rewards from my teacher; now, as I near adulthood, it feels like a necessary tool just to get by in certain situations, like at school.

I am a senior at The Brooklyn Latin School, one of New York City’s specialized high schools where admission is based on a single test; Black and Hispanic students, who make up about 65% of all city students, are chronically underrepresented at these elite schools. Before high school, I attended schools that enrolled primarily Black and Hispanic students. Even with Latin being among the most diverse of the specialized schools, Black and Latino students still make up 12% and 11% of students, respectively.

When I got to Latin, I subconsciously began to speak in a higher-pitched voice at school and made sure not to let any African American Vernacular English, sometimes called Ebonics, slip into my speech. I began to assume that to get ahead, I needed to “act white” in a society that privileges whiteness.

Code-switching also carried me through my interviews and internships. In professional settings throughout high school, I hewed closely to the mannerisms of the person in charge; more often than not, these people were white. I tried to blend in.

The switch back and forth has become so natural that my friends and I joke about it. After an interaction with school staff, for example, I immediately relax, resting my shoulders and returning to a comfort zone among others who are also familiar with what it’s like to be a Black student at an elite school.

My friend Iyatta described her experience like this: “As soon as I step into the office, I activate my telemarketer voice, refresh my vocabulary, being sure to remind myself of various formalities and await the long day ahead of me.”

She said she experienced “undeniable” benefits of code-switching because others perceive her as professional, but noted, “I will always have to outperform the mediocre majority because of the internal biases that plague our society.”

I know what she means because despite being an exceptional Black scholar who feels comfortable in his own skin, imposter syndrome has festered within me. Sometimes I feel like I have to act a certain way (and not just “be myself”) to be accepted in some settings.

The topic of code-switching brings up a lot of strong and conflicting feelings, like when college football coach Deion Sanders recently called out a Black reporter for code-switching during an interview. Some thought Sanders was out of line, while others saw him as starting a much-needed conversation in the Black community.

I see validity on both sides. I’m well aware of the burden of code-switching and the dexterity it requires, but it also makes me more aware of the identities of the people and places around me. More sympathetic, too. And it’s given me a greater understanding of who I am and my duty as a Black man to be proud of my identity, even in spaces where I’m not in the majority.

Being comfortable with who I am no matter the situation means I’m no longer insecure about pairing “good afternoon” with a firm handshake instead of a head nod and dap. Because now it doesn’t feel like I’m trying to assimilate into an environment I don’t fully resonate with; it feels like leveraging a tool of social success.

Enoch Naklen is a senior at The Brooklyn Latin School and a Chalkbeat Student Voices Fellow. He encourages young adults to have challenging conversations.

Future teachers need to hear the good stuff, too

2023-02-21T22:58:59+00:00

This piece was written in response to ”Dear teachers: As a future educator, I have one request,” published recently in Chalkbeat.

Dear Future Educator,

Just like you, I have been following the stream of articles and social media posts where teachers are talking about their struggles. I can even relate to many of those struggles, such as unrealistic expectations, challenging classroom behaviors, and mental health struggles. Despite all that we’re up against, I can say with complete confidence that I love being a teacher and couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

Margi Bhansali

To be honest, listening to other teachers often makes me feel a bit guilty about how much I still enjoy teaching after more than 10 years as an early childhood educator in Chicago.

When I’m in a group of educators who are complaining, I often just sit back and listen. But after reading your letter, I no longer want to stay silent. I think it’s important for you to know that there will be challenges. Now I see that it’s just as important for you to hear the good stuff, too.

When I first started teaching in 2010, I was, like you, full of hope and possibilities. I would wake up a bit nervous, yes, but also excited and overflowing with ideas. However, I was the only new hire at my school that year, and I had a hard time finding another teacher to bounce ideas off and plan with.

Just like today, most teachers were overworked and underpaid. They were jaded — and with good reason. I entered the teaching force after my district had implemented a seven-year pay freeze. Most days the teacher’s lounge was filled with negativity and complaints about things like students who just won’t listen or how they had to learn yet another new curriculum. I felt just like you’re feeling. I wondered: Did anyone have anything good left to say about teaching?

I questioned my career choice and wondered if I was naive in thinking I could make a difference. One day, I clearly remember a veteran teacher looking at me and saying, “Don’t worry, soon enough you’ll be complaining every day just like the rest of us.” I was really disheartened by his comment, so I vowed to never become like that. And I haven’t.

How have I stayed in this career without becoming jaded? It’s just like you mentioned. It’s the relationships and the true moments of happiness I’ve experienced with students, families, and colleagues. I work hard daily to find joy in the smiles, the “aha” moments, and the hugs. Here are just a few recent experiences that keep alive my love of teaching.

This year, I was able to take some parental time off for the adoption of my daughter. We combined this time with winter break to visit our extended family in India, so it had been a month since I’d seen my students. The day I returned, I went outside to pick up my class in the morning. A 3-year-old student I’ll call Brianne, saw me from across the courtyard, started running full speed towards me while yelling “Ms. Margi!” and almost knocked me down with her hug. She was so excited to see me after such a long time. Those hugs keep my love of teaching alive. (All student names have been changed to protect their privacy.)

Peter and his mom had quite a journey getting here. They escaped their home country, only to have to relocate to a different country again before making it to the U.S. and settling in Chicago, all without the mother’s husband. Peter came to my class so excited to play and make new friends, but he needed a lot of social-emotional support. The first day of school was filled with screaming, crying, and hitting. I worked hard over the school year to develop a relationship with him so that he feels safe at school. Now, he often brings me notes and drawings that say, “I love you teacher.” His mom also sends me notes saying things like, “Thank you for your kindness and hard work. Thank you very much for the hard work you are doing for Peter to learn.” These notes keep my love of teaching alive.

One of my favorite units to teach is the one on insects. My students become little entomologists as we learn about insect characteristics, how they change, and the ways they help the earth. This unit is filled with vocabulary, questioning, and learning how to be patient. I bring caterpillars into the classroom, and we observe them as they grow, build their chrysalis, and transform into butterflies.

When those butterflies first emerge, my students are amazed. Even though “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle taught them that caterpillars turn into butterflies, watching it happen right in front of their eyes fills them with wonder. Darell said to me with eyes wide, “I can’t believe that actually happens! WOW!” Those moments of wonder keep my love of teaching alive.

And now I’ve found my teacher squad. My friends and I are a group of early childhood educators from across the city, and we all believe in the impact we can have in our students’ lives. When things get tough, and they will, we have each other. We brainstorm solutions to issues we face in our classrooms, such as how to have a tough conversation with a parent, how to advocate for our students, and how to build a relationship with that particularly hard-to-reach student. We go out for meals, take vacations together, and have an ongoing text conversation. We laugh, we cry, and we support each other.

We share our frustrations, but also share those little moments of success and joy that only another teacher would relate to. We send texts like, “Today Micheal read his first reader independently!” or “Sophia went to the calm corner instead of throwing her shoes this afternoon.” My teacher squad helps keep my love of teaching alive.

I hope these stories inspire you as you prepare to enter the classroom.

Sincerely,

A veteran teacher

Margi Bhansali is a nationally board-certified pre-kindergarten teacher at Chicago Public Schools. She is a part of Teach Plus’ inaugural Senior Writing Fellowship and has served on the Teach Plus Illinois Early Childhood Policy Fellowship. She is a mother of three and believes that play is the work of children.

I know how unfair NYC school fundraising is — and why that’s so hard to change

2023-02-27T13:00:00+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Subscribe to our free New York newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

The PTA meeting last month at my daughters’ Upper Manhattan school seemed pretty routine until new front doors with a buzzer system for the pre-K-8 school building came up on the agenda.

“The proposal is to provide $5,300 for new doors to match the generous donation of a parent who is concerned about school security,” a PTA board member explained.

Steven Evangelista

The record scratched. Everything stopped. A parent was donating over $5,000 to pay for half of the cost of installing new, more secure doors? Even as a member of this PTA’s executive board, having seen the agenda in advance, the proposal came as a bit of shock.

After nearly 20 years as a leader in a pre-K-5 Harlem charter school where 90% of students come from low-income families, I am acutely aware of the sometimes dramatic school-to-school PTA fundraising differences.

The disparities are particularly glaring here in New York City, one of the most segregated school systems in the country, by both racial and economic factors. In one district, there is a public school where the PTA raised over $2 million and others in the same district where PTAs brought in less than $1,000.

We have these data points thanks to a 2018 law requiring the city to report the amount raised by each PTA each year, though the numbers haven’t been released since 2019. The text of the law is limited to this reporting requirement. But some education advocates saw it as a way to generate public support to address long-standing funding equity concerns, possibly by pooling funds raised by PTAs in the same districts and re-distributing them more evenly across schools.

Nationally, dramatic PTA disparities exacerbate the gaps between wealthier schools and ones with fewer resources. Those gaps often exist even in places like New York, where state and federal funds offset differences in local public funding driven by property taxes. The recent TikTok video showing off the glitzy new campus of Carmel High School in suburban Indianapolis brought that divide to the viral realm.

Of course, many of New York City’s wealthiest families send their children to elite private schools, where annual tuition may cost $60,000 or more.

As I watched the faces on the PTA Zoom call, the issue of fairness came up. My daughters’ school, in Manhattan’s District 6, is an island of privilege; our PTA raises around $80,000 per year, over five times the average of the other schools in the district. Meanwhile, a nonprofit “Friends of” organization raises an additional $50,000 to $100,000 per year for our school’s arts programming. Several parents at the meeting raised this question: “How could we approve this funding when other schools in our district don’t have the funds to install this type of protection?”

What is obvious from the outside will require in reality a massive shift in our assumptions about school.

Yes, the city is working on a plan to make more safety equipment, such as enhanced locks and security cameras, available to all schools, and the principal at my children’s school is already working with several schools in the district to support their interest in more secure doors. But on this fundamental question of equity, my thinking has shifted since joining this high-performing PTA earlier this school year.

From the outside, our group is raising extravagant sums of money. As an insider, I have seen and felt the insecurity and constant scramble for more funds. In preparing for every parent-facing event, someone wonders how we can turn this opportunity into a fundraising ask. There is a frequent sense that we aren’t doing as much as we can, that we are leaving resources for our children on the table by not pursuing donations more aggressively. At our last board meeting, the chair made the point that we may need to add another fundraiser to the calendar since we are meeting staff and parent requests at a higher rate than expected.

From the inside, the notion that this group, aware of its power and privilege and yet never feeling satisfied with contributions to its own school community, should share its funds feels like a major challenge. At my daughters’ school, 45% of students are from low-income families; to extend the idea to communities even more awash in privilege seems inconceivable. What is obvious from the outside — that school funding should be fairly distributed — will require a massive shift in our assumptions about school.

I have pondered related questions. What is our responsibility to each other? What do people with privilege owe those with less? And with 39 schools in our district and over 1,200 schools across New York City, what exactly is “our community” in which we seek some level of equity?

I don’t have answers to these questions, but I won’t stop asking them. I won’t stop seeking answers to them. With the equity comments in mind and a commitment to engage with the other schools in the district, the PTA voted. The new doors, at a cost that is likely more than most schools in the district can raise all year, were overwhelmingly approved.

Steven Evangelista, a lifelong New York City resident and a product of New York City public schools, is a father of two living in Manhattan. After teaching various elementary school grades in District 6 and then District 3, he co-founded and co-led Harlem Link Charter School for 17 years. This essay will also appear in the March 2023 issue of Dear Dean Magazine.

When I think about the violence that killed Tyre Nichols, I feel betrayed

2023-03-02T13:00:00+00:00

When I first heard Tyre Nichols’ name circling around social media, I figured it was another classic case of a white police officer racially profiling a Black man. I avoided looking into his case for a couple of days, with feelings of dejà vu plaguing my soul. Why read about yet another promising Black man slain by the system?

Enoch Naklen

Then a couple of days later, I was casually scrolling through my Instagram, looking for a distraction from the homework I should have been doing. I usually speed-run through these stories, unless something catches my eye. And so, as I was tapping away, I saw a story reel with the words “five Black police officers” followed by a video: 13 minutes of the cops brutally beating and tasing Nichols during a traffic stop.

I decided to tap back and watch the reel, which talked about Tyre’s killers. I couldn’t watch the whole thing — not because of the graphic content (I am desensitized by now) — but because of my shock in learning it was five officers that looked just like me and Tyre.

After confirming this from three other sources, I felt … different. This was not the cold, hurting feeling evoked from seeing Derek Chauvin forcing his knee into George Floyd’s neck, or watching the very similar bludgeoning of Rodney King.

This time around, my blood boiled in not just anger but betrayal. The actions committed by these officers didn’t just amount to police brutality. This was a case of intra-community violence that feeds into the same harmful ideas we in Black community wish to dispel. As a Black man in this society, I am forced to recognize that there is a target on my back, but the fight for equality becomes even harder if I have to worry about my own brothers and sisters potentially targeting me as well.

I’m 18 now, and a senior at Brooklyn Latin. As I transition into my adulthood, I want to pursue a career that allows me to be an advocate for social change and the empowerment of people of color and marginalized communities. These officers were in positions of power. As Black people, we must use our power to uplift our community, not tear it down. Someone who goes into policing should feel that they have just as much opportunity to uplift their community as someone who becomes a defense attorney. Maybe more.

As the world awaits the fate of those officers, who were fired, arrested, and have pleaded not guilty to felony charges, I sympathize and mourn with the family of Tyre Nichols. He was a devoted father to a young son and a loving son to RowVaugn and Rodney Wells. He was also an up-and-coming photographer and a skateboard enthusiast.

All I can hope for is for this to be a lesson for everyone. Tyre Nichols’ life was taken, but it shouldn’t be in vain. We all need to do better. Black people in positions of power must heed the ethical imperative to uplift and support Black people and communities.

Enoch Naklen is a senior at The Brooklyn Latin School and is a 2022-23 Chalkbeat Student Voices Fellow. He encourages young adults to have challenging conversations.

A version of this piece first appeared in Youth Communication.

Why can’t New York City schools design a decent app?

2024-03-15T09:00:00+00:00

Years ago, while chatting with a fellow teacher, I mentioned that my high school was adopting an online learning management system, or LMS, called PupilPath. His expression quickly changed. “You’re going to hate it,” he warned me. He was right. It was awful.

These days, however, I miss it terribly.

Learning management systems — digital databases of student information and electronic grade books, all in one — are great innovations, but their execution often falls short. With rosters of about 170 students, teachers can become swamped with administrative work, so procedures need to be quick and efficient. Anything requiring extra eye or brain work, whether it be an incomplete heading or a tedious procedure, can turn routine work into a quagmire.

Mike Dowd

PupilPath was not nearly as efficient as some other learning management systems I’ve used or seen, yet it had useful features. The system allowed teachers to post and grade assignments, look up guidance counselor and parent contact information, check students’ attendance and grades in other classes, and create and view “anecdotals” — staff reports about issues of concern involving students. The phone app even had a seating chart (an online Delaney Book, for you old-timers), making it quick and easy to take attendance, which was then viewable to parents.

Still, PupilPath was flawed enough that when the company was hacked and the city’s education department banned it, I was elated. But when the city announced that, because so many schools had relied on PupilPath, it would develop its own replacement that would be made available at no cost to schools, well, you probably see where this is going.

For starters, the city’s Grading, Attendance, and Messaging Application, or GAMA, which I started using late last school year, isn’t a single app. In fact, I now find myself using six different apps and websites to do the same job as before, and yet I am still without some of PupilPath’s most useful functions.

For schools that haven’t purchased a new LMS to replace PupilPath, grading has become a nightmare. Because the new grading app won’t allow attachments, I find myself keeping two separate grade books, one in Google Classroom and the other on DOE Grades. But no matter how carefully a teacher tries to transfer the grades from one site to the other, student averages never seem to match up. The discrepancies confuse students and parents and create a lot of extra work for teachers.

Meanwhile, finding basic student information requires teachers to slog through the various sites, many with their own complex navigation. Each site has bits of essential information, but one would need a graphic organizer to remember what exists where. Even obtaining simple facts about students — schedules, grades, or contact information — can be time-consuming and, frankly, infuriating.

Identifying a student’s guidance counselor while viewing their grades, for example, requires logging into a new website that requires an additional texted password, then choosing among 18 vaguely worded information portals and eventually downloading and scrutinizing a PDF of the student’s class schedule.

Even obtaining simple facts about students — schedules, grades, or contact information — can be time-consuming and, frankly, infuriating.

Since teachers take attendance while teaching, the process needs to be quick and simple, but, like just about everything else with GAMA, it’s not. That’s because after class attendance is submitted, it is forever lost to teachers. This absurd setup necessitates taking attendance once on paper and then once or twice electronically each period. Why twice electronically? During my school’s two “daily attendance” periods, teachers fill out the same electronic attendance sheets twice — once to show that students were in class, another to show that these same students were in school. I’ll leave it to readers to ponder this logic.

It’s hard to convey the difficulty of using this app. The phone version defaults to organizing students alphabetically by first name, but then puts last names before first ones, making them harder to scan. Bizarrely, those with two-part first names (common among Chinese-American students) are organized using the second name, placing them completely out of order.

The computer version of the app does contain a seating chart, but — I’m not making this up — it is positioned upside down, making it useless to me. Meanwhile, both versions of the app show so few student names at once that it’s inconvenient to scroll through rosters while teaching.

This system has many more design flaws, but I don’t have the space to explain them all. Furthermore, the apps often load slowly or simply don’t function. The result is constant irritation and mental fatigue among teachers, with our lunch-period discussions becoming less about teaching strategies and more about information-management woes. GAMA woes have even become a topic of conversation among my fellow wrestling coaches and me at weekend tournaments.

At a citywide teachers union meeting last fall, I aired some of the gripes I’ve articulated here. I was then advised by a teacher who was part of the team that created GAMA that if enough teachers emailed the education department, we could likely convince them to address some of the system’s flaws. (Education department officials told Chalkbeat that the city has made multiple updates to GAMA based on feedback from schools, including numerous changes to its grading and attendance applications as recently as February.)

A response to a broken product should not depend on the number of complaints made about it. Teachers, students, and families deserve an LMS that works well for everyone. With a little common sense, some focus from Mayor Adams’ “efficiency czar,” and a review of the well-designed learning management systems that some city schools have invested in, these problems should be simple to fix. For now, though, GAMA remains as dysfunctional as ever.

Mike Dowd is a social studies teacher and wrestling coach at Midwood High School in Brooklyn. He founded the school’s cycling club, and he has been active in transportation advocacy for many years. He and his wife have two children, both of whom attended New York City Public Schools.

As we embrace the ‘science of reading,’ we can’t leave out older students

2023-03-06T13:00:00+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for our free New York newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

The day before my first day of teaching middle school in 2018, I decorated my Brooklyn public school classroom with quotes from famous people reflecting on the importance of reading. Hanging on cream-colored cardstock were the words of Malcolm X, Toni Morrison, C.S. Lewis, Barack Obama, Maya Angelou, and dozens of other writers and thinkers. I hoped to inspire my students to fall in love with reading. I didn’t think to hope that all my students could do the very thing I was asking them to love. I didn’t know that part of my job as a sixth grade Humanities teacher would be to teach students to read in the first place.

Shira Engel

There was a round table in the very back of my classroom that a group of five sixth-graders bee-lined to on day one. On day two, I asked one, then another, to read aloud to me. My request was met with silence, guessing, a fist slammed on the table, and a student storming out of the room. When those sixth grade students finally sat down for a reading assessment, their ability to decode print text was at a first or second grade level.

As a newly minted middle school English teacher, I was shocked by the number of students who entered my classroom unable to decode text. As I got to know them, I saw that herculean efforts to mask their reading disabilities revealed intelligence, determination, and traumatic relationships to school.

Since my first year of teaching, I have dedicated a lot of time to understanding why that happened. With the toxic combination of inaccurate reading assessments and a whole-word approach that encouraged guessing rather than decoding, the Matthew Effect (rich get richer, poor get poorer) has been in full swing in middle schools all around the country. The children who lived in text-rich environments and/or with families who could afford supplemental private tutoring got to “get it.” And those who didn’t? Many never acquired the literacy skills that are tied to power and privilege in this country.

Since my first day of teaching middle school, the “science of reading” — tying reading proficiency to explicit phonics instruction in addition to comprehension work — became a catchphrase for Facebook groups, professional development, and curricula. Lucy Calkins revised her popular but widely criticized “Units of Study” curriculum to include phonics-focused lessons. “Sold a Story,” a podcast series investigating reading instruction, became one of the top podcasts of the year. I also got trained in Wilson Reading Systems, an Orton-Gillingham and multisensory approach to teaching the basic phonics instruction many of my middle school students never received.

In my experience, conversations about the science of reading are happening primarily with elementary and early childhood educators. Those conversations are preventing further literacy injustice and disenfranchisement. But how are we addressing the ways that the system has failed our secondary students when they first learned to read? How can I, a middle school ELA teacher, support the students in my class who were passed along without receiving the literacy instruction they needed?

I am worried that secondary students and secondary education as a whole are being left out of the conversation on how children learn to read. It’s wonderful that (finally!) we are getting to the root of the issue, but what about the young people for whom Tier I instruction comes too late? What about students who, from here on out, will need intensive intervention in order to get on grade level?

I found hope in literacy intervention programs targeting adolescents who lacked key skills.

My former sixth graders are in high school now, preparing for college and careers, but the best preparation they can get is one that helps them, once and for all, become fluent readers. I am concerned that among the excitement of elementary curriculum overhauls, we will leave the children who’ve been wronged even further behind. I am afraid that we’ll do to them what this country has done to people who struggle with literacy since its inception: disenfranchise, hide, and erase.

During that first year of teaching middle school, when I was shocked by the students in my class that struggled to sound out single-syllable words, who guessed based on the first two letters rather than sound out, and who, upon hearing they’d do partner reading, developed looks of panic in their eyes, I found hope in literacy intervention programs targeting adolescents who lacked key skills.

I want more for these students. I want every secondary educator to be trained in not just teaching kids about reading; I want them to be trained to teach their students to read, should one or two or 10 sit down in the back of their class and not know how.

I believe in the power of restorative literacy. Every day, I work with adolescents and pre-adolescents who have slipped through the massive cracks of our education system. What I have witnessed during my five years working in vastly different types of schools is that learning, achievement, and opportunity gaps either dramatically widen or dramatically close in middle school. Passion for social justice within our education systems is insufficient; the actual work — the literacy work — that makes change possible needs to occur.

Shira Engel is a former New Yorker who both attended and taught in New York City public schools. She now lives and teaches seventh and eighth grade Humanities in New Haven, Connecticut, and works as a Wilson tutor for students with dyslexia after school. Shira documents her experiences teaching, reading, and learning on Instagram at @readteachjoy.

My math teacher refused to let me fall through the cracks. It saved my life.

2024-02-27T13:00:00+00:00

Content warning: This essay contains references to self-harm and suicidal ideation.

I was 12 when I thought everyone had given up on me. Feeling like a burden to my family, my teachers, and even the mental health professionals I’d seen, I had given up on myself, too. Sixth grade marked the first time I’d wanted to die, and seventh grade marked the first time I tried to make it happen.

When you’re 12, six years feels like an eternity, so it’s hard to imagine making it to the finish line of a tumultuous adolescence. Many suicidal kids don’t necessarily want to die, but hopelessness is a powerful stranglehold when you have little or no control over your circumstances. Back then, I leaned into my persona as the weird, angry kid to push people away before I could get attached. I’ve since learned in therapy that it’s a common coping mechanism among those who feel rejected at home.

But there was one adult in my life who never gave up on me. One person who wasn’t scared off by my biting sarcasm, chaotic behavior, and tendency to shut down when I struggled with my schoolwork: my seventh grade math teacher, Mr. W.

Xandra Harbet

Between coaching swimming and going for his doctorate, Mr. W was the busiest person I knew, but he refused to let me fall off the face of the Earth. Mr. W spent lunch periods painstakingly explaining each problem in my dreaded skill sheet assignment. The weekly worksheet consisted of problems unrelated to that year’s coursework, and my neurodivergent brain just couldn’t unravel what felt like riddles from the sphinxes that populated the fantasy worlds I used to escape reality.

When he saw that this particular assignment led me to stop trying altogether, he decided to let me skip it, so long as I completed my daily homework. Some teachers refuse to make allowances for kids who think differently. But Mr. W’s accommodations turned a dejected student into someone who made an effort. As a result, I was able to improve my grade.

Mr. W’s class was right before lunch, and I tend to tear up when I yawn, which was a common occurrence in math class. (Sorry, Mr. W.) During these teary-eyed moments, Mr. W would always make sure I was OK, despite the 20 other students in the classroom. That small act of care meant a lot.

My two-week stint in the psychiatric ward, which followed my suicide attempt, felt more like a prison sentence than a saving grace. The monotony of hours with only my thoughts and the yellowing walls to keep me company was excruciating. There was no music, TV, or any of the distractions that helped keep me afloat outside of these dirty walls. It was just about the worst thing you could do to a kid with my potent combination of ADHD and a mood disorder. Visits from Mr. W were the highlight of my time there, providing a dose of normalcy and lighthearted banter that allowed me to forget where I was for a little while.

I had plenty of teachers who cared about me in middle school and the years that followed. However, most of my relationships with adults — both in and beyond school — felt like obligatory transactions. But it was different with Mr. W. He wasn’t trying to turn me into someone I wasn’t or even into an A-student in math. He just wanted to remind me that I mattered; importantly, he remembered to carve out the time and space to do that.

Every day, he offered me five minutes of undivided attention when I could vent, talk about my life, or recap in detail whatever TV show I was obsessing over that week. This continued the following year when he let me eat lunch in his classroom during his free period, even though he wasn’t even my teacher anymore.

When I was in high school, I went back to visit Mr. W weekly, and I remember telling him about the gym teacher who asked how I could live with myself for not taking initiative during whatever tedious drills he was having us do. “He has no idea,” my former math teacher told me, and I have never felt more understood.

Years on, I would occasionally visit his classroom on breaks from college, and without fail, he’d set aside five minutes for me. It’s been a while since I’ve made it back to my old middle school for a visit, but I still keep in touch with Mr. W.

Life is messy, and it’s easy to get swept up in the grind. Too often, children and teens feel dismissed by the busy adults in their lives, which can have real and devastating consequences. I know from experience that the inverse is true, too. Five minutes of recognition and kindness can be lifesaving for a young person who is struggling.

If it weren’t for Mr. W, I might not be here today. On some level, he knew that his time made a difference for me, but it wasn’t until I wrote him a letter inscribed on the author page of my first published short story that he realized he had helped save my life.

Xandra Harbet is a journalist, essayist, and creative writer with bylines in outlets including Salon, Insider, The Daily Dot, Regal, and StyleCaster. She has a BA in English with an emphasis on Creative Writing from the haunted halls of Randolph College. You can find her on social media @XandraHarbet.

Years after pandemic closures, we’re seeing their effects inside our schools

2024-02-23T15:00:00+00:00

Since school buildings reopened after COVID closures, I’ve heard teachers say, again and again, that the older elementary children in their classrooms are just not the same.

I lead a small network of schools, and many of our current fourth graders remain dependent on adults’ opinions and find it hard to move from one problem to the next without reassurance. Our fifth graders can solve a basic math problem but often struggle to explain how to answer a word problem. Across fourth, fifth, and sixth grades, we’re seeing students have trouble with sharing, taking turns, and working with others — symptoms of the developmental milestones many children missed in recent years.

What exactly did they miss?

Christine Ferris

As an early childhood specialist who taught kindergarten through second grade for 12 years, I remember watching the progression of cognitive and social development throughout the early elementary school years.

At the beginning of kindergarten, my students would bunch together, crowding at the door, massing around me, all asking questions or wanting to show me the boo-boo on their finger. Sometimes, it seemed like they didn’t even notice that they weren’t the only child in the room. They had to learn how to exist in a large group.

Once they learned how to manage in a group, we began the work on interpersonal relationships, like how to share, respond to a question, and show empathy. Kindergarteners frequently respond to questions with unrelated statements of fact that are of interest to them. For example, if I were to ask the class, “What do you notice about the main character in this story?” they might say, “My uncle is getting a puppy this weekend” or “I had pancakes for breakfast.” All year, they progressed toward understanding that their perspective wasn’t the only view of the world.

My first graders did understand that there were other people and perspectives. This made them good at working with partners. They wanted to please the adults by following the rules at school, but their good intentions could fall by the wayside if they wanted something badly enough. Because they knew the rules but could not help but break them sometimes, first graders would sometimes lie. “No, I didn’t do it!” was a frequent refrain.

For first graders, the playground was a magical place full of fairies, knights, and superheroes, because all you needed was the right stick or flower or a little scarf tied around your neck to transform. These types of imaginary games are part of developing complex representational thought, which helps our minds visualize characters in novels, understand the symbols that stand in for equations in algebra, and think through a variety of outcomes so we can make strategic life decisions.

My second graders were terrified of making mistakes and froze up when what they were trying to draw didn’t keep up with their underdeveloped fine motor skills. They wanted a lot of reassurance. They wanted to be able to do the things the big kids did, but they weren’t quite sure how. They thrived on routine and working together to tackle complicated tasks, whether it was creating a class newspaper or garden, or running the school post office. Second grade was always my favorite because of that incredible industriousness.

Isolated at home during the pandemic, early elementary school students missed out on complex, make-believe play and had grown out of it by the time we all got back. I worry that this might be getting in the way of tasks that require symbolic reasoning. We see, for example, that our fifth graders can answer a factual question about something they’ve read but struggle to make reasonable inferences.

Many grades have had to go back a few years to teach students some of the more basic concepts. We have adopted a social-emotional curriculum that teaches children to recognize and name their feelings, how to calm themselves down, and how to explain to another person the impact of their actions on them.

There is so much to study about the impact of those two COVID years on learning that I have no doubt it will be the subject of Ph.D. dissertations for decades. But in the meantime, schools and educators are tasked with catching students up on what they missed. The New York Times recently published an article with a tool where you could type in your local school district and see how far behind it was in math and reading compared to the pre-pandemic years.

I believe in assessments. It is crucial to understand what your students know and still need to learn in order to teach them well. But it’s also important to remember that there is much more to child development than learning multiplication tables or the fundamentals of reading. Even as we gauge academic progress and gaps, we must acknowledge the other skills that so many of our students need to catch up on as well.

In our rush as adults to be over this pandemic, let’s not deprive our students of the time they need to explore who they are in relation to their peers. In turn, hard-working teachers and school leaders need grace as they try to figure out how to give every kid what they need and deserve at this unprecedented moment.

Christine Ferris has been the Executive Director of Highline Academy Charter Schools since 2016. She founded and led Our Community School, a K-8 charter school in Los Angeles from 2005 to 2013. She is a writer of personal essays and a memoir about her experience leading Our Community School.

I worried that being trans meant being alone. My community showed me otherwise.

2024-02-23T13:00:00+00:00

It was a typical winter Saturday, and my family and I were walking home from dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant. I was wearing an oversized gray knit sweater, a hand-me-down from my grandpa.

I was 13 and obsessed with oversized clothing that hid any curves. I always wore my hair in a ponytail and felt envious around boys my age. Sometimes when I looked at myself in the mirror and in photos, I felt that someone else was looking back at me. I felt strangely disconnected, as if someone had taken a knife and severed the connection between my mind and body. Now, in a lightning-fast moment of epiphany, I knew why.

Kai Arrowood

As the sidewalk passed beneath my feet, a single sentence sprang from my subconscious and repeated over and over in my head like a chant: “I’m not a girl.” The words caught me off guard. A part of me immediately knew they were true, and that was the scariest thing in the world.

As an eighth grader with a strong desire to fit in, I found it difficult to fathom a world in which I was not who I was told to be. My parents had raised a daughter. My friends were friends with a girl. I was a granddaughter, niece, and sister. My assigned gender was so embedded in me that I wondered if I would survive if I reached in and ripped out those roots.

I was afraid of becoming an alien to everyone and everything I knew. At the time, I did not know a single trans person. I thought that not being a girl would mean becoming estranged from my friends and family, that being myself meant not belonging.

I got into bed still wearing the gray sweater, and, lying in the darkness of my bedroom, I stared up at the ceiling. I knew that this realization marked a definite, massive change in my life. I did not know if I was ready.

But the voice in my head kept sounding.

The only thing about my identity that I knew for sure was that I wasn’t a girl. But the possibility of being a guy was so strange to me, so against the norm, that I couldn’t even bring myself to consider it. So after I learned the term online, I figured that I must be non-binary.

Seeing other trans people online made me feel a lot better and less alone. I learned about gender therapy, trans clothing brands, and barber shops. This knowledge lessened the internal pressure I felt because I knew I could do something about what I was feeling.

At the same time, the more I knew about my identity and the more I considered my future, the more I hated what I looked like. As my gender dysphoria got worse, I would stand in the mirror with my shoulders slumped, hiding my chest. I would stare at my long hair and eyelashes with disgust.

The pressure of feeling stuck in my body grew until I was ready to burst. I had to tell someone. So two weeks after my epiphany, I decided to tell my family during dinner.

Tears poured out while I spoke to my family, telling them I was non-binary and wanted to go by the name Ash, which I found on an online list of gender-neutral names. My sister and mom cried, too, while my dad looked confused. Although initially supportive, they were worried and uncertain how being trans would impact the rest of my life. The moments afterward were a blur, and I remember feeling afraid of the massive change.

The next year was the hardest of my life. We were in lockdown due to COVID-19, and the only time I left the house was to play softball, a sport that my dad took immensely seriously. I was closeted until my dad told my coach without my permission. Then I cut my hair and started using my chosen name, and there was no hiding my gender nonconformity.

But my voice and body still didn’t match how I felt. As time went on, my unhappiness and dysphoria made me more introverted, and I grew apart from the girls on the team. I felt other. I felt different — outcast, even.

One day in July, I was sitting in the dugout, the sun bearing down on me. Chatter from the game drifted in the summer air, and sweat dripped down my back. I could hear my team talking and laughing, but when I looked toward them to join in the conversation, I realized that they had moved down the bench, away from me. They seemed so at ease with themselves.

My assigned gender was so embedded in me that I wondered if I would survive if I reached in and ripped out those roots.

I prayed that one day I would leave this weird gray area, where I was not a boy nor was I accepted as a girl. Without saying anything and without bothering to move closer, I swallowed my tears.

I felt hopeless, unattractive, and worthless.

There were some positives, though. My parents took an active and supportive role in my transition and, during one of our conversations, they helped me decide on a new name, not Ash, which I had chosen in a rush, but Kai. I preferred Kai because my parents helped me choose it; my new name felt like a do-over for all of us. Soon after, I excitedly and nervously came out to my class on an advisory Zoom call. Then my math teacher helped me change my name in the school’s system. It was surprisingly easy. My mom just filled out a Google form.

I continued to ponder my gender identity. Sometimes people gendered me as a boy in public, and it made me happy. After many months of introspection, I realized that I wanted to become more masculine. I wanted more than “not a girl.”

The more I researched online and was exposed to the trans community, the less the idea of being a man felt terrifying and impossible. And so, I decided to explore the possibility.

My assigned gender was so embedded in me that I wondered if I would survive if I reached in and ripped out those roots.

The August before my freshman year, I went to a two-week sleepaway camp and started using he/they pronouns. When my friends called me he and him, a giddy feeling filled my chest, and I decided that I wanted to use those pronouns exclusively.

One day at camp, my sister called me her brother for the first time. It felt like there were fireworks going off in my heart. I was a brother, a son, a nephew, a boy. I finally felt that I was finally on solid ground and able to visualize who I was with clarity for the first time.

I didn’t tell my parents until that December, a whole year after I had come out as non-binary. I think they already expected it. At this point, I was dressing in a very masculine way, and they noticed.

The conversation switched almost immediately to options for a medical transition, which was everything I wanted at the time: to no longer feel separated from my body. I told my parents about testosterone gel, injections, and surgeries. To my delight, they were receptive.

After months of medical appointments and conversations with my parents where they made sure that I carefully weighed the potential risks against the benefits, it was decided. I would start testosterone sometime in the summer. Much later than I had originally hoped, but the promise still made me happy.

That summer I went to the same sleepaway camp as before, but this time I slept in the boys’ bunk. My bunkmates were all supportive, and it was the first time I had been truly affirmed by other guys. I even started dating someone from the girls’ bunk.

Having a girl like me as a boy was brand new and felt amazing. There is so much hatred online and in the world that made me feel that no girl would ever want to date a trans man, but that was entirely untrue.

One evening, holding a flip phone and lying on my back in a wet field, I dialed my mom’s number, anticipating the news that I could start taking testosterone. The night air was cool, and there were stars in the dark sky above me.

My mom’s voice sounded like it was coming through a tin can. After a few minutes, she asked, “Do you want to hear the big news?”

My heart stopped just a little, and I was smiling widely in the dark.

“Yes,” I said emphatically.

“The insurance company contacted us. Your testosterone is approved, and it’s waiting for you at home.” I could hear the anticipation in my mom’s voice, that she knew how excited this made me.

“Wow, that’s amazing. Thank you.”

After waiting for so long, her words brought a sweet relief. I would soon become more of who I was. I would look on the outside how I felt so strongly on the inside.

I could almost hear my mom’s smile and felt infinitely grateful to have such an accepting person in my life.

“You’ll start taking it when you get home from camp.”

All I could think was that I wanted to start testosterone immediately. I wanted to have a deep voice and muscles and stubble at once. But the news filled me with hope. I would become everything that I hoped to be.

After years of being publicly misgendered, constantly thinking of how my voice sounded and if I was passing, I would have the physical attributes of a cis boy. I was becoming a man because being a man in my head meant physically fitting into male gender norms.

After I hung up the phone, I walked back to the bunk, a faint yellow light illuminating the porch. The wooden steps creaked under my feet and I pushed through the mosquito netting hanging over the door. I turned to the first guy I saw, my friend Ethan.

“Guess what,” I said, not bothering to hold in my smile.

“What?” He asked expectantly. A few other of my bunkmates gathered around the two of us, hungry for the news.

”My testosterone was approved.” I blurted out, my grin widening.

“Yoooo!” Ethan yelled in unison with at least five other people. He dapped me up, then began chanting.

”One of us, one of us, one of us, one of us, one of us!” he hollered, clapping his hands. Everyone joined in, a thunderstorm of pubescent voices, and I was at the center of it all. My smile could only be described as beaming at that point. The chant continued until it was interrupted by a sleep-deprived counselor who staggered into the room.

”What’s going on?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at the commotion. I didn’t have to answer him.

“Kai’s testosterone got approved,” Ethan said, and his words were followed by a collective cheer. Ethan began the chant again, and this time the counselor joined in.

Emotions swelled in my chest as the echoing chant thundered around me. I was happy, of course, and laughing at the preposterousness of the whole situation. But I was also confused. I had slept in the same bunk as these guys, so why only now did I count?

I wanted to tell them that I was already one of them, that the testosterone didn’t really change anything, that it didn’t make me more of a man, but I didn’t. Partly because I knew that the testosterone would change so much for me, and make so many things better. And partly because the moment was so good and I didn’t want to ruin it.

Here I was in a rickety cabin in rural Massachusetts, a trans teenager being cheered on by 12 cisgender guys. Although the moment was complicated, there was no better feeling than fully exposing myself to everyone, showing everyone who I really am, and having them cheer for me with such fervor. It was one of the best forms of validation. The anxieties I had when I first came out now seemed distant.

By being myself, I wasn’t ostracized but embraced.

A version of this piece first appeared in Youth Communication. It is republished here with permission.

Kai Arrowood is a high school junior from New York City. His dream is to be a journalist and travel the world covering stories. In his free time, Kai likes to bake, write sci-fi, and listen to music. At school, he enjoys studying history and Spanish and writing for the school newspaper. He hopes to show the world that trans people are just like everyone else and are able to succeed despite the challenges they face.

Student voices on Uvalde: Our leaders ‘are just not going to protect us’

2022-06-07T12:00:00+00:00

Today’s high school students were born after the mass shooting at Columbine and were in elementary school when a gunman murdered 20 first graders and six adults at Sandy Hook. These teens are old enough to remember the massacre in Parkland, but most of them were too young to join the protests that followed.

They grew up with routine active shooter drills at school and with the perfunctory “thoughts and prayers” politicians offered when tragedy struck.

Following last month’s school shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, the supermarket shooting in Buffalo, New York, 10 days earlier, and a year that saw rising homicides in many major American cities, Chalkbeat invited teens around the country to tell us how gun violence affects their lives and education.

In their lifetime, there have been thousands of mass shootings, including those in Philadelphia and Chattanooga, Tennessee this past weekend. There have been hundreds of school shootings, too, but no new and significant federal gun control laws. (Bipartisan talks on firearm restrictions are again underway.) Because of pervasive gun violence, students say they have learned to scan every classroom for places to hide from an active shooter, plan out escape routes, and contemplate whether and how they might help stop a shooter in their school.

Some teens say they have become desensitized to news of mass shootings because there’s no time to process one massacre before another occurs. Other students say the American gun violence epidemic keeps them in a constant state of high alert and that they are traumatized and exhausted.

They fear more than mass shootings and shots fired inside school buildings. Everyday gun violence has them considering how they get to school, where they sit in public spaces, and whether or not they’ll see their families at the end of the day. One student talked to Chalkbeat about Kyhara Tay, the 11-year-old girl struck by a stray bullet last month in the Bronx. Another remembered her schoolmate Jimari Williams, an 18-year-old Chicagoan killed by gunfire just two months before he would have graduated from high school.

The students who opened up to Chalkbeat shared a range of emotions, from numbness to fear, from anger to despair. Although they want more from their leaders, they don’t believe elected officials will take meaningful action to curb gun violence any time soon.

Their stories have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Pragnya Kaginele: Walking into a classroom, I think about hiding places

Jeremiah Griffith: It can’t get much worse

Amaya Turner: Kids are not pieces on a chessboard

Radiah Jamil: Schools should focus on student mental health and teach self-care

Meleena Salgado: Since third grade, I’ve worried about being shot at school

Anjali Darji: I’m in that crisis state of mind

Bryan Bastidas: America is normalizing gun violence on every scale

Ajibola Junaid: Elected officials must stop fighting the wrong battles

A view of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, the site of the deadly May 24 mass shooting.

Walking into a classroom, I think about hiding places

Pragnya Kaginele, 15

Freshman, Carroll High School in Southlake, Texas

Pragnya Kaginele

It almost feels hopeless sometimes. I can’t think of a good solution other than good gun control. But it’s not like I can say “There should be gun control,” and magically there’s gun control. The people who are supposed to be protecting us are just not going to protect us, and they have so much more power than all of us. I’d like to think it would happen when our generation becomes eligible to run [for office], but we can’t wait 15 years.

It’s so strange that people just have guns and can carry them into schools and cause this kind of destruction. What happened in Buffalo wasn’t a school shooting, but it was a hate crime, and it was about a week before. In the span of 10 days, there’s been a racially motivated shooting, and then there’s been a shooting where 19 little kids died. For those to happen back to back, it’s like you don’t finish processing the fact that one happened before the next tragedy. It just keeps coming at you, and I guess your brain starts to think, this is just normal.

Just because it’s been happening so much doesn’t make this loss of life normal. Just because the Founding Fathers wrote in the Constitution 200 years ago that Americans have the right we have the right to have guns — just because people are so obsessed with not making any change to [the status quo] — students are forced to live their lives in fear. (The Second Amendment states, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”)

When I first go into a classroom, I think about hiding places. If I’m in a hallway, I think, if something happened, what bathroom would I go into? And there are these weird moral questions, like, would I throw myself in front of someone, or would I jump behind them? It feels weird to think about that because I’m 15 years old.

A small memorial sits outside a Chicago liquor store where 58-year-old community activist Willie Cooper was shot and killed on July 17, 2017.

It can’t get much worse

Jeremiah Griffith, 16

Junior, Noble Academy in Chicago

Jeremiah Griffith

I am a student journalist and was covering the Chicago Sky ring ceremony on May 24. The WNBA commissioner was talking about the mass shootings in the past month. She mentioned Buffalo and Texas, and I was confused because I hadn’t heard what had happened in Texas. There was a moment of silence, and the whole arena was silent.

I found out more about it during the post-game interview. When I went home, as I was finishing up the recap of the game and the article, I looked up what happened. It’s sad because, on the one hand, it’s like, oh, another mass shooting — same old, same old. But on the other hand, we have to change something.

The next day, in my AP language class, we talked about the mass shooting in Uvalde. My teacher let us have a Harkness, which is a kind of group discussion. We were talking about how we could possibly change the Second Amendment of the Constitution, but we know that might not happen. We’re being held back by the government and the lobbyists who control the NRA.

Here in Chicago, there are shootings every day. I remember when it first started getting warmer a few weeks ago, there were at least 28 people shot over the weekend , and all it got was local news reporting, and that was about it.

The Buffalo shooter literally used a live stream app, Twitch. All my friends use that app, and a lot of people saw the video (before the stream was removed). We’ve become desensitized to mass shootings, but there’s not much we can do unless there is a drastic change to the entire system. Otherwise, these things are going to keep happening. It can’t get much worse. We’re already witnessing murders on camera, and it’s normal.

This candlelight vigil, held on Feb. 14, 2019, in Orlando, Florida, commemorated the one-year anniversary of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Kids are not pieces on a chessboard

Amaya Turner, 17

Junior, Abington High School in Abington, Massachusetts

Amaya Turner

School shootings affect me more than I think they should. No matter how often they happen — and happen often, they do — I can never quite manage to feel desensitized. I suppose that’s good. I do not want to become desensitized, but the familiar fear and grief they stir up are beyond exhausting.

Every time a new school shooting occurs, I cannot stop picturing the hundreds of people who were close to the victims and will be forever changed. I cannot help but think about the surviving students who will live forever with the memories. Have we really come to a place in our country where lifelong trauma after a shooting qualifies someone as “one of the lucky ones” because at least they survived?

In 2018, when the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting happened in Parkland, Florida, I remember being terrified to go to school for weeks. In every classroom I sat in, I would try to figure out where I would run or hide if there was a shooter. I was 13. I already knew about Sandy Hook and had internalized the idea that school shootings were a part of life I might as well accept.

But it is difficult to feel safe when watching your teacher cover the narrow floor-to-ceiling window pane with a cabinet because she is afraid a would-be shooter could break the glass. It’s difficult to feel safe when you’ve grown up practicing how to huddle together with the lights off, staying as quiet as possible, and then going through ALICE training (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate). Many adults did not grow up with active shooter drills because they were mostly implemented after the Columbine shooting in 1999. So the majority of our government officials don’t know what it is like to hear kids joke nervously about who would jump in front of a shooter to buy time.

After each tragedy, there are desperate pleas for change but no real change, and then we end up repeating the tragic cycle. It is absolutely soul-crushing.

Student safety is a human right, and children, teens, and their teachers should be able to go to school without fearing the worst. I worry less for my own safety and school — Massachusetts, where I live, has some of the country’s most restrictive gun laws — and more for all the school communities bound to be impacted by mass shootings unless something changes. I worry about the parents planning funerals for their children. I worry about the surviving students who face a lifetime of traumatic memories. I worry about mental health professionals trying to help students who are suffering. I worry about innocent people who have the same mental conditions as past shooters and are now being unfairly stigmatized. Mostly, I worry about how many more children will die before change is finally enacted.

I feel so powerless hearing another shooting being politicized and debated. Kids are not pieces on a chessboard. For now, I can only hope that there will be a generation of children who never know the ever-present anxiety of school shootings or have to watch the death count slowly rise over a series of days. I can only hope my peers and I are granted the time and resources necessary to bring about the changes we deserve.

A girl visits a makeshift memorial for the shooting victims outside the Uvalde County Courthouse in Uvalde, Texas, on May 29, 2022.

Schools should focus on student mental health and teach self-care

Radiah Jamil, 18

Senior, Brooklyn Latin School in New York City

Radiah Jamil

I found out about the school shooting in Uvalde on social media — Instagram specifically. That’s where I get most of my news. It was just an infographic that said the number of people who were dead in Texas.

After mass shootings, a common thing people say is: Make it stricter to get guns or even abolish them completely. But I’m a big-picture person. Mental health is the primary thing that schools can focus on fixing. Mental health affects your thoughts, your decisions, your actions, and your interactions with everyone. It really impacts every aspect of your life, so that’s why I think it’s the primary thing to tackle.

Mental health has long been a crisis that has not gotten enough recognition. There has been a lot of stigma. I think we’re getting a bit better at reducing the stigma with technology, but technology can also make people’s mental health worse. It makes you more prone to cyberbullying, and online, you can be exposed to a lot of negative stuff.

When we were isolated during remote learning, we turned to Instagram and Snapchat to feel more connected. But that might not have been great for our mental health because there was a lot of stuff going on. The country was in such a tough space, and it definitely trickled down to have a negative effect on the mental health of many students.

Like most people, I was in my room for a year and a half and not socializing much. It took a toll on many of my friendships. I was diagnosed with depression. Coming back to school, it’s been so hard transitioning for both teachers and students. I feel like everyone is getting burnt out a lot more. There are many schools that don’t have access to a social worker on a daily basis, and a social worker is someone students can turn to when they’re having a hard time.

Last year, after winning money in a “Shark Tank”-style contest, I founded Mentalligence, a peer-to-peer mental health support organization to teach New York City high school students about different therapies, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy and existential therapy, and self-care techniques. Our peer support gives students a comfortable place to talk about their mental health, especially if they can’t afford a therapist or don’t have a reliable person at home to talk to.

If schools focused on mental health and self-care, it would really go a long way because, at school, we don’t talk about any of that stuff. Even little things like carving out 15 minutes to meditate and do gratitude journaling — teaching these self-care activities so that students can form these habits — could have a greater impact on students’ mental health in the long term.

People mourn at a makeshift memorial for the victims of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 31, 2022.

Since third grade, I’ve worried about being shot up at school

Meleena Salgado, 17

Junior, John Hancock College Preparatory High School in Chicago

I was feeding my dogs, and my dad rushed in and said a school had been shot up. My heart just sank. I was frustrated that there was another one. I hate to use that term because there were people who were lost. But I was just like, come on. No matter how many are hurt, [politicians] are just going to say, “Oh wow, what a tragedy,” and then we’ll find out about the next one.

I’ve been worried about a school shooting since I was little. The oldest fear I have about being shot up at school is when I was, maybe, in third grade. I was in the bathroom alone and heard this really loud bang, and I thought, “Oh, God, maybe this is it.” (That bang turned out to be someone dropping a textbook in the hallway.)

A few weeks ago, my friends and I were discussing where we’d hide if there was a shooting. My friend was saying that there are a lot of windows in this building, and I said that’s unfortunate because what if someone gunned down the windows? Then we said we could try the library, but there are windows there, too. They said, “Well, we could try the theater,” but we realized that is right where the doors are to get into school, so maybe that would be the first place that would be attacked.

Later, when I talked about hiding places with my brother, my mom was looking at us in horror.

A Senate staff member prepares for a press conference on Capitol Hill on January 24, 2013. House and Senate Democrats were joined by law enforcement officials to introduce legislation to ban assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines.

I’m in that crisis state of mind

Anjali Darji, 17

Junior, Rancocas Valley Regional High School in Mount Holly, New Jersey

Anjali Darji

When I walked into class on Wednesday, my history teacher had the last four mass shootings and the death tolls on the board.

We’re currently learning about the George W. Bush administration, and my teacher went off about the 1994 assault weapons ban that President Bill Clinton signed into law and how the weapons used in the recent mass shootings would have been banned under that law. He told us how the ban ended during the George W. Bush administration and was never renewed.

Then, we had a conversation about how we go forward as America. Do we continue to be proud of America despite this? Or what do we do to change? Or do we just condemn America? He was asking that and no one answered because, honestly, I don’t know how I feel about this. I’m in that crisis state of mind.

On social media, people have been posting the number of U.S. shootings compared to other countries and how high America’s toll has been. And what I proposed in class is that we analyze other countries’ policies on gun control and related policies because they must be doing something right if they have significantly fewer shootings.

When someone brought up what happened in Uvalde, we either had to stop talking about it because someone was gonna cry, or there was just this resigned feeling.

I have plans for what to do in case of a shooting. In one plan, I’m running to save myself. I have another plan in which I’m trying to evade the gunman and help people get out of the building because my school has over 2,000 kids, and it employs hundreds of people. I’m numb to the idea that I do this kind of planning now. It’s just a thing that I do for self-preservation.

Local residents pay their respects at a memorial for Kyhara Tay, an 11-year-old girl shot to death by a stray bullet, May 19, 2022 in the Bronx.

America is normalizing gun violence on every scale

Bryan Bastidas, 17

Senior, International High School for Health Sciences in New York City

Bryan Bastidas

In the middle of a beautiful Tuesday in New York City, after watching “Better Call Saul,” I found myself scrolling through Twitter, bombarded with the news of another mass shooting in Texas. This time it happened in an elementary school.

I was shocked and confused about how a person could do this to small kids. I watched my little brother smiling as he played and watched videos; I was thinking about how someone could take those beautiful smiles from their mouths. I felt disgusted.

The worst part of it is that we are normalizing gun violence on every scale. Not only in Texas but also in New York, where I live. Two weeks before this, a little girl named Kyhara Tay was killed by a stray bullet in the Bronx.

Walking on the streets of New York City does not feel safe, especially for me, a student who always takes trains and buses and uses public spaces to socialize or take a break. Every day, I fear not seeing my father or mother coming back alive from work or my siblings from school. I fear dying on the bus or the train. It’s absurd that an 18-year-old can get a weapon and carry it into public spaces like it’s a cellphone or a toy.

Many people think that banning guns will fix the problem — and yes, it would reduce violence significantly — but we do not think as much about the person who used the weapon. He was only 18. What kind of life did he have? What kind of problems? Sometimes, we see symptoms and signs, but we do not do anything until everything explodes.

I think there should be more and stricter regulations on who and when to carry a gun. Firearms are not toys and should be difficult to get. One great example is Switzerland, which, like the U.S., has a high rate of gun ownership. But, unlike the U.S., which has had more than 200 mass shootings just this year, there have been no mass shootings in Switzerland in 21 years. That country issues licenses for firearms and carefully vets would-be gun owners before issuing these licenses (sometimes talking to mental health professionals in the process).

I think schools should also have more security to prevent these kinds of actions. We can use metal detectors and give police more tools to prevent these events. It is complicated to talk about this problem, but it is worth letting people know that this problem should be fixed. I want my family and friends to have a future where they do not have to fear for their lives in any situation, from walking in the city to being in school.

A memorial dedicated to the 19 children and two adults killed on May 24 during the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School is seen on June 1, 2022 in Uvalde, Texas.

Elected officials must stop fighting the wrong battles

Ajibola Junaid, 18

Senior, Wendell Phillips Academy High School in Chicago

Ajibola Junaid

Gun violence means I don’t know how to ride a bike or have friends in my neighborhood because I don’t feel safe going out. The summertime is the worst because there are gunshots all the time. It’s hot inside, and it’s too risky outside.

Several students at my school have died of gun violence, including, last year, a senior named Jimari Williams, just two months before graduation. This year, a shooting outside my school injured a student and a security guard. It’s sickening. Nowhere feels safe.

We need gun control. We need politicians to stop fighting the wrong battles. Why are so many of them willing to do anything to make abortions illegal but not willing to take the necessary steps to protect the children who are here? Children like the 19 gunned down, along with two of their teachers, in Uvalde, Texas.

My heart bleeds for their families. I send my sincere condolences to all those who are grieving.

The saddest part of all this is that you’d think that massacre after massacre would bring about gun control. But nothing ever happens. The outrage will last only a few weeks, and everything will calm down until some other group of people dies. There have been at least 27 school shootings in the U.S. this year — and it’s only May. Hopefully, this time, government officials will listen to our cries for help. I hope the deaths of these innocent kids bring positive change to our society.

Stories from Anjali Darji, Jeremiah Griffith, Radiah Jamil, Pragnya Kaginele, and Meleena Salgado were told to Gabrielle Birkner.

If you are interested in speaking to Chalkbeat about how gun violence impacts your life and education, please reach out to us at community@chalkbeat.org.

I was 17, homeless, and alone. Here’s how my school helped me back on my feet.

2023-02-06T13:00:00+00:00

When I was 17, I was living temporarily with a friend in Ardmore, Oklahoma, and going to school about 30 minutes away. It wasn’t ideal, but having left a challenging situation at home, this seemed better than the alternative. Then, the friend I was staying with had to move away.

Suddenly, I was alone with nowhere to go and very little support, so I looked for temporary places to live. Often, I had to stay with strangers, always wondering how long it would take them to tell me to leave. My family came to the U.S. from Guanajuato, Mexico, for a better life. But here I was, unable to focus on my studies or future goals, only on my survival.

Carlos Lara-Gonzalez

My own unstable housing, along with other stressors, meant I had missed nearly two months of school. Almost forced to drop out, I managed to re-enroll at a school near where I was staying. That’s how I met Sabra Emde, Ardmore High School’s McKinney-Vento liaison. Sabra’s job is to make sure students experiencing homelessness have access to education and support.

Until I met Sabra, I hadn’t realized that there was a name for the situation I found myself in. When she first sat down with me and explained who she is and what she does, I was confused about why I was speaking with a woman who helps homeless students. I never thought of myself as homeless because I had a roof over my head most nights. She explained that even though I was often sheltered, where I stayed wasn’t always safe, and I could be asked to leave at any time. That meant I was, technically, homeless. And without a parent or guardian in my life, the government designated me an ”unaccompanied homeless youth.”

During the 2020-2021 school year, U.S. public pre-K-12 schools identified nearly 1.1 million students who experienced homelessness. Roughly 9% of homeless students were, like me, unaccompanied. Meanwhile, each year, an estimated one in 10 young adults, ages 18 to 25, experience homelessness unaccompanied by a parent or a guardian, according to a University of Chicago study.

Sabra helped me enroll at my new high school and connected me with resources for clothing, food, and hygiene supplies. As the school year went on, she continued to check in on me and offer support. For the first time in a long time, I no longer worried about when I would eat, where I would stay, or how I would wash my clothes. I felt like I was able to be a kid again, to hang out with the new friends I’d made, and focus on my education. My grades dramatically improved, from C’s and D’s to A’s and B’s. Sabra even helped me find a temporary but more stable living environment that ended up lasting past my high school graduation.

For the first time in a long time, I no longer worried about when I would eat, where I would stay, or how I would wash my clothes.

Sabra did so much for me during my junior year and the following summer. I don’t know how she managed it all while supporting so many other students experiencing homelessness in my school district. (A district official estimated that Ardmore City Schools serves between 150 and 250 homeless students during a typical school year.) When my senior year started, Sabra introduced me to her new colleague Keri Taylor. As a graduation mentor, Keri helped seniors prepare for life after high school. She gave me career assessments, connected me with college recruiters, and helped me apply for scholarships. All the while, Sabra and Keri kept reminding me that I had a bright future.

After graduating high school in 2020, I attended some community college before deciding to work full-time. My housing situation dwindles from time to time, but I always have somewhere to stay, thankfully. I’ve also found purpose in my life: I want to help people who experience situations like mine. One day, I hope to work for a nonprofit — or start my own nonprofit — that does direct outreach to people who don’t have stable housing, especially immigrants, and helps them get back on their feet.

I want to help people like Sabra and Keri helped me.

Carlos Lara-Gonzalez is a full-time worker who feels called to help others who are less fortunate.

I am medically fragile and use a wheelchair. Here’s what makes college possible for me.

2024-02-15T13:00:00+00:00

I will never be independent. That’s OK. No one is.

Don’t get me wrong: I understand wanting to be able to care for oneself. From an evolutionary standpoint, it improves your chance of survival. But when we move the goalpost from surviving to thriving, working together and caring for one another becomes more valuable. I admit I have a different perspective about all of this since I am severely disabled and medically fragile, but I know a few things about succeeding amid adversity.

I’m a junior at Columbia University, and I start each day being lifted out of bed by one of my parents or aides. The bed is raised on legs my dad built and has rails covered with custom padding sewn by my mom’s friend Erin, who also makes costumes for the Muppets. My mom, an engineer, helped Erin with the renovations on her house. We all need help with something.

Abraham Weitzman

I cannot feed myself or prepare and administer my medication. Being tube-fed requires bags, tubes, gauze, tape, and a special high-nutrient, high-calorie formula. My medication is prescribed by various doctors, all of whom have billing assistants, schedulers, nurse practitioners, and fellows working with them. The food, medication, and supplies are inventions of scientists and biomedical engineers. They are produced in factories around the world, packaged, shipped, and ultimately delivered to my house by Ralph, the best UPS man ever. My mom always offers Ralph a cold drink on a hot day.

I rely on all these people for breakfast and seizure prevention. They rely on other people to get through their days, too. They may have coffee from a Starbucks or a bowl of Cheerios they pour from the box, but they probably didn’t grow the coffee beans or harvest the oats. Their breakfast depends on factories and trucking, just like mine.

Once I’m dressed, brushed, and washed, I leave for school with Mahmood. He is my aide and my friend. We have been together for 13 years, and he knows everything about me. It is a short walk to the car, and I settle into the back seat, where my dad has installed a race car five-point harness to keep me safe and comfortable for the drive from my parents’ house in Queens to Manhattan. During the ride, we catch up on fantasy football and plans for the week.

There is always a parking spot waiting for us near Columbia since I have a parking pass for people with disabilities. Such accommodations are made possible by New York taxpayers and voters. It would not be possible for Mahmood to spend his days with me unpaid. He has living expenses and three adorable nephews who need baseball gear, books, and art supplies. Luckily, his salary and benefits are paid for mostly by a state-supported program called Self-Direction, which assists people with severe disabilities who are living, learning, and working in the community.

No one plans on needing help caring for themselves, but many people will need help with daily tasks at some point in their lives. About 11% of all New York City residents have disabilities, including 47% of city residents over age 65.

Monday at 2 p.m., I attend an art history lecture, followed by a small discussion group. I roll in and take the open space in between the fixed seats. The professor uses a microphone and his lecture appears at the bottom of the projection screen when he speaks.

While I pay close attention to the images on the screen and his terrific explanations, I cannot take notes fast enough to keep up. I don’t worry though, since one of my classmates is paid to share their notes with students who cannot take their own. I communicate by standing and hitting a six-switch array with my chest, which drives computer software my dad wrote for me. (Here’s a video of me typing.)

The laws and the regulations that have made my life and schooling possible have been hard-won. In 1977, disability activists staged the national 504 Sit-In to demand their civil rights, and in 1990, activists with disabilities left their mobility aids behind and crawled up the steps of Congress in what is known as the Capitol Crawl. Such activism helped lead to the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, federal legislation that mandates public spaces be made accessible to people with mobility challenges and those with other disabilities.

A photo of President George H. W. Bush signing the Americans with Disabilities Act on July 26, 1990. Below the photo is an inscription from the president to Justin Dart, a disability rights activist who is seated at right. It reads, “Without your drive, your ‘believing’ and your leadership this day would not have been possible."

These accommodations are necessary to ensure that I have access to an education and opportunities afforded to my peers without disabilities. It does not mean I’m entitled to the same destiny, only that I’m offered reasonable assistance, like more time to complete an exam, or opportunities to participate in class even though I am non-speaking.

Making rules is important, but having people who follow them makes my experience at Columbia possible. Laura Dayan in the university’s Disability Services office regularly communicates with my professors, sends my switches to my classrooms, and schedules testing around my physical limitations and medical needs. Laura is the face I know, but the campus is filled with others who advocate for accessibility projects, maintain elevators, and send me their lecture notes. I rely on and appreciate all of them.

At Columbia, I contribute to our community by listening to others and sharing my perspective. I always start with listening. Part of that is by necessity since I need to stand to access my communication system. Even when I could speak first, I choose to listen because people need to know that their experience is acknowledged and appreciated. When we listen, we are prioritizing other perspectives over our own.

Despite my challenges, I have a life of fortune. From the moment I was born, I’ve been adored, supported, pushed, and expected to do great things. My parents’ belief in me, and the persistence and confidence they instilled, empower me to tackle every day. I model that behavior, reminding those around me that they are not alone. I see their challenges, and I have confidence in them.

The visible and audible nature of my disabilities means they cannot be hidden. But human vulnerabilities, whether invisible or in plain view, are not shameful.

After class, my body is tired but there is lots of reading and research to do. I return to my dorm room, where I stay over from Monday through Thursday, and another aide, Ben, arrives so Mahmood can go home to his family. Ben bathes me, and we settle in for an evening of selections from books and journals. I can read but my involuntary movements make it impossible to keep track of my place on the page. Some documents are formatted for text-to-speech, and others Ben reads to me. He is good at reading aloud since he studied acting in college, and he gives the best baths. We share a love of film, especially horror movies.

Needing a team may seem like a sign that I am completely dependent on others. After all, I am never left without someone who could get me out of the building in case of a fire. The truth is everyone needs a team to help them through life. Weathering difficulties and celebrating accomplishments are best done in community.

I am not independent and, with the possible exception of hermits and desert island survivors, neither is anyone else. We all need friends, and we all rely on strangers who fabricate and maintain the world around us. We are all vulnerable to disability and will likely experience it at some point in our lives. And we all need examples to remind us that persistence and patience can produce great things.

Abey Weitzman is a junior at Columbia University. He enjoys traveling and staying home. Weitzman is a graduate of Bard High School Early College Queens. As a disability advocate, he hopes to use his writing to create change for his community. In 2017, Weitzman wrote in Chalkbeat about navigating New York City public high school admissions as a wheelchair user.

A visit to Auschwitz changed how I teach about the Holocaust

2024-01-26T12:00:00+00:00

When I was in sixth grade, I read Anne Frank’s “The Diary of a Young Girl.” This was my introduction to the Holocaust. I was so moved by her life — and subsequent death at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp — that I vowed to never forget Anne and the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis.

My 12-year-old mind could not fathom the senselessness of her murder. As I was reading her diary, I fully expected the outspoken girl who liked to read and disliked math, who had crushes and dreams for the future, to live. Anne reminded me of myself. To this day, it still saddens and haunts me that she did not survive.

Nikia Garland

The similarities between the plight of the Jewish people and Black Americans were also not lost on me. I was moved by photos of Black American soldiers helping to liberate the Jews from concentration camps, and struck by the irony of those servicemen returning to the U.S. where they were denied basic rights, faced racial hostility, and were still not completely free. I am a high school English teacher, and I was determined to teach my students about Black soldiers, such as Cpl. James W. Baldwin, who helped liberate Europe from Hitler’s rule.

Then, last June, decades after I first read Anne’s diary, I had the opportunity to travel solo to Poland and Germany as a Funds for Teachers Fellow. I pursued this fellowship because I wanted to learn more about the Holocaust, as I teach a unit on the subject.

When I arrived at Auschwitz, where about 1 million Jews were murdered, the atmosphere was heavy. Despite it being a sweltering summer day, I felt a distinct chill flow through me as I entered the gates that read, “Arbeit macht frei,” German for “Work sets you free,” even though the millions who passed through those gates were killed or brutally imprisoned and forced to work.

At Auschwitz, I was not prepared for the artifacts that were left behind. There were suitcases bearing names, dishes, and bundles upon bundles of human hair that the Nazis used for textiles. It was especially difficult to see the children’s clothing and shoes, photographs of grossly emaciated prisoners — including kids — and the squalid living conditions they endured.

Holocaust survivor Eva Mozes Kor stands outside the CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Terre Haute, Indiana, during the filming of the 2014 Andre Singer documentary "Night Will Fall." Kor died at age 85 in 2019.

Entering the gas chamber there was like being transported back in time. The sharp scent of death still lingered in the air. It completely overwhelmed my senses, and I was moved to tears.

I also visited Oskar Schindler’s enamel factory in Krakow, Poland, which is now a museum. Schindler, a German businessman credited with saving more than 1,000 Jews, was the subject of Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning 1993 film “Schindler’s List.” Another museum visitor recommended the movie to me.

I watched it on my flight home from Europe — an emotional screening on the heels of an emotional trip. I was captivated by Schindler’s metamorphosis from an opportunistic industrialist to an upstander who, repulsed by the Nazis’ brutal treatment of Jews, developed a plan to save as many as he could. This year, I plan to have my AP students watch “Schindler’s List” and write a rhetorical analysis.

It’s one way my trip to Europe will shape how I teach about the Holocaust. I also created a PowerPoint about my trip to European Holocaust sites, and I have planned field trips to Indianapolis’ Peace Center for Reconciliation and Forgiveness, founded by a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide and to a live production of “Letters From Anne and Martin,” which highlights the parallels between Anne Frank and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

In addition, my students will research a real Holocaust victim and learn their story. They will also hear about Eva Mozes Kor, a Holocaust survivor who, along with her twin sister, Miriam, endured the experiments of the brutal Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. Kor lived for many years in Terre Haute, Indiana, and opened a Holocaust museum and education center there. When I was at Auschwitz, I saw a large photo of Eva and her sister being liberated by Russian soldiers in 1945. (Kor died in 2019 at age 85.)

I also hope to speak to my son’s eighth grade humanities class as they study the rise of totalitarianism in the 20th century. And I look forward to sharing what I saw and learned during my Holocaust education fellowship in other schools and classrooms, too.

My students, and all students, should know what happened during the Holocaust. They should understand the importance of empathizing with those who are suffering, regardless of race or creed, and advocating for justice on their behalf. They will read the famous verse “First They Came For…” by Pastor Martin Niemöller, to help emphasize the danger of being indifferent to those in pain.

In memory of Anne Frank, whose story captured my 12-year-old self and whose death broke my heart, I am determined to help shape a generation of upstanders.

Nikia D. Garland teaches British Literature and AP Language and Composition at Arsenal Technical High School. She has taught a wide range of secondary and college-level ELA classes in the U.S. and internationally. Nikia has been a Terry Fear Holocaust Educator in Action recipient, a Mark Schonwetter Holocaust Education Foundation grant recipient, a Lilly Endowment Teacher Creativity Fellow, a Fund For Teachers Fellow, and a Grosvenor Teacher Fellow. In addition, she is a chair for the Indiana Teachers of Writing conference and president-elect for the Indiana affiliate of the National Council of Teachers of English.

I was told my Bronx high school had a bad reputation. I’m glad I didn’t listen.

2024-01-23T13:00:00+00:00

The writer of this essay is a 2023-24 Student Voices Fellow at Chalkbeat. Click to learn more about our high school fellowship program.

I sat in my room on a half-broken laptop worriedly staring at the high school application portal. At only 13 years old, I had to make a big decision: where I would spend the next four years. It was the beginning of winter, the season was changing, and like the cold weather, I already felt life rushing at me.

I went to a small middle school, where all 300 or so students shared one floor of a building, one gym, and one guidance counselor. My grades and test scores were competitive, but I wasn’t encouraged to apply to any of the city’s elite public high schools. I remember my guidance counselor telling me that “students from our school rarely ever get admitted into the top high schools.”

I ranked Harry S. Truman High School in the Co-Op City section of the Bronx as No. 1 on my application. When I told my siblings, there was fear in their eyes. Truman, they said, was “one of the worst schools in New York City.” While it was no secret to me that Truman had a bit of a reputation, I was enthusiastic about my decision.

I chose Truman because it is the largest comprehensive school in the Bronx. It has lots of sports and clubs, and did I mention a phenomenal four-year law program (because by age 13, I thought I wanted to be a lawyer). I ignored my siblings’ cries and embraced my choice.

My freshman year was unconventional, considering it was 2020-21, and most New York City high school students were learning online. I decided to go to school in person because I wanted the classic high school experience. But the school building and the classes were mostly empty. After just a week or so, I found the entire experience to be so depressing that I switched back to online learning.

Emily Muñoz wins money from a pitch competition.

I worked hard during my freshman year, staying after class to talk with teachers and joining many virtual clubs at my school. I found it difficult to make friends or even find other students who were as equally committed to their studies and as shy as I was. Unable to find my place, I began to regret choosing Truman.

I was beyond thrilled to find out that school would be returning in person for my sophomore year. At Truman, I made more friends, tried out track, and continued to take part in student government and mock trial. Although I fell out of love with the idea of becoming a lawyer, I developed a deep interest in politics.

While I valued these experiences, going to Truman was often bittersweet. Each day, I had to wait in long lines to go through metal detectors, which felt dehumanizing. Sometimes it was hard to concentrate because there were loud and disruptive students in the hallway. I also questioned some of our peculiar school policies, like those about who could enter the cafeteria and when.

Desperately wanting to escape the bubble of my school, I applied to the Family Court Division Youth Leadership Council. I was interviewed by a lawyer who was impressed with my passion, responses, and high grades. Then I told her where I went to high school. “Truman?” I remember her saying. “I haven’t heard good things about that school.”

Although I was selected to serve on the Youth Leadership Council, the interviewer’s surprise was the first of countless bursts of astonishment I’ve heard when I mentioned my school to people who knew of it but didn’t go there. “You go to Truman!?” people would say. “You don’t seem like it!” People assumed that attending Truman meant that I was mean, “ghetto,” unknowledgeable, and just everything short of the high-achieving high school student I was.

But I was determined to prove them wrong, not only for myself but also for the countless Truman students who work hard and do wonderful things despite the systemic inequities that many of us experience. (During the 2022-23 school year, some 88% of Truman’s nearly 1,900 students were Black and Hispanic, and nearly four out of five came from low-income households, according to city data.)

By getting involved with different organizations, such as the Youth Leadership Council, I was able to expand my network. One door opened the next, and soon, I found myself giving speeches at youth conferences to hundreds of people, being one of the youngest Young Scholars at the African American Policy Forum, and winning both national and citywide awards for my artivist poetry (and getting my poetry published).

Recognizing that a majority of students at my school did not have the same access to the resources and networks I was fortunate to discover, I decided to launch a mentorship program, Becoming Greatness, connecting underclassmen from marginalized communities to high-achieving upperclassmen who are also from marginalized communities. I won funding through a citywide pitch competition, and I’m currently working with my school’s administration to facilitate the official rollout of the program.

To my astonishment, I opened my email last summer and learned that I had been nominated for a prestigious Posse scholarship, which provides full-tuition leadership scholarships to partnering colleges and universities (as well as pre-collegiate training, professional development opportunities, and more). Where I come from, it’s not common for students to attend elite colleges, let alone receive merit scholarships to those schools. During my three long Posse interviews, I often felt like an imposter being surrounded by people from some of the most renowned high schools in the city. The sheer competitiveness and high stakes during the final interview nearly left me in tears.

But last month, I received the exciting news that I was chosen from among thousands of Posse Scholar nominees to attend Vanderbilt University.

It’s winter again now, just like in years past and just like in years to come. The only difference now is that I’m 17 and can’t help but softly smile at how far I’ve come. Even though people may have doubted me, my unwavering passion to expand my horizons has allowed me to persist. As I look forward to college, I’m just as determined to seize further opportunities — whether that means continuing my work to bridge educational disparities or studying abroad in France. But four years after submitting my high school application, I can confidently say that it’s never where we go but the fruit we make of it.

Emily Munoz is a 2023-24 Chalkbeat Student Voices Fellow. She is an award-winning and published artivist poet and an advocate for intersectional racial and gender equity. A Young Scholar at the African American Policy Forum, a podcast host with Next Generation Politics, and a Teen Reading Ambassador at the New York Public Library, Emily is passionate about educational equity and plans on majoring in Political Science. Emily will be attending Vanderbilt University as a Posse Scholar in the fall.

NYC needs fully accessible schools. Families like mine depend on it.

2024-01-26T13:00:00+00:00

Josh and I were excited, planning for a child. I was not a happy pregnant person, but at each appointment, I was assured that the baby was growing well. Each sonogram declared he was “perfect.” After an uneventful full-term birth, our son Abey was born 8 pounds, 8 ounces. Within four months we knew he had challenges. At a year old, Abey did not sit, eat, grab a toy, or look at my face.

We had not planned for Abey’s disabilities, but in the months and years that followed, we became well-versed in therapies, doctor’s appointments, feeding tubes, seizure medications, and wheelchairs. By the time Abey was ready for kindergarten, we realized that our school system had not planned for his disabilities either.

Michelle Noris

Abey was born 13 years to the day after the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, was signed into law. When we started looking at kindergartens, we found that the school across the street was not accessible. Neither were any of the schools within walking distance from our Queens home. He would need to be bused to another neighborhood.

When we looked at schools in other neighborhoods, school staff said things like “You won’t be happy here” and “We can’t handle his needs.” Finally, after the city’s Committee on Special Education agreed that its schools could not provide him an appropriate education, Abey, my 5-year-old who could not speak, ended up on a bus, hours each day, to Nassau County. Between kindergarten and eighth grade, he spent some 3,500 hours commuting.

What did that mean for Abey, other than thousands of hours lost to busing? It meant no after-school activities, since the school bus would not bring him home. It meant very few playdates, since I would need to drive to and from Nassau anytime he was invited anywhere. It meant he didn’t have friends in the community where he lived, since he had no exposure to them in school.

What did that mean for our family? It meant that every parent-teacher conference or school event required that one of his parents miss half a day of work. It meant that a bus strike required us to drive him back and forth to Long Island, which could take hours and meant more time off work. It meant not having my sons, born two years apart, in the same school like all the other moms on my block. We were socially isolated and economically penalized by our school system because Abey was disabled.

Fast forward 15 years, and Abey is a junior at Columbia University, where he enrolled after graduating from Bard High School Early College Queens, a fully accessible high school just 20 minutes from home.

The school across the street where we initially hoped to send Abey to kindergarten still is not accessible, and neither are any of those in walking distance from our home. Another generation of students with physical disabilities is being denied access to their community schools.

When I realized that New York City’s public schools were woefully behind in ADA compliance, I set about understanding why. As with many problems, the root was money. The first time I looked at the accessibility of our schools, back in 2018, only about 18% of city public schools were fully accessible, according to the group Advocates for Children.

The author with her son Abey at a Mets game.

The education department’s 2015-2019 capital budget allocated $100 million to improve accessibility in schools, with an additional $50 million earmarked in 2019. That sounds like a lot of money, but only 14 inaccessible or partially accessible school buildings became fully accessible with those dollars, according to a city report. At another 13 school buildings, building accessibility was improved though not enough to make them fully accessible, the report shows.

At the rate they were going, it would have taken many generations for the education department’s 1,300 school buildings to reach full accessibility.

The solution was, and is, funding. Based on what the education department was able to accomplish with the 2015-2019 capital plan, I projected that the city needed to invest about $1 billion every five years for all schools to become fully accessible within 26 years. During the 2020-24 budget cycle, the city allocated $750 million, and by 2023, 31% of city schools were fully accessible, up 13 percentage points from five years earlier.

To continue toward a school system that is inclusive and compliant with federal law, Advocates for Children asked the city to allocate $1.25 billion for accessibility in the next budget cycle, which runs 2025-29. But this time around, the city has plans to spend only about two-thirds of that, $800 million, for accessibility. It may be tempting to point to New York City’s current financial strains and say, “We cannot afford that now; we will do it later.” I say that it has been more than 33 years since the ADA was passed, and we are catching up on work that should have been completed years ago.

I did not plan in advance for my disabled son. When he arrived, my husband and I put our emotional, mental, and financial resources into making sure he got what he needed. New York City did not know that my son would be disabled, but we all knew, and still know, that disabled children will continue to join our community and need to go to school. They need friends in the neighborhood, rather than being bused to other counties. Families like mine should not shoulder greater logistical and financial burdens than our neighbors with non-disabled children. Our city must plan, budget for, and fast-track accessible schools. Students and families demand it, depend on it, and deserve it.

Michelle Noris is a mom to three children educated through the New York City Public Schools and owner of Norfast Engineering PLLC.

I applied to 23 colleges and wrote 50 essays. Here’s what I learned.

2024-02-02T13:00:00+00:00

The writer of this essay is a 2023-24 Student Voices Fellow at Chalkbeat. Click to learn more about our high school fellowship program.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Sitting in the Seward Park Public Library, my fingers dance as they click away at my laptop’s keyboard, their momentum fueled by the overwhelming sense that all my hard work will pay off on decision day. But hours later, when all my mental power is drained and the rock songs on my Spotify playlist start repeating, I feel a sense of dread. What if I don’t get in?

For the past few months, the stress of the college application dominated my life, fueled by my desire to study at what society refers to as “top schools”— prestigious institutions of higher education that provide students with a world-class education but accept only a tiny percentage of those who apply.

Alexander Calafiura

Overall, I spent some 200 hours applying to 23 schools and writing 50 supplemental essays, with topics ranging from my interest in a school to the three words that best describe my life. Answer: providential, earnest, and excited. Of all the schools that I applied to, seven were “safeties,” meaning I was more likely than not to get in, four were “targets,” for which my grades and scores made me a strong candidate, and 12 were “reaches,” schools with the most competitive and unpredictable admissions practices.

Why would anyone in their right mind subject themselves to this much work when they can only enroll in one school? Why pay application fees, some of which top $80, for so many schools? Turns out, among my friends, many of whom attend some of New York City’s most competitive public and private schools, this is becoming an increasingly common practice.

The trend is not limited to my social circle or New York City students. In recent years, the Common Application, a platform that allows students to use one application for the majority of U.S. colleges, has made it easier for students to apply to multiple schools. And with fee waivers, which I qualified for, the Common Application has given students the ability to apply to a wide range of schools at no cost. Since schools that accept the Common Application may ask for supplementary essays, the number of schools I applied to was limited only by my own time, effort, and sanity. For instance, the University of Pennsylvania asks you to write a thank you note to someone who you’ve yet to thank, and Columbia University asks you to list the literature and media that has had the most impact on your intellectual development.

Additionally, in recent years, the Internet has popularized what is called the “shotgunning” method — that is, applying to many elite schools at once in hopes that at least one school will accept you. Essentially, “shotgunners” believe that because they have no insight, year to year, into the exact mix of qualities and skills a school is looking for, they might as well spread out their options in the interest of finding one singular “match” school.

And since many prestigious colleges went test-optional during COVID — meaning SAT and ACT scores are no longer required for admissions consideration — the Common App saw a 30% increase in total applications, which resulted in an even lower percentage of applicants getting in.

I am no expert in college admissions, but I have spent hundreds of hours applying to colleges. In the interest of benefitting future applicants and providing some insight into what it’s like to apply to college, here are some of my biggest takeaways from the whole process.

Strive to be yourself and find your authentic voice.

I’ve always thought that “be yourself” is a reductive piece of advice, but having been through the application process, I have to admit that it’s true. In my case, I wrote about my love for cycling around New York City and my passion for Russian literature. Colleges want to know what makes you unique, and your thoughts and emotions are a large part of that. To that end, rather than inventing aspirations and exaggerating your experiences just to appeal to an admissions officer, you should genuinely believe what you’re writing. If you don’t, why would the person reading your application believe it?

Stay organized or waste hours of your time.

If you’re like me, and you find it hard to keep track of things in your head, a spreadsheet or document that contains or links to all your college application-related materials will be invaluable. I’d say that more than anything else, following my college counselor’s recommendation of using a spreadsheet saved me tens of hours of my time, and made my life 10x easier. Added bonus: Keeping track of the total number of supplements I had left to do was motivating as well as therapeutic.

Love your schools, or you won’t love applying to them.

Applying to so many schools is not for everybody. In fact, if you don’t truly love a school, don’t feel pressured to apply for the sake of prestige or name value. Without a genuine interest and passion for these institutions, it’ll only be a matter of time until you burn out and the quality of your applications suffers. For instance, I wanted to attend college in the Northeast or California, so I made the difficult choice to take great schools, such as the University of Texas at Austin and Vanderbilt, off my list.

The process is temporary, but the takeaways are forever.

After writing so many essays about my experiences, interests, and desires, I realized that my supplemental essays were emblematic of what I wanted out of life and my college experience. For example, after I began writing about my intended major (economics), it occurred to me that what I’m truly passionate about is policy’s intersection with economics and mathematical modeling. After I began writing about my most treasured extracurricular experiences, it became clear to me how much I valued using my voice as a tool to impact my community and effect change. I believe that writing about your genuine interests is more valuable to you than simply trying to present something that you think will appeal to colleges.

Find ways to avoid (my archnemesis) procrastination.

As I started writing my essays, I struggled a lot with procrastination because I worried that no matter how artistic or beautiful the essays I wrote were, I’d still be rejected from a school. Over time, I’ve learned that this is a natural emotion. But once you fall into the trap of thinking this way, you’ll waste so much time that the quality of your work will suffer. Thankfully, I got around these thoughts by staying off social media, taking consistent, relaxing breaks, and practicing mindfulness. For example, I found it to be particularly helpful to take a “mental reset” every few hours; I did this by jogging along the East River, getting boba with friends, and going to the gym. After my brain and body took a break, I found it to be a lot easier to pour my thoughts onto paper and discover prior flaws or mistakes in my writing.

Now that I’m essentially done with the college application process, I’m extremely excited for admissions decisions over the next couple of months. But in the short term, I face the alarming, perennial beast: senioritis. I’ll take my time to address it after one … more … episode … of … “Suits” on Netflix.

Alexander Calafiura, a Chalkbeat Student Voices Fellow for 2023-2 is a senior at East Side Community High School in New York City. In his spare time, he enjoys folding origami, reading classic literature, and discussing politics. At school, he is a co-editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, The East Sider.

Las familias como la mía necesitan más libros bilingües para niños

2022-03-31T17:59:42+00:00

Pasé semanas redactando un guión para mi primera competencia de ideas y ensayándolo por Zoom con mi mentora, Symone. Asegura que los jueces puedan verte los ojos, me dijo. Incluye estadísticas relevantes. Define para ellos lo que significa ser “bilingüe”.

Para prepararme, monté mi escritorio en la habitación más iluminada de nuestra casa, y con la ayuda de mi mamá decoré la pared blanca que está detrás de mí con un cartel de muchos colores. Como toque final, mandé a hacer una camiseta con el primer logo de mi empresa.

Finalmente, grabé mi presentación de dos minutos y la envié.

“Hola, me llamo Daniela Palacios”, comencé, presentando mi empresa, Para KIDS! “Vendo libros para niños bilingües que están escritos tanto en inglés como en español. Se me ocurrió la idea porque como hermana mayor, me cuesta encontrar libros bilingües para mi hermano menor, que tiene dificultades para entender libros en español”.

Por los últimos dos años, me he propuesto que estos libros lleguen a las familias que los necesitan — familias como la mía. Lo que me hace seguir adelante es el amor por mi hermano Xavier, que ahora tiene 8 años.

Pienso en la vez que Xavier empezó a llorar porque no entendía el libro para niños en español “El oso se comió tu sándwich”, sobre un oso que le roba el sándwich a un niño. Me imagino a mi hermano creciendo sin poder comprender ni apreciar la cultura hispana de nuestra familia. Pero cuando busqué libros que Xavier (cuyo primer idioma es inglés) pudiera disfrutar con mis papás, que hablan español, me encontré con las manos casi vacías.

Investigando el mercado, descubrí que las escuelas de mi comunidad en Newark solamente tenían un número limitado de libros bilingües para los estudiantes en sus bibliotecas.

Para mí fue frustrante ver cómo la industria editorial excluye a las familias bilingües. Muchas familias de mi comunidad de Newark enfrentan barreras de idioma similares. Un 49.5% de las familias de la ciudad habla otro idioma que no es inglés en el hogar, según los datos del censo.

Todos los niños necesitan literatura que valide sus experiencias y múltiples identidades y les anime a interactuar con niños de diferentes países. Los niños inmigrantes en Estados Unidos necesitan libros bilingües para aprender inglés y a la vez mantener los conocimientos de su idioma materno. Estos libros permiten que familias como la nuestra establezcan vínculos con cuentos que tanto los padres como los hijos pueden entender.

Para ayudar a mi hermano — y llenar una brecha significativa en el mercado — ¡abrí mi empresa Para KIDS! Al principio, me pregunté: “¿Puedo yo, una adolescente de Newark, realmente lograr esto?” Rara vez vi que se destacaran proyectos de mujeres empresarias de minorías, especialmente las de ciudades como Newark. Sin embargo, estaba decidida a darle vida a mi negocio de libros bilingües para niños porque reconocía su impacto potencial. Hice un esfuerzo por salir de mi zona de comodidad; me comuniqué con fundadores y profesionales de la industria editorial para pedirles consejo y participé en academias de negocios, y en una de ellas conocí a Symone.

Para KIDS! colaboró con el Liberty Family Success Center en un evento de lectura bilingüe en la comunidad para celebrar el evento Read Across America 2022.

También escribí el primero libro ilustrado de Para KIDS! Se trata de la amistad entre Sara, una estudiante ecuatoriana recién inmigrada a Estados Unidos, y su compañera de clase Riley, que es mexico-americana y habla poco español.

Desde el undécimo grado de secundaria, he presentado mi empresa en competencias de ideas. Ganara o perdiera, estas experiencias tuvieron un valor incalculable; me permitieron crecer como empresaria social y oradora. También he podido aumentar la conciencia sobre la importancia de la educación bilingüe y la equidad educativa.

Durante las presentaciones, mi trabajo es convencer a los jueces de las competencias y al público de que los libros bilingües para niños con personajes y experiencias diversas son importantes. Cada vez que hablo de mi compañía siento mucho orgullo porque estoy representando a las comunidades latinas y bilingües. El dinero de los premios que he ganado en los dos últimos años ha permitido que mi empresa se haga realidad. Por ejemplo, he podido contratar a un ilustrador para diseñar mi primer libro bilingüe para niños.

El libro — sobre la amistad intercultural y multilingüe entre Sara y Riley — se titula Sara’s New Country and New Friend/El nuevo país y la nueva amiga de Sara y se publicará este verano. El mensaje del cuento es el mismo de Para KIDS!: El amor y la amistad trascienden las barreras de idioma.

Daniela Palacios (ella) está en el último año de la escuela secundaria Science Park. En otoño asistirá a la Columbia University. Daniela es la creadora de Para KIDS!, una compañía que publica cuentos bilingües para niños con personajes de inmigrantes. Es autora de un libro bilingüe para niños en español que pronto estará disponible: “Sara’s New Country and New Friend/ El nuevo país y la nueva amiga de Sara” Daniela es parte del grupo de estudiantes periodistas Chalkbeat Student Voices.

My father gave me his name. I thought it was a curse but realized it was a blessing.

2024-01-28T13:00:00+00:00

The writer of this essay is a 2023-24 Student Voices Fellow at Chalkbeat. Click to learn more about our high school fellowship program.

In the eyes of my parents, their parents, and those who came before them, I see the ruins of lives never lived. Lives filled with laughter, ease, and comfort. Lives that know little of hardship and back-breaking work. Lives that could not be further removed from the ones they’ve actually lived.

David Malakai Allen, a Student Voices Fellow for 2023-24

As I excavate those ruins, I am reminded of questions posed by Langston Hughes in his poem “Harlem”:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

I imagine this poem was more rhetorical than not, but to answer it anyway, I carry the deferred dreams of my father firmly on my two shoulders. They have trickled through the generations like rain through a tree, gently dropping from one person to the next. People often cringe when they hear that I aspire to be a criminal defense attorney, in part because that was my father’s dream when he was my age. They insist that I must live my life for me and not for him. What many people do not realize is that there is no greater honor for me than to achieve what he was unable to.

My mind whirls thinking of how different my father’s life would be had he been afforded the opportunity to pursue his dreams. Growing up, I witnessed firsthand the sheer brilliance that radiated from him when we spoke about politics, literature, or film. Here is a man with the keenest of intellects, and yet the world would rather overlook and dismiss him due to his race and economic status.

Student Voices Fellow David Malakai Allen as a toddler with his father.

About 17 years ago, I was born David Malakai Allen III. I was named for my dad, as he was named for his. This name, which now fills me with great pride and motivation, did not always do so.

When I was younger, I thought my name was a curse. I watched as the long hours my father worked at warehouses and driving trucks slowly wore him down, and caused him to feel both exhausted and somewhat jaded. I reacted to this observation with fear, even abhorrence. I thought that in giving me his name, my father had also handed me his future. A future of curtailed ambitions and of dreams deferred to the next generation. These thoughts soon fostered resentment that festered for years.

Then, when I was in my freshman year of high school, I was assigned a project centered around the meaning of my name. I sat down with my father to discuss my list of questions, and his answers both shocked and thrilled me.

He shared that while I was given the family name, I was also named with the biblical story of King David in mind. It’s a story that illustrates beautifully the idea that a person is capable of much more than they know, and they can rise above any obstacle with a steadfast faith in God.

My father went on to say that he knew from the moment he held me for the first time that I was born to accomplish something great. By naming me David Malakai Allen III, he was ensuring that not only was I imbued with a resilient spirit, but that when that great thing I am destined for does come to pass, both he and my grandfather will be there with me.

Now, with high school graduation and college enrollment only months away, I am filled with immense pride knowing that I am the first person in my family who will graduate from college. When I was younger, the pressure of carrying my family’s legacy felt debilitating. As I have grown, I can imagine no greater blessing than accomplishing something those who came before me never thought possible for themselves.

As for the questions posed by Langston Hughes: I think that, sometimes, a deferred dream becomes a seed, planted in the ground, watched and prayed over with the hope that it may bloom. In the eyes of my parents and their forebears, I see the ruins of their dreams, but I also see me. I see my ability to right generations of wrongs and ensure my children live in a world where their dreams know no bounds.

David Malakai Allen is a high school senior from Newark, New Jersey, with dreams of becoming a criminal defense attorney. As he begins his journey toward achieving that goal, he channels the strength of his family to propel him forward.

Meet Chalkbeat’s Student Voices fellows

2021-11-16T11:00:00+00:00

This school year, Chalkbeat is thrilled to pilot our Student Voices writing fellowship in three of our bureaus: Chicago, Newark, and Philadelphia. The fall and spring fellows — all high school students in communities Chalkbeat covers — will be writing First Person essays about their lives and journeys through public school. (You can read about the fellowship program here.)

You’ll be learning more about these impressive and accomplished students in the weeks and months ahead. In the meantime, please join me in welcoming the inaugural class of Student Voices fellows. Their bios and photos are below.

Chicago

Chicago fellows Ajibola Junaid, left, and Jeremiah Griffith

Ajibola Junaid (Fall semester):

Ajibola Elizabeth Junaid (she/her/hers) is a senior at Wendell Phillips Academy High School. She moved from Nigeria to the United States when she was 13. She has taken part in the University of Chicago’s Equitable Learning and Development Project, which works to improve public schools for all students, and in the dance education project Forward Momentum. Ajibola plans to study biology in college and go on to medical school to become an OB-GYN. In her spare time, she enjoys listening to music and dancing.

Jeremiah Griffith (Spring semester):

Jeremiah Griffith (he/him/his) is a junior at Noble Academy. He writes about sports for TrueStar magazine and manages his own sports blog, The Ball Talk. Jeremiah is a TrueStar Youth Violence Prevention Ambassador and a volunteer at Rush University Medical Center. He is a member of the National Honors Society and his school’s basketball team. During the fall semester, he is interning at Vega Partners and Chicago House AC.

Newark

Newark fellows Chimdindu Okafor, left, and Daniela Palacios.

Chimdindu Okafor (Fall semester):

Chimdindu Okafor (she/her/hers) is a senior at North Star Academy Lincoln Park High School. She is a social justice activist and organizer currently serving as a youth board member for the Sadie Nash Leadership Project and on the steering committee of the National Agenda for Black Girls. Chimdindu is “inspired by stories from urban youth whose experiences often parallel mine.”

Daniela Palacios (Spring semester):

Daniela Palacios (she/her/hers) is a senior at Science Park High School. Daniela is also the creator of Para KIDS!, a media company that publishes bilingual children’s stories with immigrant characters. She is the author of a forthcoming Spanish bilingual children’s book, “Sara’s New Country and New Friend/ El nuevo país y la nueva amiga de Sara.”

Philadelphia

Philadelphia fellows Lin Lin, left, and Umme Orthy.

Lin Lin (Fall semester):

Lin Lin (they/them) is a senior at Central High School. They are the co-president of the student-run newspaper Bullhorn News, where their goal is to make student journalism more accessible by increasing the number of BIPOC journalists and translating articles into multiple languages. Lin was previously a reporter for the paper, covering the School District of Philadelphia, where they enjoyed writing about racial consciousness and curriculum. In addition, they have done community organizing with such groups as Asian Americans United and VietLead. In their spare time, Lin enjoys reading and hiking.

Umme Orthy (Spring semester):

Umme Orthy (she/her) is a senior at Science Leadership Academy at Beeber. She is passionate about biology and wants to become a doctor. Umme is originally from Chittagong, Bangladesh, and hopes to provide free medical services to people in her hometown one day. She likes to write about her own experiences and express herself through writing, including poetry. “As an immigrant student, there are so many untold stories I want to share,” she said. In her spare time, Umme enjoys painting, cooking, and watching K-dramas.

We also take student submissions on a rolling basis. Have a pitch or a piece that’s a good fit for First Person? Read our submission guidelines, and email us at firstperson@chalkbeat.org.

Student Voices 2023-24: Meet Chalkbeat’s newest fellows

2023-10-12T12:00:00+00:00

As Chalkbeat’s Student Voices program enters its third year, we are thrilled to welcome our 2023-24 fellowship class.

In the coming months, these six high school students will publish essays on Chalkbeat about their lives and schools. This year’s Student Voices fellows — all public school students in New York City and Newark, New Jersey — will also be learning about journalism and taking part in writing workshops.

The published work of all previous fellows is compiled here.

Readers can expect to see the bylines of Chalkbeat’s new fellows on our pages soon. In the meantime, meet these impressive teens and hear what they hope to accomplish at Chalkbeat.

Fall Fellows

David Malakai Allen, Newark

David (he/him/his) is a senior at University High School in Newark. He is a social justice advocate, a public speaker, a proud member of the Newark Anti-Violence Coalition, and the founder of the Black Student Union at his former high school. David recently attended the international politics program at Harvard Summer School, and he aspires to one day become a criminal defense and civil rights attorney. James Baldwin’s nonfiction masterpiece “The Fire Next Time” inspired David to write, and he loves to read the works of Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and Audre Lorde. “I write because the plight of a Muslim is to stand up for those who are not able to stand up for themselves,” David said. “My words are a medium for accomplishing that.”

Alexander Calafiura, New York City

Alex (he/him/his) is a senior at East Side Community High School in Manhattan. He spent the first 10 years of his life in Shanghai, China, before moving to the United States in 2017. Alex is the co-founder of his school’s mock trial team and intends to use his voice to bridge inequalities in the criminal justice system. To learn more about the law, he has interned at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Alex also loves writing and is co-editor-in-chief of his school’s newspaper, the East Sider. In his free time, Alex enjoys folding origami, teaching himself math, and reading nonfiction. At Chalkbeat, he hopes to hone his writing skills and use his voice as a tool to empower and inspire others.

Emily Munoz, New York City

Emily (she/her) is a senior in the law program at Harry S. Truman High School in the Bronx. She’s a staunch intersectional racial and gender equity advocate and a published and award-winning artivist poet. Emily is the co-chair of the 2023-24 Youth ACT! cohort of A Call to Men and a 2023 Young Scholar at the African American Policy Forum. After high school, she plans to major in political science with a concentration in African American studies and to one day work for the U.S. government. In her free time, Emily enjoys hosting the student politics podcast “The Round Table,” eating soul food and seafood boils, and listening to Ice Spice and Nicki Minaj. At Chalkbeat, she hopes to bring awareness to intersectionality and help readers understand what it means to be a Black girl in an inequitable school system.

Spring Fellows

Shamima Ahmed, New York City

Shamima (she/her/hers) is a senior at Central Park East High School in Manhattan. She is a secretary of her school’s National Honor Society, a member of the volunteer organization Glamour Girls, and a current OppNet Fellow. Shamima studied coding and product management through America on Tech, and she did a case study on Doc Martens during a summer program at the private equity firm Permira. A mental health advocate, she loves to journal, walk, reflect, and spend time with the people she loves most.

Alexa Brown-Hill, Newark

Alexa is a junior and taking her first year of college courses at Bard High School Early College in Newark. She is driven by a powerful sense of social responsibility and advocates for such issues as curbing bullying, fostering body positivity, and encouraging self-care. Alexa has held positions with a local chapter of the NAACP, is a member of the National Society of High School Scholars, and founded her school’s step team. In addition, she is a makeup artist and finds peace in faith and music. Alexa has a passion for literature and hopes to become a published author, sharing her personal stories with the world. At Chalkbeat, she wants to write about how students’ home lives can affect their education and show schools how to support children facing adversity.

Miriam Galicia, New York City

Miriam (she/her/hers) is a senior at the Institute For Collaborative Education in Manhattan. When she graduates in June, she will go on to become a first-generation Mexican American college student. She comes from a family of hard workers who never say her dreams are impossible. Miriam is the co-president of her school’s student council and works to ensure that school can be a welcoming experience for all. She loves to find ways to improve the community and herself. Over the summer, Miriam honed her leadership skills at the Sadie Nash Summer Institute. At Chalkbeat, Miriam hopes to strengthen her writing and learn from her fellow writers, mentors, and educators.

Interested in becoming a Student Voices Fellow? Apply here.

2023-08-16T20:02:21+00:00

Chalkbeat launched its Student Voices Fellowship two years ago to hear from teens — in their own words — about the issues shaping their lives and education. We’re thrilled to offer this paid essay-writing fellowship to public school students in New York City and Newark, New Jersey during the 2023-24 academic year.

I encourage applicants to read the published pieces by our previous fellows. That’s the best way to understand what Chalkbeat fellows do.

This past year, for example, Karen opened up about learning English as a new language, and Ashally told us what it’s like to feel her native Spanish slipping away. Dashawn recounted struggling during COVID lockdowns and then creating a course focused on teen mental health, and Jasmine explained the painful and precious ways the pandemic affected her high school class. Enoch discussed his early and ongoing experience with code-switching, and Vanessa told us what it’s really like to attend her famous New York City high school.

You can read more student work here.

This coming school year, we will select a total of six fellows, four from New York City and two from Newark. We are offering the fellowship in the fall and again in the spring. Applicants can indicate which semester they prefer. The fellowship will be virtual, with opportunities to meet in person with staff members of our New York City and Newark bureaus.

Fellows will receive a $1,000 stipend.

Fellowship requirements:

You are a rising 11th or 12th grader in New York City or Newark, New Jersey, and attend a public school or a charter school.
You are interested in journalism and storytelling.
You can manage your time, meet deadlines, and are willing and able to commit 1-2 hours a week to this extracurricular fellowship for about three months.
You have compelling personal stories to share and are willing and able to share them on Chalkbeat under your byline. (First Person does not publish anonymous or pseudonymous pieces.)
You are collaborative and eager for feedback on your writing.

Student Voices fellows will:

Pitch, write, edit, and publish personal essays.
Brainstorm, outline, and workshop your pieces alongside Chalkbeat journalists and writing coaches.
Attend Zoom sessions with journalism educators and Chalkbeat staff about the craft of reporting and writing. You will also have access to a library of recorded journalism lessons from reporters and editors.
Improve your storytelling ability across formats and platforms.

Applications are due Friday, September 1, 2023, at 11:59 p.m. ET.

If you have questions not answered here, please email gbirkner@chalkbeat.org.

About Chalkbeat:

Chalkbeat is the nonprofit news organization committed to covering one of America’s most important stories: the effort to improve schools for all children, especially those who have historically lacked access to quality education. We are mission-driven journalists who believe that an independent local press is vital to ensuring that education improves. Currently in eight locations and growing, we seek to provide deep local coverage of education policy and practice that informs decisions and actions, leading to better schools. Read more about our mission and values. We are committed to a diverse newsroom. Read our antiracism statement.

Student Voices: Meet Chalkbeat’s new fellows

2022-10-06T19:39:09+00:00

Prepare to see some new bylines on these pages, as Chalkbeat welcomes its new class of Student Voices Fellows. These teens, all of them public high school students in New York City and Newark, New Jersey, will write personal essays in Chalkbeat about their lives and schools.

Our newsroom piloted this fellowship last school year, and the six students who participated produced powerful, openhearted work. (You can read their essays here.) This year, we were thrilled to see such broad interest in this program. Hundreds of accomplished teens from across more than 70 New York City and Newark schools applied for a handful of spots.

Chalkbeat is proud to welcome these six students as our 2022-23 Student Voices Fellows. We can’t wait for you to read their work.

Fall Fellows

From left: Ashally De La Cruz, Enoch Naklen, and Dashawn Sheffield

Ashally De La Cruz, New York City

Ashally (she/her/hers) is a senior at Central Park East High School. She was born in the Dominican Republic and moved to the United States when she was 5. A native Spanish speaker, she went from taking ESL classes in elementary school to enrolling in Honors and AP courses in high school. Ashally has taken part in Peer Group Connection, supporting freshmen during the transition to high school, and in CARA’s Youth Leadership program, helping other students navigate the college application process. At Central Park East, she works on the yearbook and participates in the liberation program, which focuses on social activism. Through this fellowship, Ashally hopes to inspire and show others they’re not alone in their experiences.

Enoch Naklen, New York City

Enoch (he/him/his) is a senior at the Brooklyn Latin School. He is a published writer and current youth leader for the advisory board on culturally responsive education at Youth Communication. Enoch also enjoys print and digital journalism; this past summer, he attended JCamp, a journalism training program. Naklen also plays basketball for his high school, helping to found and recruit members of a basketball club. Although it is challenging to share personal stories, Enoch said he writes to “provide a voice for those who may not have found theirs” and to “bring to life stories that otherwise would not have been recognized.”

Dashawn Sheffield, Newark

Dashawn (he/him/his) is a senior at North Star Academy Washington Park High School. He is a mental health advocate and is the founder and president of a student wellness council that educates students and faculty on the symptoms of mental health issues and promotes school-based mental health support; the council is active at three New Jersey high schools and a Georgia middle school. As an AmeriCorps volunteer, Dashawn works with local partners to organize community service events. He plans to double major in finance and political science in college and become an investment portfolio manager or a senator; he recently completed an internship with BlackRock. In his spare time, he enjoys reading classic literature, especially novels by Jane Austen and Herman Melville, and listening to Mariah Carey and Britney Spears. At Chalkbeat, he hopes to share stories promoting student wellness in underrepresented communities and expand his impact.

Spring Fellows

From left, Vanessa Chen, Jasmine Harris, and Karen Otavalo.

Vanessa Chen, New York City

Vanessa (she/her) is a junior at Stuyvesant High School. She is a podcast editor and conversationalist at the Round Table, a Next Generation Politics Podcast dedicated to bridging the divides in our country through cross-partisan discussions. She has also organized multiple community events, including gatherings where Chinatown youth can bond, and protests against neighborhood displacement. Beyond her interests in social activism, Vanessa is the executive producer for her school’s theater community and is currently producing the fall musical, “Matilda.” As a Student Voices Fellow, she hopes to share her stories and bring awareness to a larger audience.

Jasmine Harris, New York City

Jasmine (she/her/hers) is a senior at Bronxdale High School at the Christopher Columbus campus in the Bronx. She is the daughter of immigrants, a mother from Cambodia and a father from Jamaica. Jasmine is a member of her school’s student council. She’s also an advocate with Youth Court, helping students who break the rules resolve issues safely in school. Jasmine has a passion for medical science, interns at Columbia University doing neuroscience lab research, and wants to become a dermatologist. During the summer of 2022, she studied abroad in Seoul, South Korea. In her spare time, she loves to bake (especially cinnamon rolls) and do nails. At Chalkbeat, she hopes to improve her writing and connect with like-minded peers to share stories and grow as a community.

Karen Otavalo, Newark

Karen (she/her) is a sophomore at Science Park High School. Originally from Ecuador, she moved to the U.S. when she was 11, and ever since then, she hasn’t stopped dreaming big. Karen serves as a youth board member for National Crittenton, an organization that helps girls, young women, and gender-expansive youth to overcome barriers. She also volunteers in the mentorship program at her high school. In her spare time, Karen likes to animate, draw, and read. In her writing for Chalkbeat, she hopes to give voice to marginalized women and share personal narratives related to opportunity, sexism, and education.

In the IB track, I learned persistence, patience, and the power of community

2022-05-12T12:00:00+00:00

During my first two years at Science Park High School in Newark, I knew very little about the International Baccalaureate, or IB, program.

The program’s coordinator explained how “high-level thinkers” and “self-motivated students” would excel in this environment. It would involve rigorous academic classes, including a philosophy course called Theory of Knowledge, or TOK; multiple lengthy research papers; 50-plus hours of community service, and a roughly 4,000-word “extended essay” on the topic of your choice.

Two years ago, I was one of 14 rising juniors to enroll in our school’s IB program. I felt highly motivated to excel academically, but in the beginning, I didn’t know how I would survive the seemingly never-ending papers and exams, being with the same small group of students for all of my main courses, and fitting in so many volunteer hours. It felt daunting to know how many deadlines were ahead.

But I did more than survive. I adapted and thrived. I learned how to conduct in-depth research, write analytical and compelling papers, and pace myself. I learned about patience, persistence, and the power of community (my committed teachers and my supportive classmates). I learned how interconnected different subjects can be.

Spoiler alert: The extended essay that was so nerve-wracking two years ago is now complete. I chose to write about Toni Morrison’s, “The Bluest Eye,” as it was one of the most memorable and powerful novels I have read.

As soon as I began preparing for the extended essay, I recognized that this was not going to be an average book report. My EE, as the extended essay is called, needed to be a meaningful exploration of “The Bluest Eye,” as seen through my chosen academic and philosophical lenses. It would require me to learn more about feminism, racism, colorism, intersectionality, and even existentialism. That meant dozens of books — including works by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a legal scholar who helped develop critical race theory, and activist Mikki Kendall, who wrote “Hood Feminism” — and many more hours in the library and in front of my computer.

Luckily, I was prepared. One of the main benefits of the IB program is the quality writing skills students develop. From creating a comprehensive outline to conducting research at my local public library to identifying reliable sources, I had learned the skills needed to complete the most complicated assignment of the IB program. Moreover, I had developed the ability to manage my time and complete assignments promptly. (Not all of my peers in Newark have the same access to advanced courses like IB or Advanced Placement: While more than 50% of 11th and 12th graders at Science Park take advanced classes, less than 10% do at some other Newark high schools.)

Daniela, top row, second from right, with a group of her IB classmates.

But IB is more than courses to pass, papers to write, and transferable life skills to learn. It is a community. When I started the program my junior year, all of our classes were remote due to the pandemic. Even in the virtual space, I bonded with my 13 fascinating and passionate IB classmates. Since we all take the same academic classes with the same teachers at the same time, we not only learned together; we learned about each other. Each of us adds something to our “IB group” with our unique interests and backgrounds.

Since coming back to school in person this year, our bond has grown even stronger.

It is crazy to think many of us didn’t know each other during the first two years of high school. IB provided this necessary foundation for our unique journey together, and we have developed genuine connections.

Since coming back to school in person this year, our bond has grown even stronger.

In our IB Physics class, for example, students often attempt problems on the board. If someone does the problem incorrectly or misses a step, we don’t criticize that person. We remind them of the missed step and uplift their efforts. Given our strong emphasis on academic excellence, we want each other to do well and offer support.

This spring, as our IB exam season approached, my peers and I would go to our school’s library after we ate lunch. There, we reviewed practice exams, tested each other on terms and concepts, and answered each other’s questions. For certain classes, we have created comprehensive study guides and shared them with each other. These group sessions have helped me hold myself more accountable for reviewing the necessary material.

We also share in each other’s joys. In late April, Science Park seniors celebrated College Signing Day, when students decide which college to attend. (All of my IB classmates are headed to four-year schools.) It was a bittersweet moment. It was thrilling to see my classmates in their college apparel and gear. Their hard work had paid off. But it also felt like the beginning of the end of an era — one that bonded us and brought us to this moment.

I am currently in the final stretch of my senior year, and I am thankful that I accepted the challenge to join the IB program. As I move toward higher education, I will keep with me fond and long-lasting memories of my peers and teachers who were fundamental to my high school journey.

Daniela Palacios (she/her) is a senior at Science Park High School. She will be attending Columbia University in the fall. Daniela is the creator of Para KIDS!, a media company that publishes bilingual children’s stories with immigrant characters. She is the author of a forthcoming Spanish bilingual children’s book, “Sara’s New Country and New Friend/ El nuevo país y la nueva amiga de Sara.” Daniela is a Chalkbeat Student Voices fellow. Read her recent Chalkbeat piece in English here or en español here.

Struggling during COVID, I helped my school develop a class about mental health

2022-12-01T13:00:00+00:00

I went to 19 funerals during the first year of COVID. When I wasn’t saying goodbye to people I cared about, I was in front of a screen that was my connection to school and friends for a year and a half.

I was used to greeting my friends and teachers with an enthusiastic “Hiiiii” and taking part in lively class discussions — experiences I couldn’t replicate on a computer. During online school, I struggled with grief and depression, and a general sense of being overwhelmed. I was trying to learn while dealing with spotty internet and helping my three younger god-siblings with their studies. During this time, I turned to a longtime hobby: journaling. It helped me get in touch with myself and work through what was being thrown at me.

As I was jotting down some ideas in my notebook one morning, a question came to mind: When will we ever talk about mental health here? At the height of COVID, with so many of us suffering in isolation, it was definitely needed.

I was already in the process of starting a wellness council, a club where students could share their struggles and hear about what others are going through. If we could start this club, why not a class about mental health built into the school day?

My research began online. I read studies about the benefits of social and emotional learning and thought about its real-world application. I watched lectures on YouTube about the importance of lessons on mental health. I even spoke with curriculum developers. Personal struggles, together with this research, underscored the need for a mental health class at my Newark high school.

Dr. Shaniqua Fitzgerald teaches Health and Wellness.

So I scheduled a meeting with my principal, Mr. Michael Mann, and began to work on a presentation that included testimonials from current and former students and staff. I had sent out surveys to students — freshmen through seniors — asking them about their mental health needs. They said a class that focused on student mental health would not only reduce the stigma surrounding mental health, but would also help foster social and leadership skills, self-awareness, and caring connections with those around them.

My principal seemed surprised at how passionately I advocated for this class, and he offered his wholehearted support. Next, I reached out to Ms. Julie Jackson, one of the co-CEOs of Uncommon Schools. (My school, North Star Academy Washington Park High School in Newark, is part of the Uncommon Schools charter network.) Soon, I was sitting down with one of the most powerful people in my school’s network. Ms. Jackson started the meeting by praising my efforts, and she assured me that it would be a casual conversation. Turns out, she was onboard, too.

Next, I created a working group made up of educators and North Star students. Our goal: To start a class where students could learn about the causes and symptoms of mental health challenges, and how to advocate for themselves and their peers.

Students tell me how this outlet helps them find their inner voice and relieve stress, making them less likely to experience burnout.

The summer between my freshman and sophomore years, I worked on lesson plans and brainstormed ideas for final projects. A lesson I’m especially proud of is about consent. Here’s one of the assignments: “Over the next week, please log two situations in which you were asked to give permission to someone else for something and at least three situations in which you asked someone else for permission to do something.” This lesson centers on the three R’s of consent: Rights, Respect, and Responsibility. Another lesson asks students about the evolution of their ideas about mental health, and a third helps students understand the difference between sex and gender.

The result of all this planning is a real-life class called Health and Wellness.

Health and Wellness students left notes of praise for Dr. Shaniqua Fitzgerald.

Because the class was piloted during COVID’s peak, it started off virtual so attendance and class participation initially lagged. However, since last school year, the class has been in person. Dr. Shaniqua Fitzgerald, who now teaches Health and Wellness, welcomes students into her cozy corner classroom with a wide smile. The smell of cocoa butter fills the entire room. It’s warm and serene inside. Just walking by on my way to class, I often hear students excitedly screaming out different answers whenever Dr. Fitzgerald poses a question.

Students tell me how this outlet helps them find their inner voice and relieve stress, making them less likely to experience burnout. They say they have a better sense of autonomy and agency thanks to lessons on sexual health. (Now, Dr. Fitzgerald and I are talking about bringing this class to other schools in the charter network.)

During remote learning, struggling with grief and depression, I wanted to develop something that would help me feel better and empower others. I’m proud of what Health and Wellness has become, a class that destigmatizes difficult conversations, and fosters knowledge, openness, empathy, and care.

Here’s what happened when my ‘no excuses’ school piloted a restorative justice program

2022-01-07T14:00:00+00:00

Restorative justice. I first heard the phrase during a summer school class back in 2019. The teacher explained that restorative justice is different from our social norm of punishing those who have hurt others or committed crimes. Instead, the goal is to promote accountability and allow both parties (victims and perpetrators) to heal. Understanding restorative justice helped me to envision a world without the prison industrial complex and mass incarceration.

Over the next two years, I spent countless hours reading and theorizing about restorative approaches, as well as advocating for their real-world application. As a member of my school’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion team, I led forums on anti-racism and restorative approaches to discipline. But it was my personal experience with restorative justice that fortified my commitment to the practice.

It was a seemingly typical day in my African American History class: We were answering questions, laughing, and enjoying the academic company of each other. Meanwhile, we worked on our second-quarter group projects about the various methods of resistance for enslaved Black peoples across the Americas. My group had been assigned the Stono Rebellion, a 1739 revolt in colonial South Carolina.

I had an idea to add audio to the presentation to enhance the experience of the audience. Specifically, I wanted to incorporate juba, a genre of music birthed on the American Southern plantations and proved essential to mobilizing Black enslaved folks towards the Stono Rebellion.

I was surprised to receive an email from my teacher requesting a meeting about the verbal altercation.

But when I took out my phone to figure out how to add an audio file into our slide presentation, I heard my teacher say: “Chim! Put your phone away!” To which I reflexively blurted out, “I was just using my phone for our project!” This exchange stunned the class, altering its otherwise steady vibe. After a tense pause, my classmates went back to their projects. I tried to convince myself that it would blow over by the time the bell rang.

So I was surprised to receive an email from my teacher requesting a meeting about the verbal altercation. She asked me to choose from various approaches aimed at restoring harmony in my African American History class. I could select a meeting alone with my teacher, one with my teacher and my family, or one with my teacher and several classmates who witnessed the back-and-forth. Ultimately, I chose to meet with my teacher, a peer advocate, and two other classmates.

As the meeting approached, my heart picked up speed, and soon its beating was the only noise I could hear. My teacher began the session by assuring me I wasn’t in trouble. She explained that I was part of a restorative justice pilot program at my school. Restorative justice wasn’t really part of the DNA of the school — a charter known for its “no excuses” approach to academics and discipline. So hearing her say “restorative justice” gave me a sense of automatic relief, as I knew that my agency would not be debated or encroached upon. I realized I was surrounded by people who actually cared and weren’t automatically going to paint me as an aggressor. My heart rate slowed.

We discussed how our verbal interaction had been perceived, and we shared our feelings about it. By the end of the 15-minute session, we approached what everyone there considered an equitable way forward. My teacher conceded that she thought that by looking at my phone I was off-task. I agreed that I could have reacted in a way that was both less harsh and less defensive. The next day in class wasn’t awkward. I felt good about being back.

The restorative justice pilot allowed me to be advocated for, without the quick assumptions about who was in the wrong. If more students — especially those for whom respectability politics don’t play in their favor — could experience restorative justice, we’d all be better for it.

Black children, who often face disproportionate punishment, who may be treated like adults — or worse yet, criminals — in their own schools, need restorative alternatives to the status quo. Creating safer and more equitable school communities starts with relinquishing punitive discipline systems, and implementing restorative practices where students are heard, seen, and championed.

And as a Black girl, this issue is personal. Monique Morris, the author of “Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls In Schools,” has explained that while Black girls make up 16% of female students, they are massively overrepresented among those students referred to law enforcement or arrested on campus. This is what we mean by the school-to-prison pipeline. It’s the reality for Black girls across the country, especially those living in underserved, low-income communities. But the introduction of restorative justice approaches offers hope and lowers rates of recidivism by 11 percentage points, according to Communities for Restorative Justice.

Restorative justice has a role to play when it comes to more serious infractions, too, be they incidents of graffiti, truancy, or threatened violence. Rather than calling in student resource officers or issuing suspensions, restorative justice can de-escalate situations. Rather than officers and handcuffs, there are accountability, amends, and a willingness to believe that we can all do better.

Chimdindu Okafor is a senior at North Star Academy Lincoln Park High School in Newark, New Jersey. She has been accepted to 22 colleges so far. Chimdindu is a Chalkbeat Student Voices fellow.

Why I see myself at an HBCU

2022-02-01T15:34:11+00:00

In May 2018, my eighth grade class flew to Atlanta, Georgia, which some have called “The Black Mecca,” for a trip marking the end of our middle school years. We were about to start high school.

True to my Newark charter school’s precocious image, the educators who staffed the trip took us to visit colleges around the city. We were able to see Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, and Spelman College — three historically Black schools that make up the Atlanta University Center.

Chimdindu Okafor

Being there on a beautiful spring day — the sun shining down and the trees blooming— reminded me of my visit three years earlier to Howard University. Though I was young at the time, I vividly remember the warmth I felt there. The students looked like me. They seemed so happy and independent; they seemed like they belonged. I wanted to belong, too.

As an immigrant and a child of West African parents, I’ve long felt pressure to attend an Ivy League university or the like. But in the physical presence of HBCUs, I could reimagine what college could look like for me: the comfort, the beauty, and the welcoming atmosphere. I envisioned myself walking through their yards, talking and laughing with my friends. Visiting a lecture hall at Howard and seeing students joyously enter a class and eagerly dive into the material inspired me.

The students there looked like me. They seemed so happy and independent; they seemed like they belonged.

I’ve since learned that early HBCUs were founded to provide educational liberation for the newly freed, formerly enslaved Black people. The first HBCUs, Cheyney University of Pennsylvania and Lincoln University of Pennsylvania, were founded before the Civil War in 1837 and 1854, respectively. They were followed by the so-called “Black Ivies” Howard, Morehouse, Spelman, and Hampton University in the 1860s and 1880s. Today, HBCUs offer so much more than cultural markers of African American resilience and steadfastness. They are forces of real change and social markers for upward mobility, even amid an uneven playing field. (Black students, for example, have comparably more college debt than their white counterparts.)

Even today, Black students may feel othered or marginalized at Predominantly White Institutions. Some 52% of Black people who attended college said they had been treated as if they weren’t smart, according to the Pew Research Center.

That is why I think it’s so important to acknowledge those Black students who are accepted at HBCUs but ultimately must choose schools with larger endowments and, therefore, able to provide them with more financial aid. They should not have to compromise their dreams to fit into spaces where they feel at odds. Making sure HBCUs have the resources they need to support admitted students who see themselves at these illustrious, historically Black institutions must be a priority.

As for me, I owe it to myself to join the legacy of Black changemakers who graduated HBCUs and altered the course of our world for the better. Changemakers like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who attended Morehouse College and advocated for a world of equality. And changemakers like Zora Neale Hurston, a celebrated writer from the Harlem Renaissance whose work captured the joys and pains of the Black American experience; she graduated from Howard University.

I hope to work in medicine, possibly as a healthcare administrator focusing on the technology side of medical practices. I believe that attending an HBCU would put me directly on that path to that work. I love the thought of learning from professors and faculty who care deeply about my success.

The thrill of opening up my acceptance letters these last couple of months — from schools including Howard, Hampton, Spelman, and Morgan State — has been like none other. It gave me a glimpse into the excitement that I would experience attending one of these institutions.

HBCUs are some of the last-standing safe spaces where Black students from across the diaspora can enjoy academic rigor while celebrating the beauty in their identities. To me, it means a chance to explore my Blackness deeply as I encounter different identities across the diaspora and am embraced by a community of love.

Chimdindu Okafor is a senior at North Star Academy Lincoln Park High School in Newark, New Jersey. She has been accepted to 23 colleges so far. Chimdindu is a Chalkbeat Student Voices fellow.

Families like mine need more bilingual children’s books

2022-03-25T11:00:00+00:00

I spent weeks crafting a script for my first pitch competition and rehearsing it over Zoom with my mentor, Symone. Make sure the judges can see your eyes, she told me. Add relevant statistics. Define ‘bilingual’ for the audience.

To prepare, I set up my desk in the brightest room in our house, and with the help of my mom decorated the white wall behind me with a colorful banner. As a final touch, I ordered a custom-made T-shirt with my company’s first logo.

Finally, I recorded my two-minute pitch and sent it off.

“Hello, my name is Daniela Palacios,” I began, introducing my company, Para KIDS! “I sell bilingual children’s books that are written in both English and Spanish. I came up with my idea because as an older sister, I struggle to find bilingual books for my younger brother, who has difficulty understanding Spanish.”

For the past two years now, I have been determined to get these books to families who need them — families like mine. It is my love for my now 8-year-old brother, Xavier, that keeps me going.

I think about the time Xavier broke down in tears because he couldn’t understand the words to the Spanish-language children’s book “El oso se comió tu sándwich,” about a bear who steals a boy’s sandwich. I imagine my brother growing up without being able to comprehend and appreciate our family’s Hispanic culture. But when I searched for books that Xavier, a native English speaker, could enjoy alongside my parents, who are native Spanish speakers, I came up largely empty-handed.

Through my market research, I discovered that schools in my community of Newark only offered a limited number of bilingual children’s books to their students at their on-site libraries.

I imagine my brother growing up without being able to comprehend and appreciate our family’s Hispanic culture.

It was frustrating to see the publishing industry’s exclusion of bilingual families. Many families in my Newark community face similar language barriers. Some 49.5% of city families speak another language besides English at home, according to census data.

All children need literature that validates their experiences and multiple identities and encourages them to interact with youth from different backgrounds. Immigrant children in the U.S. need bilingual books so they can learn English and keep up their native language skills. These books enable families like ours to bond over stories that both parent and child can understand.

Para KIDS! collaborated with Liberty Family Success Center on a community bilingual reading event to celebrate Read Across America 2022.

To help my brother — and fill a significant hole in the marketplace — I started Para KIDS! At first, I wondered: “Can I, a teen from Newark, really do this?” I rarely saw female entrepreneurs of color being highlighted for their projects, especially not those from cities like Newark. Nevertheless, I was determined to bring my bilingual children’s book business to life because I recognized its potential impact. I pushed myself out of my comfort zone, reaching out to founders and publishing industry professionals for advice and participating in business academies, through which I met Symone.

I wrote Para KIDS! first bilingual picture book. It is about the friendship between Sara, a new Ecuadorian immigrant to the U.S., and her classmate Riley, who is Mexican-American and speaks limited Spanish.

Since my junior year of high school, I have entered pitch competitions on behalf of my company. No matter whether I placed or lost, these experiences were invaluable; they allowed me to grow as a social entrepreneur and public speaker. I have also been able to raise awareness of the importance of bilingual education and educational equity.

During business pitches, it is my job to convince competition judges and audiences that bilingual children’s books featuring diverse characters and experiences matter. Every time I talk about my business I feel a strong sense of pride because I am representing the Latinx and bilingual communities. The prize money I’ve won over the past two years has allowed me to bring my company to life. For example, I have been able to hire an illustrator to design my first bilingual children’s book.

The book — about Sara and Riley’s cross-cultural, multilingual friendship — is called “Sara’s New Country and New Friend/El nuevo país y la nueva amiga de Sara,” and it will be published this summer. The story’s message, like that of Para KIDS! itself: Love and friendship transcend language barriers.

Millones de niños son intérpretes para sus familias inmigrantes. Yo soy una de ellos.

2022-05-18T16:29:00+00:00

Read in English

Mientras caminábamos hacia mi salón de noveno grado, mis padres me pidieron que les interpretara todo lo que dijera la maestra. Era el día de la conferencia entre padres y maestros, pero ellos hablaban muy poco inglés. Y yo era la encargada de interpretar.

“A su hija le va muy bien en la escuela”, dijo la maestra al comenzar.

Mis padres asintieron con la cabeza y sonrieron, pero yo sabía que no habían entendido.

Desde ese momento, yo les traduje todo. Era un reto porque mi familia se había mudado de Bangladesh apenas un año antes — y yo también estaba todavía aprendiendo inglés.

No solo tuve que adaptarme a un idioma nuevo y diferencias culturales, sino también ajustarme a un ambiente que era nuevo para mí. Y encima de eso, me convertí en la “intermediaria de idiomas” de mis padres, porque mi tarea era interpretar y traducir entre inglés y nuestro idioma nativo, el bengalí.

Aunque todos llegamos a Estados Unidos con un poco de inglés, yo aprendí el idioma más rápido que ellos porque iba a la escuela y socializaba en un ambiente en el que el inglés era el idioma predominante. Mi mamá, sin embargo, estaba en el hogar cuidando a mis hermanos menores y no tenía el mismo nivel de exposición al idioma nuevo. Interpretar se ha vuelto algo natural para mí durante los últimos cinco años. Lo hago en las conferencias de la escuela y en citas médicas, incluido cuando mi mamá estaba embarazada y cuando mi hermanita tuvo que ser llevada rápidamente a la sala de emergencias porque tenía fiebre alta y una erupción. Cuando estoy interpretando, a veces espero un poco para que mi mamá intente hablar inglés pero la mayoría del tiempo ella prefiere que yo lo haga.

Mis padres se han sacrificado mucho para que mis hermanos y yo tengamos un mejor futuro; dejaron sus vidas y todo lo lo que conocían para venir a este país. Siento que traducir para ellos es una manera de rendir honor a sus sacrificios, y también ha servido para mejorar mis destrezas sociales y de comunicación. Nunca he sentido que es una carga, pero no siempre ha sido fácil o conveniente. La mayoría de los hijos no se tienen que preocupar por los impuestos ni por documentos de inmigración, y tampoco por ayudar a sus padres a entenderlos y llenarlos.

Nunca he sentido que es una carga, pero no siempre ha sido fácil o conveniente.

Aún sí, no soy la única. La realidad es que unos 17.8 millones de niños en Estados Unidos viven con por lo menos un padre inmigrante, y más de la mitad de ellos viven en hogares en los que los padres no dominan el inglés. Como yo, muchos de esos niños son responsables por ayudar a sus familias a comunicarse, lo cual puede tener beneficios pero también dificultades. Una investigación publicada el año pasado en el Journal of Social and Personal Relationships mostró que los niños que sirven como “intermediarios de idiomas” podrían tener mejor autoestima y sentir más empatía, pero que el rol puede también agregar estrés, causar problemas en la escuela, y dejar a las familias con la sensación de que los roles entre padres e hijos se han invertido.

Para entender este fenómeno mejor, hablé con una amiga que ha sido la intermediaria de idiomas de su familia desde que tenía 8 años y su familia se mudó aquí desde Egipto. Ella me habló de lo difícil que es traducir cada palabra y cómo le preocupaba cometer un error al interpretar. Un día acompañó a su mamá a una cita médica de su hermanita. “La pulmonóloga preguntó, ‘What happened to your baby?” recordó mi amiga. “Mientras yo le explicaba la condición de mi hermanita, ella le preguntó a mi mamá, ‘Is that what is happening with your baby?’” La pulmonóloga se quería comunicar directamente con la mamá de mi amiga, pero eso no era posible.

Yo también he estado en situaciones estresantes porque no sabía cómo traducir terminología médica al bengalí y no quería que mis padres recibieran la información incorrecta.

Este otoño asistiré a Haverford College, una oportunidad hecha posible por los sacrificios de mis padres. Pero sé que la transición va a ser especialmente dura para mi mamá, ya que ella ha dependido de mi para traducir desde que llegamos en 2017. Tampoco será fácil para mí. Interpretar a veces es difícil, pero me acostumbré. Muy pronto mi hermano de 11 años será el encargado de seguir mi trabajo.

Umme Orthy es estudiante de duodécimo grado en la Science Leadership Academy en Beeber de Filadelfia, va a asistir a Haverford College en el otoño, y es una Chalkbeat Student Voices fellow. Para leer su ensayo reciente sobre la islamofobia en Estados Unidos (en inglés) haz clic aquí “In America, I experienced Islamophobia right from the start.”

In America, I faced Islamophobia right from the start

2022-03-21T19:52:51+00:00

“Do you know you have to come back here because they are banning Muslims?” my uncle, calling from Bangladesh, told me, his voice scared. It was 2017, and he had just heard about President Trump’s executive order barring people from a group of Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

It was a terrifying thought, considering that it had taken my family 13 years to get U.S. immigrant visas, and we had only recently arrived in Philadelphia. According to my uncle who was watching the international news, we weren’t welcome here because of our religion. As it turned out, the executive order didn’t apply to us because Bangladesh — my mathribhumi, or motherland — was not one of the countries subject to the ban. But the call was unsettling because until then I hadn’t known that there was such a thing as Islamophobia. I never expected this kind of welcome to America.

My family dreamed of living in the United States. That dream and I were born the same year: 2003. This country represented a beacon of hope, freedom, and a new start. My parents wanted a better education for my siblings and me, and we wanted to be reunited with members of my mother’s family who were already in the U.S.

When our visas came through and we left Bangladesh, we thought we were answering the loud rapping of opportunity knocking. At the airport in Dhaka, the stifled sobs of my grandma, auntie, and uncle weighed down my steps across the gangplank. As the airplane took off, sweet memories of my former home and jumping rope in the schoolyard — places soon to be thousands of miles away — were flashing before me. That day while waiting on the plane, I wrote in my journal, “I feel numb. I don’t know how I will cope with the new culture, new people, new everything.”

I knew the transition would be challenging, especially since I spoke only a few words of English when I arrived. (Bengali is my mother tongue.) I just didn’t think my religion — and my hijab, or traditional Muslim headscarf — would be a factor. Where I came from, most people were Muslim, and many wore headscarves. My faith and clothing had never before called attention to themselves.

But when I started school in Philadelphia, they did. I walked through the halls on my first day, everyone stared. I seemed to be the only one wearing a hijab. Mine was covered in small pink flowers. I saw students in the hall, throwing menacing stares my way. Aiming to break the ice, I said “hey,” and introduced myself — using some of the few English words I knew. I sighed, thinking I did OK. Then someone giggled and pointed at my clothes, which was greeted with a supportive chuckle from her friends. Another boy mimicked my accent with exaggerated hand gestures, receiving roars of laughter from his friends. Someone shouted, “Look at her! What is that thing on her head?” Someone else tried to pull off my hijab. I felt stinging my eyes, but I bit my lip and said nothing.

I never expected this kind of welcome.

When I got home from school and shared my bitter experience with my mother, she smiled. She took me to her shoulders. “Ma,” my mom said, using a Bengali term of endearment, “accept the beauty in differences. Don’t be cowed by the negativity of others. Just remember, what makes us different makes us beautiful.” My mother’s words were Dua for me.

The racist and Islamophobic teasing continued, but in time I met other students who were recent immigrants to America and also learning English. They came from Mexico, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere. A few other girls even wore hijabs. My ESL class was a place where I didn’t feel like I had to know the language and culture to fit in.

When I started high school the following year, I also met other friends who asked with interest, with maturity and not malice, about my faith. I told them about my beliefs, and also about the obstacles I’ve faced in America — about the so-called Muslim ban that coincided with our arrival, about the bullying I have endured, and about the hateful implications that Muslims are terrorists. (I didn’t even know what terrorism was before I came to the U.S.)

In America, I have sometimes felt sad, but I have never felt ashamed about my identity and culture. It’s what makes me unique and makes me stand out from the crowd. As my mom said on that difficult first day of school, it’s what makes me beautiful.

Umme Orthy is a senior at Science Leadership Academy at Beeber in Philadelphia and will be attending Haverford College in the fall. She is a Chalkbeat Student Voices fellow.

There’s more than one way to write a college essay

2021-12-23T13:00:00+00:00

“You’re smart, you’re Asian, you’re queer and nonbinary, and you were raised by a single mom. Colleges will love you.” That’s the message I heard from friends even years before applying to college. In high school, advisers chimed in, too; they made it seem like it was a cool thing to be from a marginalized background.

When it came time to do my college applications, I think they assumed that I’d write about the challenges I faced growing up in an immigrant family with limited means, with minority racial, gender, and sexual identities. I knew that I could tell a phenomenal story about all the struggles I had overcome. I was, after all, applying to college through QuestBridge, a national nonprofit that connects low-income youth with colleges and opportunities. My peers initially encouraged me to use the hardships to my advantage. Tell them how you adapted and thrived through it all, even the pandemic, they urged me.

Lin Lin

I drafted an essay, then I discarded it and tried again. And again. One was about growing up in a neighborhood that is slowly being gentrified. Another was about living in a world that perceives me as an Asian woman and the violent consequences that come with it. Another still was about coping with my weight. None of them felt right. I knew some of what I went through was tough, and some saw my ability to persevere as remarkable. But is that all I had to offer? Is that all I am worth?

It felt like an exercise in proving my worth to college admissions officers.

And what, exactly, was I trying to prove? That despite the disadvantages I faced, I am still at the same academic level as those who didn’t face such adversity? That I can handle college because I grew up handling so much?

I resented the expectation that I lead with my trauma.

When I focus only on the worst things that ever happened to me and on the challenges and pain that come with my racial, gender, and sexual identity, it feels toxic and takes away from my humanity. Trauma is not the only thing that defines me, and it’s not the only reason I deserve to go to college.

I drafted an essay, then I discarded it and tried again. And again.

Of course, if other applicants want to open up about their hardships, they should tell their stories. I would never want to take this away from them. It’s just that I refuse to believe that it’s the only way to write a college essay.

Conflicted, I reached out to a fellow community organizer Van Sam, of VietLead. They were a great help. While overcoming challenges is character-building, Van reminded me that I have many other things to contribute. They urged me to question what actually makes up my identity.

Here’s what I came up with:

I am funny with a contagious laugh. I am loud. I like talking to people and always want everyone to feel included. I love urban green spaces and spending time outdoors, especially running or hiking. I’m addicted to romantic comedies and Chipotle. I’m someone who is growing constantly.

So what did I end up writing about? My love of nature, how much I adore analyzing the world around me and reveling in that same world. I also wrote about being non-binary through the lens of my liberation. Specifically, I wrote about buying my first chest binder. “When I put it on, it was euphoric,” I wrote. I compared the experience to eating candy without consequences. I compared it to flying.

The essays I submitted were more reflective of my character than my earlier drafts because they were rooted in the joy that defines me as much as anything else.

I felt good about what I had turned in, but as early decision day approached, I was overcome with doubt. I thought of all of the reasons they would reject me. I hadn’t submitted my SAT or ACT scores, which were optional. I worried that my essay wasn’t good enough and that I couldn’t compare to other high-achieving students who did more than I did in high school.

I tried to calm my nerves. I prayed to my ancestors. My hands were stained with the reddish color of the incense I’d been burning. My fingers were the color of sangria. It wouldn’t come off, no matter how much soap I used.

When I finally worked up the nerve to go log on, the “Dear Lin” letter waiting for me began: “Congratulations!” I had been accepted to Dartmouth and, thanks to QuestBridge, I would receive a full scholarship.

In the days since, I’ve spent time scrolling through Dartmouth’s website. I’ve decided I want to double-major in government and sociology. I want to join campus clubs and take part in Greek life. I want to study abroad. I want to learn how to swim and how to ride a bike and how to drive a car. Maybe I’ll get a tattoo of a rabbit and a tiger after saving up money. There’s so much joy ahead. I’m going to lead with that.

Lin Lin is a senior at Central High School in Philadelphia, the president of the citywide student newspaper the Bullhorn News, and a Chalkbeat Student Voices fellow. They will be attending Dartmouth in the fall.

Today I’ll sit in class and wonder, ‘Am I next?’

2022-05-25T15:54:13+00:00

I am afraid to go to school today.

Yesterday, a gunman killed 19 children at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde Texas. Today, I’ll sit in a classroom and wonder, “Am I going to be next?”

I’m not just afraid for myself, my classmates, and my teachers. My younger brother is in elementary school, and I’m afraid for him, too.

Last night, my parents gathered us — my brother, my sister, and me — to talk about what happened in Texas and to hold us close. My dad told me about another school shooting that killed 17 people in Parkland, Florida. It happened in 2017, the same year we immigrated to the U.S from Bangladesh, and I hadn’t known about it until yesterday.

My mom and dad moved us to the U.S. because they wanted us to have a better life and more opportunities. They wanted us to have the best possible education. Before coming here, I always thought of the U.S. as a place of safety and security. Then, a couple of days after I started school here, there was a lockdown drill on campus. I had no idea what we were doing because these drills aren’t common in Bangladesh. Neither are school shootings.

With my limited English, I asked my teacher, “What are we doing? Why are we hiding in the corner of a classroom?”

She explained that we practiced these exercises in case there was an active shooter at our school and we needed to hide. That day, I wondered why a country like the U.S — a democratic nation, a wealthy world power — would face such violence. Especially in schools. I thought surely the government would prevent this kind of thing.

But they don’t.

I asked my teacher, ‘What are we doing? Why are we hiding in the corner of a classroom?’

Yesterday, I watched online as Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut gave a speech on the Senate floor. He was begging his fellow lawmakers to enact gun control legislation. “Why are you here,” he asked his colleagues, “if not to solve a problem as existential as this?”

It was a powerful speech. So was the one Biden gave to the nation later in the day. Still, I don’t believe that our elected leaders are going to do anything about these mass murders that take place all the time and everywhere — including, way too often, in schools. Yes, our leaders should pass gun control legislation. If they wanted to, they could make it law today.

I know we’re going to talk about the Uvalde massacre in school today. After past mass shootings, teachers have provided space for us to share our thoughts and feelings informally. Some have also given us writing assignments with prompts like: How do you feel about what happened yesterday?

How do I feel?

I am terrified to go to school. I worry about school shootings, like the one in Texas, and I worry about everyday gun violence, which killed 562 people in Philadelphia last year. Both epidemics have given me another perspective on America. It is not the safe place I imagined. In my old West Philadelphia neighborhood, I would hear gunshots every day. Sometimes I’m scared to walk down the street or take public transportation. Today, I’m scared to sit in my classroom.

Umme Orthy is a senior at Science Leadership Academy at Beeber in Philadelphia and will be attending Haverford College in the fall. She is a Chalkbeat Student Voices fellow. Read her recent Chalkbeat essays “In America, I faced Islamophobia right from the start” and “Millions of children translate for their immigrant parents. I am one of them.”

Millions of children translate for their immigrant families. I am one of them.

2022-05-18T16:30:00+00:00

Leer en español

As we walked together into my ninth grade homeroom, my parents instructed me to tell them everything my teacher said. It was time for my parent-teacher conference, but my parents spoke very limited English. It was my job to translate.

“Your child is doing a really good job in school,” the teacher started.

My parents nodded and smiled, and I could tell they had understood.

From there on, though, I translated everything. It was challenging since my family had moved from Bangladesh only a year before — and I, too, was still learning English.

I had to navigate a new language and cultural differences, and try to fit into an environment that still felt foreign. On top of that, I became a “language broker” for my parents, meaning I was tasked with translating between our native language, Bangla, and English.

Though we all came to the U.S. knowing little English, I picked up the language more quickly than my parents because I was going to school and socializing in an environment where English was the dominant language. My mom, meanwhile, stayed at home to care for my younger siblings, so she didn’t have the same level of exposure to the new language. Interpreter is a role that has become second nature to me over the past five years. I have translated at school conferences and doctors’ appointments, including when my mom was pregnant and when my sister had to be rushed to the ER due to a high fever and a rash. Sometimes, when interpreting, I hold space for my mom to try to use her English, but most of the time, she relies on me to step in.

My parents have made so many sacrifices to give my sibling and me a better future, namely uprooting their lives to come to America. Translating for them feels like a way to honor their sacrifices, and it has also improved my social and communication skills. It has never felt like a burden, but it hasn’t always been easy or convenient. Most kids don’t have to think about tax filings or immigration paperwork, let alone help their parents understand it and fill it out.

I’m hardly alone. That’s because some 17.8 million U.S. children live with at least one immigrant parent, and more than half of them reside in households where parents speak limited English. Like me, many of those children are responsible for helping their families communicate, which can have benefits and drawbacks. Research published last year in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships showed that child language brokers may experience enhanced self-esteem and empathy, but the role can also add stress, cause problems at school, and leave families feeling that parent-child roles have been reversed.

It has never felt like a burden, but it hasn’t always been easy or convenient.

To better understand the phenomenon, I spoke with a friend who has been her family’s language broker since she was 8, and her family moved here from Egypt. She talked about how hard it was to translate every single word and how she worried about saying the wrong thing. One day, she accompanied her mom to her sister’s pulmonologist appointment. “The pulmonologist asked, ‘What happened to your baby?” my friend recalled. “As I was explaining the condition of my sister, the doctor asked my mom, ‘Is that what happening with your baby?’” The doctor wanted to communicate directly with her mother, but that was impossible.

I, too, have been in situations where I’ve been overwhelmed because I don’t know how to translate medical terminology into Bangla, and I didn’t want my parents to get the wrong information.

This fall, I’m heading to Haverford College, an opportunity that my parents’ sacrifices made possible. But I know the transition will be hard on my mom, especially, who has depended on me to translate for her since we came here in 2017. It won’t be easy for me either. Interpreting is sometimes hectic, but I’ve gotten used to it. Soon it will be time for my brother, who is 11, to pick up where I leave off.

Umme Orthy is a senior at Science Leadership Academy at Beeber in Philadelphia and will be attending Haverford College in the fall. She is a Chalkbeat Student Voices fellow. Read her recent Chalkbeat essay, “In America, I experienced Islamophobia right from the start.”

Interested in becoming a Chalkbeat Student Voices Fellow? Here’s how to apply.

2022-08-04T12:00:00+00:00

A year ago, Chalkbeat launched our Student Voices Fellowship because we wanted to hear directly from teens about how their school journeys shaped them.

Our first class of fellows wrote powerful essays that challenged ideas about city schools, explored the immigrant student experience from multiple angles, revealed how they found passion and purpose in their studies and extracurricular pursuits, and looked ahead with hope. You can read all of their published essays here.

Chalkbeat is thrilled to offer this paid fellowship opportunity again during the 2022-23 school year. We’re seeking applicants who attend public high schools in New York City and Newark, New Jersey, and are eager to publish personal essays on Chalkbeat.

During this extracurricular program, fellows will become a part of Chalkbeat’s dynamic and diverse newsroom. They’ll learn from professional journalists and writing coaches about what makes a strong personal narrative and how to turn their experiences into publication-ready pieces. Fellows will also learn some journalism basics and best practices. Over the course of a semester, participants will work toward publishing two original essays on Chalkbeat.

Fellows will receive a $1,000 stipend.

We will select a total of six fellows during the 2022-23 school year, four from New York City and two from Newark. We are offering the fellowship in the fall and again in the spring. Applicants should state their semester preference if they have one.

More information and the application are below. If you have any additional questions, please email me at gbirkner@chalkbeat.org.

Fellowship requirements:

You are a high school student in New York City or Newark interested in journalism and storytelling.
You can manage your time, meet deadlines, and are willing to commit at least an hour a week to the fellowship for about three months.
You have compelling personal stories to share and are willing and able to share them on Chalkbeat under your byline. (First Person does not publish anonymous or pseudonymous pieces.)
You are collaborative and eager for feedback on your writing.

Student Voices fellows will:

Pitch, write, edit, publish, and promote personal essays.
Brainstorm, outline, and workshop your pieces alongside Chalkbeat journalists.
Attend Zoom sessions with journalism educators and Chalkbeat staff about the craft of reporting and writing. You will also have access to a library of recorded journalism lessons from reporters and editors.
Improve your storytelling ability across formats and platforms.

The fellowship will be virtual, with opportunities to meet in person with staff members of our New York City and Newark bureaus.

Applications are due Friday, August 26 at 11:59 p.m. ET.

About Chalkbeat:

Esta fue mi experiencia al transicionar de las clases de ESL a las clases regulares

2023-08-14T11:05:00+00:00

Read in English.

“Entonces, ¿quién sabe qué marca de zapatos no ha cambiado desde que se creó?” me preguntó mi instructora de clases de verano.

El salón se mantuvo en silencio. Entonces, varios de mis compañeros murmuraron entre ellos, pero nadie parecía saber la respuesta.

Como la niña que tenía el talento de conocer los hechos más triviales y al azar, yo sabía la respuesta: Converse. Los tenis han sido los mismos desde 1917.

Converse, es solamente dos sílabas, pensé. Seguro puedo decir dos sílabas. Sin embargo, solo pensarlo me llenó de pavor.

Mientras tanto, mis compañeros gritaban marcas al azar. Yo sacudí la cabeza hasta que, por proceso de eliminación, alguien por fin lo dijo: “¡Converse!” La instructora sonrió. “Sí, así es”, dijo. “Converse no ha cambiado desde 1917. “

Me senté y me dije que la próxima vez diría algo.

Karen Otavalo, practicante de Newark Student Voices, creó esta obra de arte. “Tengo puesta la misma ropa que el día que me mudé a Estados Unidos”, le dijo a Chalkbeat. “La bandera en el fondo representa mi herencia ecuatoriana, y los colores expresan la familiaridad de mi lengua materna, el español. Estados Unidos está sobre mí, envolviéndome en la incertidumbre de un nuevo idioma. Me aventuro en un nuevo capítulo de mi vida”.

Pero este ciclo se repetía en la escuela, en discusiones de grupo y en las conversaciones diarias. Cuando tenía que hablar, la ansiedad podía ser insoportable. Me habría sentido más cómoda en silencio parada frente a un estadio lleno de gente que hablando con una sola persona.

Y yo sé que este reto no es solo mío. Más de una cuarta parte de los estudiantes en Estados Unidos son inmigrantes o por lo menos uno de sus padres lo es, según el director de la Inmigration Initiative at Harvard. Y para recién llegados que están aprendiendo inglés, el camino hacia la fluidez puede ser largo, incómodo y no contar con el apoyo obligatorio.

Mientras tanto, el grado de dominio del idioma de los estudiantes no solamente impacta su trayectoria académica; también puede afectar su bienestar mental, según un estudio publicado en la revista de Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America. Este hallazgo refleja mi proceso como inmigrante hispana, y es una experiencia compartida por muchos niños inmigrantes que llegan a Estados Unidos.

Aprender un idioma raramente es un camino directo.

Después de mudarme de Ecuador a Estados Unidos, aprendí rápidamente a escribir y leer en inglés, pero mis destrezas de comprensión y expresión oral aún necesitaban desarrollo. El sexto grado fue mi primer año en una escuela estadounidense, y en séptimo me asignaron en el programa ESL avanzado. En el salón me sentía segura y apoyada mientras practicaba inglés, pero afuera, el mundo parecía intimidante. Así que me aferré a la comunidad tan unida que habíamos creado los estudiantes inmigrantes y mis maestros. Nos unieron momentos de risas, lágrimas y las luchas compartidas de navegar un mundo nuevo.

Mi inglés progresó. Pero cada vez que pensaba en cambiar a una clase normal, lo descartaba. No me sentía preparada todavía.

Sin embargo, el tiempo pasó volando y cuando entré a octavo grado, las solicitudes de admisión a la secundaria estaban justo a la vuelta de la esquina. Debatí con lo que sabía que tenía que pasar. La secundaria que me gustaba no tenía un programa de inglés como segundo idioma, así que tendría que cambiar al salón de clases regulares. Mis maestros hicieron todo lo posible para que esa transición fuera posible. Reconociendo mi potencial, se aseguraron de que el idioma no fuera una barrera. Por eso les estaré eternamente agradecida.

“Es lo mejor para ti”, me había asegurado uno de mis maestros. De hecho, fue lo mejor, pero el mejor camino no siempre es el más fácil.

Durante esos meses iniciales de transición, no encontraba las palabras para expresarme. Y cuando las encontraba, me invadía ese miedo tan familiar. Antes, el poder de la palabra solía ser unas de mis fortalezas, y verme fallar en algo tan esencial — no solo para transmitir mis ideas, sino también para ser tomada en serio — era desalentador. No ayudaba que, a pesar de las horas de práctica, a veces parecía que no mejoraba.

Aprendí rápidamente que la impaciencia no hace que las cosas mejoren. Aprender un idioma raramente es un camino directo. Esforzarse más no siempre se traduce en más progreso. En cambio, tuve que aprender a ser paciente, pero eso tampoco es una transformación de la noche a la mañana. Todavía tenía mis momentos de frustración, pero al final me acostumbré a los vaivenes del aprendizaje.

No hubo un solo momento de revelación absoluta. De hecho, todavía no he podido eliminar todo el miedo que siento al hablar. Pero esto es lo que pasa con los idiomas: No son destinos; son viajes interminables. Hasta para los hablantes nativos. Es posible que nunca llegue a estar absolutamente lista, pero dar ese salto, aunque sienta terror hace que la próxima vez sea menos intimidante.

Karen Otavalo cursará el undécimo grado este próximo año, y adora dibujar y escribir en su tiempo libre. Este otoño se matriculará en el programa de política mundial del programa de IB en su escuela secundaria. Trabaja como asesora juvenil en National Crittenton y es practicante de Chalkbeat Student Voices en Newark. En el futuro, espera usar creatividad y alfabetización para ayudar a las comunidades desfavorecidas.

Here’s what it was like for me to transition from ESL to mainstream classes

2023-08-01T11:00:00+00:00

Leer en español

“So, who knows what shoe brand hasn’t changed since it was first created?” my summer instructor asked.

The room was silent. Then several of my fellow English learners murmured among themselves, but no one seemed to know the answer.

As the kid who had a knack for knowing the most trivial and random facts, I knew the answer: Converse. The shoes have looked the same since 1917.

Converse, only two syllables, I told myself. I could say two syllables. And yet, the thought of it made me recoil.

Chalkbeat Student Voices Fellow Karen Otavalo created this piece of artwork. “I am wearing the same clothes I wore the day I moved to the U.S.,” she told Chalkbeat. “The flag in the background represents my Ecuadorian heritage, and the colors speak to the familiarity of my mother tongue, Spanish. America looms over me, engulfing me in the uncertainty of a new language. I venture into a new chapter of my life.”

In the meantime, my classmates shouted random shoe brands. I shook my head until, by process of elimination, someone finally said it: “Converse!” The instructor smiled. “Yes, that’s right,” she said. “Converse hasn’t changed since 1917.”

I sat back, and I told myself that next time, I’d speak up.

But this cycle repeated itself at school, in group discussions, and during everyday conversations. When I had to speak, the anxiety could be excruciating. I would have been more comfortable standing quietly in front of a stadium full of people than speaking to one person.

I know this challenge is not mine alone. More than a quarter of U.S. schoolchildren are immigrants or have at least one immigrant parent, according to the director of the Immigration Initiative at Harvard. And for those newcomers learning English, the journey to fluency can be long, uncomfortable, and lacking mandated support.

Meanwhile, students’ degree of linguistic proficiency doesn’t just impact their academic trajectory; it can affect their mental well-being, too, according to a study published in the journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America. That finding mirrors my journey as an immigrant coming from a Hispanic background, and it is an experience shared among many immigrant children arriving in the United States.

Language acquisition is rarely a linear path.

After moving from Ecuador to the United States, I quickly swiftly acquired English writing and reading skills, but my listening and speaking skills still needed development. Sixth grade was my first year at a U.S. school, and by seventh grade, I was placed in advanced ESL. In the classroom, I felt safe and supported as I practiced my English, but outside, the world seemed intimidating. So I clung to the close-knit community we, immigrant students and our teachers, had created. We were united by moments of laughter, tears, and the shared struggles of navigating a new world.

Karen Otavalo

My English progressed. But whenever I thought about transferring to a regular classroom, I pushed it to the back of my mind. I wasn’t ready yet.

However, time slipped through my fingers, and when I entered eighth grade, high school applications were just around the corner. I grappled with what I knew needed to happen next. The high school I wanted to attend didn’t have an ESL program; to apply, I’d have to be in a mainstream classroom. My teachers went above and beyond to make that transition happen. Recognizing my potential, they made sure language wouldn’t be a barrier. I’ll be forever grateful to them.

“It’s for the best,” one of my teachers had assured me. It was, indeed, for the best, but the best path isn’t always the easiest.

During those initial months of transition, words eluded me. When they did surface, that all-too-familiar fear rippled through me. Speech used to be one of the things I was strongest at, and seeing myself fail at something so essential — not only to get my ideas across but also to be taken seriously — was disheartening. It didn’t help that despite hours of practice sometimes it seemed like I wasn’t getting better.

I learned quickly that impatience doesn’t help things along. Language acquisition is rarely a linear path. More effort doesn’t always translate into more progress. Instead, I had to learn to be patient, and that isn’t an overnight transformation either. I still had my moments of frustration, but eventually, I got used to the ebb and flow of the learning process.

There was no single “aha” moment. Even now, I haven’t eradicated every ounce of fear that comes with speaking up. But here’s the thing with languages: They are not destinations; they are never-ending journeys. Even for native speakers. A moment of absolute readiness may never come, but taking that leap even when you are terrified makes it all the less daunting the next time around.

Karen Otavalo is a rising high school junior who adores drawing and writing in her free time. This fall, she’ll enroll in the global politics track of the IB program at her high school. She works as a youth advisor at National Crittenton and is a Chalkbeat Student Voices Fellow in Newark. In the future, she hopes to help underserved communities through creativity and literacy.

The pandemic defined my high school class in painful and precious ways

2023-06-27T10:00:00+00:00

As I rubbed my tired eyes, I searched for my phone to stop the 8:55 a.m. alarm I had set for each weekday. Before I could even brush my teeth and form a thought in my brain, I opened my laptop and clicked the login link for my trigonometry class.

Had I been in class rather than doing school online, I would’ve greeted my friends, smiled at my classmates, and talked about how hungry I was. But for the past year — and for what would be the entirety of my sophomore year of high school — the school day started when a teacher let me into the Zoom meeting from the waiting room. I sat in silence on my bed, waiting to speak my first words of the day.

“How is everyone doing?” my math teacher said.

Jasmine Harris

“Good,” I responded, grateful that she was making some effort at normalcy. But with delayed responses and cameras off, were we really engaging, and was I really “good”?

Before the COVID-19 lockdown began in March 2020, I was partway through my freshman year of high school. I had just met most of my classmates a few months earlier, so I only knew them on a surface level. When we returned to campus at the beginning of our junior year, I expected things to be a bit awkward, considering we were timid freshmen the last time we were together. However, I did not expect this awkward phase to last all of junior year.

Jasmine, far right, with her classmates during their senior class trip in Lake Harmony, Pennsylvania.

I think it’s safe to say that many high school students graduating this year had a similar experience. After all, this year’s graduating seniors were freshmen back when COVID first closed schools. For the Class of 2023, our high school career has been largely defined by the pandemic and its consequences.

We spent our junior year — a challenging academic year under normal circumstances — adjusting to being back in a classroom setting. Socially, it was weird, given that it had been almost two years since most of us had seen each other face to face. Conversations were awkward and short. I can count on my fingers the number of times I hung out with my friends the entire school year, and by the end of my junior year, I still didn’t feel a close connection with the friends I had met my freshman year.

So when senior year came around, my classmates and I were determined to make our last year of high school our first normal year of high school. We no longer wanted to be burdened by the strangeness of almost two years without in-person socializing.

Just one month into my senior year, my friend group expanded, and everyone around me seemed so much more extroverted and eager to hang out. My friends constantly tell me how much I’ve changed, that I used to be so quiet and not want to do anything after school. My classmates and I have grown closer by the day and are eager to plan an entire bucket list of things that we want to do together before we head off to college.

It’s like we want four years of high school experiences — so many of them missed to quarantine — rolled into one year. This year, we feel the need to plan parties, go to the movies, and go out for food together constantly. This has also made our senior year all the more precious.

My fellow seniors and I were determined to make our last year of high school our first normal year of high school.

My friends and I often reflect on this feeling and speak about how, even though it is sad that this is our last year together, it feels like we’re just getting started. That feeling has also bonded us and made us more appreciative of our time together. This year has been thrilling in ways that I do not think it would have if we hadn’t been isolated for so much of high school.

But I believe that the lockdowns and the difficult time apart have taught us about ourselves, how valuable it is to live in the moment, and the importance of prioritizing our friendships and relationships.

This year, racing through these four years of high school has come with major (and historic!) challenges for the Class of 2023. But with every hardship comes lessons. These days, we seniors greet each other with a smile and a “hello.” We may complain about how hungry we are. But then, maybe because we know what it’s like to go without these social interactions, there’s a beautiful afterthought about how important our “hellos” and smiles are.

Jasmine Harris is a senior at Bronxdale High School and a Chalkbeat Student Voices Fellow in New York City. In the fall, she will be in the Sophie Davis BS/MD program at City College of New York. She’s glad to have found a good balance between school and social life despite the chaos of her high school career.

Cómo una llamada de mi abuela me hace retroceder en el tiempo

2023-06-22T11:55:00+00:00

Read in English

“Estudia mucho mijita, ¿sí?”, me recuerda mi abuelita cada vez que la llamo a Ecuador, y su voz resuena en el teléfono. Está a más de 3,000 millas de distancia, pero incluso desde aquí, en Newark, Nueva Jersey, puedo oír los pregones de los vendedores mientras una música retumba por las calles.

Asegúrate de estudiar mucho, ¿de acuerdo?

Karen Otavalo

Es una petición sencilla y una frase común en todas las culturas y geografías. En el caso de mi abuela materna, María Isabel, sé que viene de querer para mí lo que ella no pudo tener: educación, independencia y oportunidades profesionales. Cuando ella era pequeña, su clase favorita era la de historia, y llevaba un cuaderno en el que dibujaba figuras históricas, decoraciones y banderas de distintos países.

Aunque soñaba con terminar la secundaria y hacer trabajo humanitario, tuvo que dejar la escuela y empezar a trabajar a los 12 años para mantener a su familia. También hicieron los arreglos para que se casara cuando sólo tenía 16 años. Esa era la realidad para muchas jóvenes en Ecuador, especialmente para aquellas con recursos limitados.

Ella quería más para sus hijos.

Pero cuando mi mamá tenía 16 años, también abandonó la escuela y se puso a trabajar. Ella se cansó de tener que cubrir sus zapatos rotos con pintura blanca porque estaba fuera del alcance de su familia comprar unos nuevos. En busca de independencia, ella se marchó para volver un año después, cuando mi abuela la convenció de que terminara la secundaria. Lo hizo, y luego se esforzó para ir a la universidad mientras también criaba a una hija pequeña: yo.

Luego, cuando yo tenía 11 años, nos mudamos a Estados Unidos y nos instalamos en Newark. Incluso antes de poder hablar inglés fluido, se matriculó en la universidad, decidida a aprovechar las oportunidades que le ofrecía un país como los Estados Unidos. Como inmigrante, ella luchó contra las barreras del idioma y la impaciencia de la gente, quienes suponían que su poco dominio del inglés significaba que ella no era inteligente. Mi mamá siempre les demostró que estaban equivocados. En mayo, mi madre se graduó con honores de la universidad.

Yo tengo 16 años. La misma edad que mi abuela tenía cuando la obligaron a casarse, y la misma que tenía mi mamá cuando dejó la escuela. A menudo pienso en lo diferente que es mi vida de las suyas. En dos generaciones tanto ha cambiado: donde vivimos, los idiomas que hablamos fuera de la casa y las normas que rigen los logros de las mujeres.

En Ecuador, las oportunidades y el buen empleo son escasos. La edad prevalece sobre la sabiduría, y por eso no se promueve que los jóvenes a hablen en la manera que se hace en Estados Unidos. Esta experiencia me ha hecho darme cuenta de lo afortunada que soy por vivir en un país con espacios y programas que empoderan a la juventud.

Por eso decidí matricularme el año que viene en el Bachillerato Internacional de mi escuela (conocido como IB), un programa famoso por su riguroso currículo. Dar este paso me ha hecho reflexionar sobre mi abuela y mi mamá, las mujeres que hicieron posible que yo recibiera una educación de primera clase.

Aunque mi gratitud es inmensa, viene acompañada de la presión silenciosa de tener éxito y de una necesidad inquebrantable de lograr algo. Con un plan de perseguir mis sueños más allá de lo que creí posible, está en mi abrazar esta nueva comunidad y asegurarme de que mi trayecto de vida es uno que no me arrepienta.

Tengo 16 años, la misma edad que mi abuela tuvo cuando la obligaron a casarse, y la misma que tenía mi mamá cuando dejó la escuela.

Mi mamá y mi abuela son las que soportaron la cruda realidad de una sociedad austera y aun así han conseguido vivir como ganadoras de la vida. Sus historias son unas de sacrificio, pero sus sacrificios no son lo único que las hace extraordinarias. Sus vidas también se definen por la esperanza y la perseverancia. Por ejemplo, mi abuela, que ahora tiene 54 años, está recuperando lo que no pudo vivir de joven, como tomar clases de tejer, bailar, cantar y salir con sus amigas. Mi mamá, por su parte, está manejando su propia empresa pequeña y tiene planes de obtener una maestría en contabilidad. Sus vidas siguen siendo complejas y muy afectadas por nuestras circunstancias, pero siempre han logrado perseverar.

Por eso, cuando mi abuelita, al otro lado del teléfono, me dice: “Estudia mucho mijita, ¿sí?”, un millón de pensamientos cruzan mi mente porque sé lo mucho que esa simple petición significa para ella y para nosotras.

“Si, lo haré”, le respondo.

Palabras no me valen para expresar mi gratitud por el camino que me han forjado pero en ese momento es simplemente perfecto.

Karen Otavalo es estudiante de décimo grado y en su tiempo libre adora dibujar y escribir. Este otoño se matriculará en el programa de IB y su curso elegido se enfoca en el estudio de la política mundial. Ella también trabaja como Consejera Juvenil en Crittenton Nacional y es becaria de Chalkbeat Student Voices en Newark. En el futuro, espera ayudar a las comunidades desfavorecidas a través de creatividad y servicio a la comunidad.

I’m a Stuyvesant junior. Here’s what I wish I’d known about the high school I’ve grown to love.

2023-05-01T20:13:57+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

The boy sitting to my left was shaking his legs up and down. To my right, a girl cupped her hands in a silent prayer. Their anxiety was as palpable as my own, each of us breathing in irregular harmonies as the proctor handed out the scantrons. The sacrifices that culminated in this day, this test, were immense.

For me, it was 20 hours a week of studying for three months. Some kids studied less and some more for the controversial Specialized High School Admissions Test, or the SHSAT — the sole criteria for entry to eight elite public high schools in New York City. Whatever preparation went into that day, what mattered now was our ability to score high enough for admission.

Vanessa Chen

Stuyvesant, the school requiring the highest score, was my goal. And when I was accepted about six months later, I cried as months of anticipation and stress lifted from my shoulders.

Three years on, I rarely think about the SHSAT and what it means to have tested into a specialized high school. But now and then, I’m reminded of my school’s prestige, like when a substitute teacher says, “You are all going to Harvard, right?” (Spoiler alert: We’re not.)

Many people — especially prospective students — get things wrong about Stuyvesant due to unflattering headlines and daunting stories about the heavy workload and the pressure-cooker atmosphere. I made a lot of unwise decisions based on misconceptions about Stuy. I overestimated the importance of certain tests and lost sleep as a result. I spent too much time lamenting past grades.

The stereotypes don’t tell the whole story of my large Lower Manhattan high school. With graduation just over a year away, here are some things I’d wish I’d known about Stuyvesant before enrolling at the school I’ve grown to love.

Don’t stress about placement tests.

Once rising freshmen officially confirm their seats at Stuy, they’re invited to “Camp Stuy” for two days. There, soon-to-be students sit for math and foreign language placement exams, meet school guidance counselors, take swim tests, and get their photos taken for their student ID. For many incoming students, Camp Stuy marks their first time on our Lower Manhattan campus. (There’s also a version of Camp Stuy for new Stuyvesant parents but no placement exams!)

This past year, I was one of the “big sibs” assisting with Camp Stuy, and many students were anxious about the placement tests. Some admitted they had hired tutors to help them prepare.

Here’s what I told them: Don’t worry if you don’t place into honors classes your freshman year. It’s common for freshmen who didn’t test into advanced courses to switch to them by sophomore year — so long as they keep up their average and get a recommendation from their current math teacher.

Remember: Getting into a class you’re unprepared for can be counterproductive. If a student tests into an honors class they’re not ready for, it could be detrimental to their GPA, limiting the classes they can take in future years (to say nothing of the unnecessary stress).

Advanced Placement classes are capped.

While Stuyvesant is known for its numerous advanced placement and honors classes — the high school offers dozens of APs in everything from Studio Art to Microeconomics to Music Theory — the number of AP classes students can take each year is capped based on their GPA.

For instance, students who wish to take three AP classes at Stuyvesant must have at least a 93% average overall. Students must maintain an overall average of 88% to enroll in two AP classes. And there’s an added hurdle: You’re often competing with hundreds of other students for a spot in the AP class you have your eye on.

The transition to Stuy is difficult, and some students struggle freshman year as they adjust to the workload and pace of the demanding curriculum. For those students, freshman grades can hinder their GPA and limit the number of AP courses they can take in the future. This makes the climb more difficult.

Stuy runs on Facebook.

Before I started at Stuy, I, like many of my peers, thought that Facebook was for older adults. But “Dear incoming Stuyvesant Class of [insert graduation year] ... WE HAVE ADVICE!” Facebook groups are part of the school’s culture and connective tissue. At Camp Stuy, “big sibs” encourage new students to get on the social platform that they’re more likely to associate with their parents and grandparents.

Private Facebook groups for Stuy students and alums provide a safe and easy way to get or give advice, learn more about extracurriculars, and connect with upperclassmen and alums on everything from how much sleep to get to the pros and cons of taking one class over another. Most Stuyvesant clubs and activities also have their own Facebook groups, where they post advertisements and announcements (typically embellished with emojis and exclamation points).

It was on the Class of 2024 advice page that, during remote learning, I found a posting for the Stuyvesant Theatre Community. They were looking for small role actors for their spring comedy, “Twelfth Night,” and although I had never acted before, in a flurry of pandemic isolation and boredom, I decided to audition for the play. Luckily, I got the role.

For the next few weeks, I worked one-on-one with the directors and talked with my fellow cast members, most of whom were older than I was. I found joy and excitement in interacting with people I had never met. That brings me to my next point.

Stuyvesant is a creative community.

At Stuyvesant, you’ll study harder than ever here and stay up until the early morning hours writing papers, but your experience will also transcend academics. There are so many creative outlets here, from the school newspaper to the calligraphy club, from podcasting to theater arts.

Once we were back from remote learning, I auditioned for the fall 2021 musical, “Something Rotten!” I was chosen to be a part of the ensemble. Every day after school, hundreds of students would come together to sew costumes, build sets, and practice lines. The energy was contagious, especially in the frenzied days leading up to opening night. My part was small — one that involved striking a scorpion pose and singing a song about rotten eggs — but it was meaningful. With every lyric I sang and every step I sashayed to, I learned, first off, that I’m not a talented dancer, but, more importantly, that I love to see a vision come to life.

I went from playing a two-line part in “Twelfth Night” freshman year to being the executive producer of Stuyvesant Theater Community my junior year. Although my responsibilities are much greater now, I still love what drew me to the theater in the first place: the creative freedom and the supportive community.

Three years ago, I would have never anticipated finding my niche in Stuy’s theater program. I had set my sights on Stuy before I’d even been to an open house or researched the school’s clubs and electives. But what ultimately made Stuy the perfect school for me was the quirky, supportive, and creative community I found once I got there.

To those eighth graders who have just received their high school results, remember that schools are complex and idiosyncratic places. You’ll be learning about your campus and classmates from orientation up until graduation. You’ll discover niches you didn’t know existed and find yourself at home in some of them — even if it doesn’t feel like it at first. Good luck!

Vanessa Chen is a high school junior who loves to write and read in her free time. She has organized community events, including gatherings where Chinatown youth can bond and protests against neighborhood displacement. In school, Vanessa serves as executive producer for her school’s theater community and produced her school’s fall musical, “Matilda.”

This proposed NYC middle school will be ‘genderful.’ Here’s what that means.

2024-02-09T13:00:00+00:00

For the past 10 years, I’ve been teaching math to middle school kids in New York City. My classes are filled with children, ages 10-14, concerned with their friends, their responsibilities, phones, and, if I’m lucky, pre-algebra. In that way, these students are the same as they were a decade ago. But in so many other ways, they are different.

The pandemic and social media have changed their realities in painful and pressing ways. Many kids are grieving, confronting new addictions, and feeling extremely anxious about the future.

Joji Florence

On the flip side, though, I’ve seen a growing number of students find creative and joyful ways of being open and out about their gender. More of our children want to explore, learn about, challenge, change, or move inside and outside the bounds of masculinity and femininity. Many kids seem to get that with increased access to an evolving gender spectrum, more people can experience more joy. In the trans community, I’ve heard this idea described as “genderful.”

That is exactly the concept that propels Miss Major Middle, a proposed public charter school that I hope to open in the fall of 2025. Located in Community School District 13 in Brooklyn, our team envisions a genderful middle school where students are agents of justice, where their identities are affirmed, their voices are heard, and their humanity is celebrated.

The spirit of our school will be embodied by our namesake, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy. Miss Major is a Black transgender activist who played a pivotal role in the Stonewall Uprising and has dedicated her life to advocating for the rights and well-being of transgender and gender non-conforming people.

I started thinking about the possibility of Miss Major Middle several years back, when an eighth grade student of mine bravely came out as non-binary. I noticed that other teachers and administrators were asking the student directly what non-binary meant and what they/them pronouns were. The onus of teaching these adults about their gender identity fell, unfairly, to the child.

I realized then that New York City needed a school established from its inception with the needs and voices of trans, nonbinary, queer, and ally students, teachers, and parents in mind. This is Miss Major Middle.

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, the school's namesake, at a Pride parade in San Francisco in 2014.

Our team didn’t invent the concept. As we’ve developed our school model, we’ve worked with existing genderful communities. We recently visited Magic City Charter Acceptance Academy, or MCAA, in Birmingham, Alabama, a mission-explicit LGBTQ+ affirming 6-12 school. During our visit, we learned that about half of MCAA’s students do not identify as LGBTQ+, yet chose the school because of its supportive and inclusive environment. This highlighted the broader appeal of such an educational setting, where students from various backgrounds and identities feel welcomed and are able to thrive.

As we work on our charter application (due this month to the SUNY Charters Institute), we’re underscoring that Miss Major Middle will strive to serve as an additional educational option. Our school wants to be part of the collection of schools already working to address issues of identity and discrimination.

What will make our school unique is our commitment to centering genderful students and teachers, and creating a safer space to learn and grow. I believe Miss Major will also demonstrate the appeal of an inclusive, progressive educational environment for students who do not identify as LGBTQ+. All of our middle schoolers will be able to explore their gender, embrace their own identity, and decide how they will walk authentically through the world.

What will that look like? At Miss Major Middle, our curriculum will have a STEAAM focus — that’s the traditional science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics, but we add to the mix an extra “a” for activism; our students will learn about (and how to become) changemakers. Our science curriculum will teach Gender Inclusive Biology, which focuses on how diverse organisms evolve and thrive, and our arts offerings will prioritize self-development and social-emotional well-being.

While we have not yet encountered public opposition, we are preparing to meet resistance due to misconceptions about gender and sexuality and a polarized national debate about affirming spaces. If we do receive this type of opposition, we know we can call on our robust support network, including elected officials, community organizations, hundreds of supportive families and, we believe, thousands of New York City residents ready to advocate for our school’s mission. The LGBTQ+ community’s history of resilience and flourishing in New York City positions us to address the questions and critiques that come our way.

As we’ve grown our community of families, I’ve often thought back to my own childhood. I was raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the 1980s, where I had no knowledge of, or access to, trans language.

One of my earliest memories is of being at my friend Emily’s birthday party when I was about 7. The girls at the party took their long, beautiful hair, wrapped it around their chins, and tied it off with hair bands, creating beards. I remember this gesture, this game, so vividly because what they showed me was what I felt inside. It wasn’t that I was a girl or a boy or even that I wanted a beard, although I did want long hair. It was that I felt somewhere in between and outside of what gender was and that it all felt like something to be played with.

I share this story because I wonder, “What if I had known there were non-binary people in this world? What if I could have used they/them pronouns? What if my friendships had been anchored upon shared interests and passions instead of split lines for the bathrooms? And what if the human values of consent, compassion, a right to privacy, and a space for joy eclipsed the developmental fixation on how kids ‘of a gender’ should look, sound, or act?”

The “what ifs” of my own experience speak to how far we’ve come. But I’m also aware of the hostilities that continue to surround many students and families. Hatred, misunderstanding, and transphobia force folks to hedge their efforts to disrupt the gender binary because they must think about safety and security.

At Miss Major Middle, our academic philosophy is one of total inclusivity because safer spaces lead to better outcomes for our kids. And isn’t this what we all want? Ours will be a shared space where we work toward physical and emotional safety for students. A shared space where our policies and resources are designed with and for trans, gender-nonconforming, queer, and ally students and families.

Right now, our children and families are speaking to us, asking us to do better. It is our responsibility and privilege to bring this vision of a genderful school — and a genderful future — to fruition.

Joji Florence (they/them) is an educator, agent of justice, and the co-founder and proposed Head of School for Miss Major Middle Public Charter School. A proud nonbinary parent, they live with their amazing, brilliant spouse and three joyful children in Brooklyn.

Work has become more flexible post-pandemic. So should special education.

2024-02-08T16:00:00+00:00

Thirteen years ago, my neurodivergent child’s experience with public special education led us to leave it altogether and home-school from grades 6-12.

I created a customized education program for my son, incorporating his ideas and interests. I connected with educators who operated enrichment centers offering homeschool classes in the morning and after-school programs later in the day, as well as community college staff, local museum educators, retired teachers, homeschool groups, and university professors who offered additional opportunities for alternative learning.

Amy Mackin

We spent Monday mornings at an enrichment center where an MIT professor taught home-schoolers biology and anatomy. Thursday afternoons, we headed to a community gym, where my son studied Latin with a professor of Greek and Roman mythology, played chess, and then joined a group exercise class — all for a small fee. We learned about birds of prey at our local Audubon Society, and we discussed farming history during a visit to a cranberry bog.

It wouldn’t have been possible if I didn’t have a spouse with a full-time job and health care benefits — putting this option out of reach for many, if not most, families. But the types of partnerships I developed could help fill the gap that exists between what schools can reasonably offer and the expansive services children — especially those with disabilities — need to thrive, without asking parents to become full-time, unpaid instructors and curriculum designers.

Developing these partnerships is more pressing than ever.

This past summer, a Pew Research Center report revealed that the number of students in the American special education system has doubled over the past four decades, from about 3.6 million during the 1976-77 school year to approximately 7.3 million during the 2021-22 school year. Schools are struggling to find enough special educators to serve this increasing population, especially amid the rise in mental health challenges among students, including those with disabilities.

We know that a subset of neurodivergent students do better in more flexible educational settings. COVID closures showed us as much. Because while the pandemic was devastating for students with disabilities who needed in-person, tactile assistance, some children, including many on the autism spectrum, thrived outside of traditional school spaces. For these students, virtual learning provided a welcome reprieve from challenging social environments, resulting in improved academic performance and lower stress.

Serving these students post-pandemic means engaging community organizations to create a flexible education ecosystem, powered by traditional instruction in school and subject matter experts outside of it.

The Brookings Institution described a similar arrangement that they call ”Powered-up Schools” in a 2020 report outlining ways that public education could emerge from the pandemic stronger than before. They draw inspiration from the community schools movement, which advocates for public schools that provide wrap-around services to meet the needs of students, families, and neighborhoods.

Meanwhile in the U.K., students in some districts are engaged in what’s called “flexi-schooling.” This system allows a child to be a fully funded public school student while spending part of the week homeschooled and/or attending off-site educational programs.

School systems stateside could offer something similar. We know it’s possible. COVID-19, after all, forced us to get creative in our delivery of educational services. We must carry that forward with strategies that honor students’ individual learning styles, integrate community resources, and optimize teachers’ instructional strengths.

It’s too late for my son’s generation, but we can meet the needs of students with disabilities, including those who are more successful in a hybrid design, by breaking away from models that haven’t served many students well and haven’t changed in decades. We should replace them with more nimble solutions that don’t take years to actualize. In schools, like in workplaces, we learned to pivot quickly when COVID gave us no choice; it’s time to embrace those lessons and build upon them.

Amy Mackin is a Boston-based writer and inclusion advocate who serves as Manager of Communications and Outreach for the Population Studies and Training Center at Brown University. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies, The Writer’s Chronicle, Witness, and The Shriver Report, among other places. She has taught in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UMass Boston and mentors community college students in writing.

I teach future teachers. They don’t need the edTPA.

2023-03-31T14:00:00+00:00

I am a supervisor of teachers who work time and a half, for free. They arrive at work as early as 6:30 a.m., consult with guidance counselors during their free periods, tutor students after school, plan lessons and grade essays before and after dinner. They don’t sleep enough.

These teachers are student teachers, but they carry a full load. And they do all this work under the constant supervision of a veteran teacher and me, their university supervisor, with the expectation that they continuously revise their practice in response to feedback. Not all will make it out with a license. Those who do will have earned it.

When Illinois’ COVID Disaster Proclamation expires on May 11, the student teachers with whom I work will have even more on their plates. Lots more. The edTPA assessment for teacher licensure, which Illinois began requiring of all new teachers in the fall of 2015, will again be required in the spring of 2024.

The edTPA is often compared to the assessment required of veteran teachers seeking National Board Certification. Developed by the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity, it required my students to create some 50 pages of writing as well as video clips of themselves teaching. Despite its good intentions and fancy pedigree, this assessment is redundant, costly, and has the unintended effects of narrowing teacher education curricula and keeping strong candidates out of schools that need them — or out of the profession altogether.

To be sure, I want to hold future teachers to the highest standards; they are working with our most precious assets, our children. But to add such an onerous assessment when there are so many checks already in place is to fall prey to the accountability movement’s lie: that more testing is always good.

Already, pre-service teachers at my university have to apply for admission to our teacher education program after successful completion of prerequisite courses, maintain high grades in their education coursework, pass a state-administered content area test, and receive repeated positive evaluations of their student teaching by at least two veteran teachers. No additional testing is necessary.

For the few years that the edTPA was mandated in Illinois, its negative effects were immediately clear to me and went well beyond making a stressful student teaching semester remarkably more stressful. Because of the pressure to capture excellent student work on video, placement coordinators worried about assigning student teachers to some of the non-selective enrollment schools with which they had previously partnered. Because of the test fee, some teacher candidates with whom I worked — first-generation college students putting themselves through college and helping to support their families — put off licensure. And some, disheartened by not being able to finish on the planned timeline, put it off further.

Most ridiculously, my university colleagues and I devoted precious class time to teaching edTPA-specific vocabulary. The test emphasizes obscure terminology — terms like “language function” to describe “the content and language focus of the learning task, represented by the active verbs within the learning outcomes.” These terms left our and our students’ minds in tangles when we should have been focusing on teaching.

The edTPA doesn’t assess anything a good teacher education program doesn’t, and there are systems in place to assess the teacher education programs themselves. What the edTPA does do is distract from the work of teaching and increase stress, debt, and inequality, making it harder for lower-income student teachers to be licensed and disincentivizing their work in lower-income schools.

If the edTPA had proved itself to be a completely accurate assessment, that would be at least one point in its favor. But it hasn’t. Instead, we see damning data like that reported in a 2021 American Educational Research Journal article that “raise[s] serious concerns about scoring design, the reliability of the assessments, and the consequential impact on decisions about edTPA candidates.” (The testmakers have disputed those claims.) And yet edTPA is due to become required under law again in Illinois after the COVID-era emergency orders cease.

Hopefully, this will not come to pass. State lawmakers are considering changes to the licensure process, and I hope they make them. If the edTPA returns, I will have to return to using valuable class time to prepare students to clear this unnecessary hurdle. And I will again have to watch as the edTPA’s demands dangerously overload student teachers’ plates.

Indeed, as I watch this semester’s student teachers working so hard, giving up time with family and friends to support students of their own, I quake to think of asking future student teachers to do even more. Given Illinois’ teacher shortage (ISBE reported more than 2,000 unfilled teacher positions in 2022) and our children’s increased needs since the pandemic, we should be doing everything we can to get these dedicated aspiring teachers into the schools that need them.

Kate Sjostrom is a lecturer and associate director of English education at University of Illinois, Chicago.

I’ve worked in child care for three decades. It’s been a long, tough road.

2023-04-07T15:45:00+00:00

In 1994, after earning my master’s degree in early childhood education, I founded Kids Academy Early Learning Center with just one room for 10 children. Today, my center, located in the Chicago suburb of Morton Grove, has four classrooms where we can care for and educate up to 71 children, ages 6 weeks to 5 years.

Azar Khounani

After almost 30 years, my passion for caring for the youngest children during the most important years of their growth and development is just as strong as the day I started. But it’s been a long, tough road.

Programs like ours are part of a critical but fragile infrastructure that helps keep families afloat. We care for children who have experienced hardships and trauma. Our teaching staff, with support from experts and in partnership with families, provides a safe place for children to heal. Since the pandemic, we’ve seen higher levels of trauma and challenging behaviors, making access to warm and welcoming spaces even more important. Kids Academy educators are trained in trauma-informed practices.

But child care costs exceed what many families can pay; many parents report financial hardships. One parent in my program moved from a first-floor apartment to a basement-level unit to save $50 a month. She’s not an exception.

And while child care remains a costly necessity for families, programs like ours continue to operate on razor-thin margins. Over the past three decades, I have seen many providers close due to financial challenges and a lack of qualified staff. Kids Academy has survived because of community support, government resources for parents and providers, and the resilience of the Kids Academy teachers.

Why are the economics of providing care so precarious? There are many reasons, including plentiful regulations, the challenge of hiring qualified teachers in a competitive job market and at a time of historic inflation, and the cost of keeping our facilities and equipment clean, safe, and updated. Tuition income often doesn’t cover operating costs, especially at daycare facilities serving low- and middle-income families.

While child care remains a costly necessity for families, programs like ours continue to operate on razor-thin margins.

During the pandemic, our early-learning center was able to keep our doors open thanks to community and government support. St. Luke’s Church, where Kids Academy is located, lowered our rent. Federal COVID relief money was a lifeline. Without these child care stabilization payments, many families — including those doing essential work — would have been left without care for their young children. Reimbursements from the Child Care Assistance Program also helped us stay open.

At the height of COVID, our teachers risked their lives to serve our families. Today, some Kids Academy educators commute an hour or more, all the while fretting over the high cost of gas. I cannot overstate how much I appreciate and admire their strong sense of purpose and the sacrifices they continue to make.

Teachers often share that if they worked somewhere like Amazon, they would earn higher wages while enjoying greater scheduling flexibility. Some early childhood teachers burnout and eventually leave, but others stay put citing their passion for the work and the kids they serve. As dedicated as educators are and as critical as their work is, it’s clear that the funding landscape has to change if we are going to continue to support families.

Here in Illinois, Gov. J.B. Prtizker’s newly announced Smart Start Illinois plan is a roadmap for equity, recruitment, access to quality early child care and education, and higher compensation for those doing this care work. The program is also allocating $100 million for child care facilities, giving centers like ours a chance to improve their spaces.

But we’re not just waiting for early education dollars to appear. As a member of We, the Village coalition, I advocate for families, care providers, and other early childhood professionals. We seek adequate, reliable, and steady funding for child care providers to help them survive and continue as vital parts of our communities. We work together to be a voice for all young children who deserve quality child care, regardless of race or ZIP code.

I have been sustained on this “long, tough road,” thanks to my love for this work, my belief that caring for young children means a better future for them and all of us, and the community and government support — moral and financial — that acknowledges our work as essential.

Azar Khounani is the founder and president of Kids Academy Early Learning Center, a member of We, the Village coalition, and the Director of the Say Yes to Childcare campaign.

White students need more information about race and racism, not less

2023-04-10T20:30:36+00:00

As an assistant professor of education at Howard University, I have watched over the past two years as state lawmakers and governors have made it harder to teach public school students about American racial history.

These “anti-CRT” and “divisive concept” laws make teachers afraid to talk openly about the history of race and racism in this country, which will leave gaps to fill in years to come. As many have pointed out, a lack of accurate history harms all students. I want to offer my perspective as a white woman who, like many other white people, grew up without exposure to accurate information about race and American history until later in life. I use it to underscore why white children, in particular, need more information about race and American history, not less.

I went to high school in a blue-collar, midwestern city where the automobile industry fed the local economy. I attended a mostly white high school and had no idea that just a few miles away, the schools were mostly Black. In fact, we lived in one of the most segregated cities in the nation during the 1980s.

In high school, we read Maya Angelou and Mildred Taylor, and learned about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. But we did not learn how racial segregation laws had shaped the schools we attended, nor how redlining and racial covenants had shaped the surrounding neighborhoods.

We did not learn why it was that our school had so few Black students or so few Black teachers. Each day, the ebb and flow of mostly white students and teachers went unquestioned, leading me, and likely other white students, to assume it was perfectly normal. At home, we did not talk about race, history, or politics. Maybe it was because, like other working-class families, we went to work and did not ask questions. Or maybe it was because, like many white families, talking about race explicitly is taboo.

It wasn’t until graduate school at a predominantly white university at the age of 25 that I began to learn about the history of race in America. And, importantly, it wasn’t by choice. I was not a “race and ethnicity” or “ethnic studies” or “Black studies” major. I was an education major. Making the difference were my professors, who integrated information about race, racism, and the histories and contributions of Asian Americans, Black Americans, Indigenous peoples, and Mexican Americans into the class curriculum.

As a result, my entire understanding of this country changed. And in fact, it improved. I understood more about laws and civics and social movements, and the history of the United States and the colonies. I gained significant respect and reverence for communities of color and a new understanding of my own history as a white person. It opened my worldview and expanded my perspectives and relationships. It made me more committed to our democratic ideals and to building community.

Learning about race and American history fundamentally changed my entire trajectory, and for the better. It shaped each personal and professional decision that I made thereafter.

It wasn’t until graduate school that I began to learn about the history of race in America.

But what if, instead of learning this in my late 20s, I had learned this history as a child? It was only by accident, to some extent, as a first-generation college student, that I attended the graduate program that I did. And it was only through the work of my professors, many of them faculty of color, that I was exposed to anything different. Think of all the other white students in my high school who have proceeded through life, casting votes and making decisions that impact the lives of other people, without an understanding of this nation’s past.

Many white people that I talk to from my own generation, even now, do not know much about America’s racial history. Just this past year, I’ve talked with white people about the ways white lawmakers segregated schools and universities, how Klan members held public offices in the 1920s and 30s, and how Massive Resistance unfolded during desegregation. And it is new to them. When they hear this, it’s like a light bulb goes off. Suddenly, anti-racism and diversity efforts make more sense.

Opponents of addressing this history are afraid that it will make white children feel bad. And yes, I did learn of the brutality and violence of white people. I know that we have the potential to act with malice and disregard for the lives of people of color. But did this make me feel bad? No. It made me feel a healthy sense of responsibility to those different from myself. Teaching our children about the harms white people have perpetrated will not make them feel bad; it will keep them from doing the same thing in the future. And importantly, we must teach them how white people can contribute responsibly and with reverence to the work of racial justice.

White children notice race and internalize prejudice and superiority early on. If we do not inoculate our children from these ideas, we leave them vulnerable to the rising tide of prejudice and race-related hate. Today we are seeing the political impact of my generation, who went through school without enough information about race, racism, and American history to make better decisions in the interest of democracy. We will continue to pay a collective price as a nation if we censor this information in schools.

As white people, we have a lot to learn about the history of race and racism in America. As adults, we have our own gaps, and those of our children, to fill. We need to learn the accurate history of white people, the bad and the good. We need it to better understand ourselves and the world and human dignity. We need it to be better members of our community and to make informed policy decisions and to inoculate our children against racial extremism and xenophobia.

Learning about race, racism, and American history has fundamentally changed my life, and for the better. What I needed as a young white student — what so many of us need still today — was more information about race, racism, and American history, not less.

Kathryn Wiley is an assistant professor on educational policy and leadership at Howard University.

Career and technical education needs a mental health revolution

2023-04-11T12:00:00+00:00

As a longtime public school occupational therapist, I know what students look and sound like when they’re ready to transition from the work lab to the workforce.

In recent years, I’ve personally witnessed more of my students struggle to make that transition or not make it at all. It has nothing to do with a lack of technical skills, as I’ve seen them master complicated vocational concepts and tasks — graphic design, woodworking, 3D printing, and CNC programming. The struggle has everything to do with skyrocketing anxiety, depression, and trauma experienced by my students as they prepare to enter the workforce.

Michele Morgan

Our students are experiencing a mental health crisis across our state and country, and that’s something all of us can and must work to address. That’s why I’m focused on helping our general education and special education students develop job skills and strengthen their mental health while still in our hallways.

Starting about six years ago, I worked with my colleagues at Warren Woods Public Schools in Warren, Michigan, to launch a new approach to student mental health and wellness to complement our existing emphasis on pre-vocational skill development. The program, available at our district’s two high schools, includes an OT lab that combines technology-driven and traditional machines, a reset room where students can process emotions in a calming environment, and an after-school program called Scratch the Surface.

This curriculum helps students process uncomfortable feelings, such as loss, grief, or anger.

When we first launched the after-school program, it served only as an alternative to traditional disciplinary measures for students who were skipping school or getting behavior referrals in class. But nearly all of the students referred to the program voluntarily continued attending well past what was required.

I also collaborate with our school social worker to provide students with a series of weekly sessions that center on mindfulness, self-compassion, and the principles of psychological flexibility. This curriculum helps students process uncomfortable feelings, such as loss, grief, or anger, and recognize that painful thoughts will pass and do not define them. My program has reached up to 82 students year-round, including programming offered over spring break and during summer.

Some of the artwork produced by Michele Morgan’s CTE students.

In our OT labs, students use raw materials (donated by a local kitchen and bath manufacturer) and machines, such as lathes, 3D printers, CNC routers, laser engravers, and wood burners to make functional art infused with meaning and messages related to mental health. Student art has included granite memorial markers, engraved wood cutlery, mosaic art, candles, jewelry, and more.

The results speak for themselves.

Attendance has gone up and behavior referrals down to near zero for every Warren Woods-Tower High School student who has participated since the program began. At Enterprise High School, the principal of our alternative education program says the OT lab has given students a supportive outlet when they need it most since they can choose when during their school day to visit. Through the power of mindfulness, my students have learned to process their feelings in a constructive way at school. This has allowed them to refocus on developing job skills and preparing for career success.

As our program has evolved, we have gained partners at the local and state levels, including Michigan Works! and Michigan Rehabilitation Services, which support program costs and pay students an hourly wage during spring break and summer sessions. I’ve also worked with interns from occupational therapy programs at Eastern Michigan University, Macomb Community College, and Wayne State University, developing a pipeline of prospective OT lab practitioners. It’s been exciting to see professional and community partners recognize the value of our work and help keep it going.

I’m not a psychotherapist. The good news is that occupational therapists, too, can have a long-lasting impact on student well-being. The key to our success has been making a personal investment in their health, welfare, and happiness — not just one focused on grades or performance.

Michele Morgan is an occupational therapist at Warren Woods Public Schools. Learn more about her work at makeitworkprogram.com.

I survived a school shooting. Here’s why you probably haven’t heard about it.

2023-04-13T19:30:00+00:00

“It wasn’t a school shooting,” my Algebra 3 teacher said nonchalantly as he passed around the bag of “Great Mills Strong” bracelets someone had donated to us. “It was just a shooting in a school.”

His words sounded ridiculous to me, but this was a sentiment shared by many in and beyond our community.

Mollie Davis

Two weeks earlier, 16-year-old Jaelynn Willey was shot dead by her 17-year-old ex-boyfriend on a Tuesday morning inside Great Mills High School, where in 2018 I was a senior. The boy died, too, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, as the school’s student resource officer responded to the incident.

But all this happened a month after the massacre at a high school in Parkland, Florida, where 17 were killed. What happened at our school seemed minuscule by contrast. The gun-control advocates forgot us and the gun-rights advocates pushed out a video claiming us as a victory for the side of “good guys with guns.” Never mind that the events of that rainy Tuesday morning left Jaelynn dead and traumatized us Great Mills students. Meanwhile, we were told that what we experienced wasn’t really a “school shooting,” so we were fearful of being seen as dramatic. The message: Be grateful that it wasn’t worse.

If I was testifying under oath, I’d have to say I’m not sure if I heard the gunshot. The doors of our school slammed loudly by default, people dropped things, and I think I may have heard it without recognizing what it was. Either way, what alerted me that something was wrong was the screaming. There was screaming and my head turned to a boy running past the open door of our classroom in black basketball shorts with a white stripe up the side. Two of my classmates went to the stair landing to see if they could see what was going on. They came back inside reporting that people were screaming someone had a gun, and sat back down.

We all sat at our desks with the lights on, the screaming reverberating off of the walls below us. Someone said their friend told them that someone popped a balloon behind a girl’s head and told her to drop. What a jerk, he’s in trouble, my mother texted when I relayed that information to her. I chuckled as my hands shook and the intercom crackled to life. Something about how there was no immediate threat but to go on lockdown.

I tweeted a plea for prayer that went viral; when CNN asked if I was available, I turned them down. But they found someone who said yes, someone who went on national television and said seven people were dead.

I tweeted a plea for prayer that went viral.

Thankfully that wasn’t true. Thankfully, only one girl was shot in the head; thankfully, the bullet that went through her head only hit someone else in the leg; thankfully, the only other casualty was the shooter. The word “thankfully” has been rotting on my tongue for the past five years, but I can’t spit it out because that would be rude to the people who worked overtime to make it palatable.

The shooting took place around 7:55 a.m., and I didn’t leave the reunification center until close to 4 p.m. As we pulled out of the parking lot, my chest started hurting so bad I couldn’t sit up. So I hunched into a ball in my dad’s passenger seat until we got home and I stumbled into the house to hug my mom. I forced myself up the stairs and into the bathroom before I collapsed, my eyes falling to the piece of white masking tape on my sleeve. We all got one when checking into the reunification center for reasons that I’ve never understood. Ripping it off, I slammed it against the wall and turned the water on so my family wouldn’t hear me as I let out an earnest sob from the depths of my being. I crawled into the shower, curled up in a ball, and willed myself to wake up from what was surely just a vivid nightmare.

But it wasn’t a nightmare, and the short list of dead and injured wasn’t some “get out of trauma free” card for me or my peers.

Smaller school shootings get lost in the shuffle of too-frequent violence with higher death tolls. You can tell me to be thankful that it wasn’t worse. But what happened at my school five years ago remains an open wound.

Mollie Davis is a 23-year-old writer residing in Denver with the Colorado Episcopal Service Corps. In the fall, Davis will be a 1L.

At our parent-teacher conferences, students lead the way

2023-04-18T12:00:00+00:00

Each fall and spring, families and schools across the country take part in “parent-teacher” conferences. Filing in and out of classrooms (or Zoom rooms), educators and parents talk about student progress, participation, and social development. The children and teens who are the subject of the conference are not usually in the room.

At the Newark middle school where I work, though, our students are the ones leading the conference. They are the ones facilitating the conversation about their strengths and areas for growth.

Lauren Whidbee

It takes preparation to get there, but I’ve seen it pay off for everyone involved.

To help students to feel confident enough to advocate for themselves, we have them prepare and practice with their peers. Before parents arrive, students complete a reflection activity, and my colleagues and I use a checklist to ensure we make the most out of these rare opportunities to all get together.

The checklist, for example, reminds teachers that they can ask probing questions or direct the student to the agenda but to be careful not to dominate the conversation. We arrange for interpreters if needed. Even the design is intentional — we adjust our seats into seminar-style circles to promote discussion.

I remember one student whom I’ll call Maria. She was a hard worker and strong reader but was often uncomfortable speaking in front of her peers. At her first conference, she put her hands over her face, too nervous to share.

Through patience, practice in class, and the support of her family, her conference the next year looked completely different. She was able to present, her shoulders back and head held high as she discussed her progress and how she wanted to be pushed not just academically but also socially.

At traditional parent-teacher conferences, students may worry about being misrepresented, and parents and guardians might feel surprised and overwhelmed when a teacher expresses that their child is struggling. It also places a strain on teachers who have large class sizes.

It takes a lot of maturity to express your growth and areas for improvement, but I see a genuine effort from all of my students.

Empowering students to lead these discussions lessens the emotional and mental burden on educators. Students have the opportunity to reflect on the skills they learned, their accomplishments to be proud of, what they can work on during the next quarter, and how those goals align with our school’s values: bravery, ownership, and leadership. Families can also trust that if their student identifies they are struggling with completing math homework and assignments on time, it is true. From there, teachers, parents, and students can work together to create action plans.

Of course, it still takes work and an understanding of the students and their families. I know what classes my students are excelling in and if they are having trouble with behavior in a specific class or homework in another. I let the students lead, but I may ask probing questions or direct the student to the agenda. And I help the student if the parent is talking too much, redirecting the conversation if someone begins to get upset.

After the meeting, students send thank you notes to their guardians who attended the event. It takes a lot of maturity to express your growth and areas for improvement, but I see a genuine effort from all of my students.

Since moving to student-led conferences more than five years ago, we have noticed a subtle but important shift. Students are learning public speaking skills. They are learning to advocate for themselves and to manage their time while speaking. And we see parents making a real effort to attend.

For schools looking for a way to improve on their own conferences, shifting to a student-led model is worth considering. For families wondering how to connect the dots between school and home, ask your child’s school about student-led conferences. Some of the best innovations in education are low-tech and right in front of us.

Lauren Whidbee is a successor school leader at KIPP BOLD Academy in Newark, where she has worked since the school was founded in 2015. She started her career as a Teach for America Corps member in Baltimore. Whidbee is a proud alumna of the University of Pennsylvania, and she earned her master’s degree in education at Johns Hopkins University.

I know what it’s like to struggle with bad credit, so I piloted a youth personal finance course

2023-04-21T19:53:00+00:00

During my freshman year at Brooklyn College, there were credit card companies lined up, eager to earn the business of students. Enticed by various rewards programs and sales pitches that only told part of the story, many students signed up for one or more cards without understanding the repercussions of late payments.

Lacking basic financial literacy meant that many college students started off their adult lives with poor credit. As a result, they faced challenges later in life when they needed to borrow money but couldn’t secure a low-interest loan. (A 2009 federal law has made it harder for those under 21 to obtain a credit card, though financial products companies haven’t stopped trying to lure college students.)

Emmanuel Jeanty

Poor credit followed me past college and years into my teaching career. (I am a teacher for students with disabilities at a Brooklyn middle school.) That has fueled my sense of obligation to teach the next generation of students about personal finance. It’s why I helped develop a personal finance curriculum for teens and young adults through the Gentlemen Factory’s youth mentoring organization, Groomed Success.

Because we wanted the class to be as engaging and relevant as possible, we polled students we work with to see what topics interested them. They wanted to know about buying homes and cars. Our curriculum, geared toward those ages 14 to 21, has them considering questions such as: How much do I need to save (and for how long) in order to make these purchases? Which purchases do I want to prioritize? And how do I know if I’m even in a position to make one of these purchases?

Young people also wanted to learn about credit, investing, and cryptocurrency. We realized that students have consumed a great deal of advertising and social media posts about crypto, and we could provide discussion and clarification. Other topics of interest included budgeting, bookkeeping, and financial planning for starting a business.

New York state — the financial capital of the world — does not require any separate financial literacy course for high school students.

We, educators, can help young people prepare for life after graduation, which is why I hope more schools and youth organizations will offer financial education. There are many great resources out there, and developing our curriculum was easier than I anticipated.

Even more importantly, there are steps elected officials can take to help support school-based efforts to deepen financial knowledge. Unlike states such as Iowa, Utah, and North Carolina, New York state — the financial capital of the world — does not require any separate financial literacy course for high school students.

Encouragingly, state lawmakers have proposed mandating the successful completion of a financial literacy course for all New York state high school students. But those proposals are not yet law.

Financial literacy shouldn’t be optional because it puts those without it at a significant disadvantage, as I was in the years after I graduated from college. And if my experiences as a student and educator have taught me anything, it’s that no one should have to learn crucial financial lessons the hard way.

Emmanuel Jeanty teaches seventh graders with disabilities at I.S. 285, the Meyer Levin School in Brooklyn. Jeanty is a Brooklyn native and a Brooklyn College alumnus who is motivated to educate young people about the world and how they can contribute to it.