National attention for PASA's Summer Scholars program

I wish I had more than my scanty free time to learn about education in Providence and if I did, I would have spent time getting to know more about Providence After School Alliance's Summer Scholars program, which is bringing experiential learning into summer studies for middle school students and capturing national attention. See PBS's video and audio coverage here.

PASA's summer program is in its second year; I haven't had direct experience with it in any way, though I wish I did as it sounds like the kind of approach we should be taking in order to use engagement to accelerate learning not only in the summer but also year-round. Getting young people out of the classroom so that they can use their minds well and experience what their communities have to offer is critical, and not always available to all kids. 

ProJo also wrote about the Summer Scholars program in July in an article that rounded up a few different summer learning approaches around the state. It's here.

Capital-izing on Education - June East Side Monthly column

My June East Side Monthly column is about two focused and determined students at  Dr. Jorge Alvarez High School and their trip this month to Washington, DC with the Close Up program. Connecting young people with meaningful, authentic learning is essential to their grasp of future possibilities and understanding of how motivation and focus will get them there. One of the students I interviewed said, "I want Providence to want this for Providence." Exactly! 

Click here to read to the East Side Monthly column on line. It's also around town in print in the usual locations and appears below. Illustration is by ESM's Jessica Pollack.

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Capital-izing on Education*

Last month, two high school students from Providence spent a week in Washington, D.C. Before you ask, “So what?” take a few moments to find out who they are and why they went. By the time you’ve read to the end of this page, you’ll realize that this simple story contains a meaningful message about how real world-based learning can be rocket fuel for young minds... and how adults’ faith in the abilities of young people can be the match that sends them soaring.

The two students are sophomore Jenly Tavarez and junior Decontee Roberts; both attend Dr. Jorge Alvarez High School in South Providence. When I talked with them, Jenly and Decontee were gearing up to participate in Close Up, a national organization that provides learning experiences in Washington, D.C., to develop students’ leadership skills while familiarizing them with the workings of our democracy. Close Up students meet with Congressional delegates, participate in study visits to landmarks, visit the Supreme Court, take part in seminars and debates and observe Congress in action.

For these two students – the only participants from the Providence Public Schools – the Close Up trip is a singular opportunity to put their passions into context. “I have been taking AP government this year, and we’ve spent months having class discussions about how government works. I have so many questions in my notebook and I can’t wait to ask them,” said Decontee. “We’ve had so many conversations and debates in class, and I have so many ideas. I want to go to Washington and ask the people who work in government questions. How do they feel about the work that they do? What do they believe?”

Jenly noted that she was excited about the trip because, “I want to study law to learn everything that it has to do with government. Now I am going to go to Washington, D.C., to experience it firsthand. I am going to see how it is done in our nation’s capital.”

Both Decontee and Jenly have served as interns for Senator Juan Pichardo, and both are immigrants who, since their respective arrivals in the United States, have not spent time outside of Providence. Their Close Up trip represents a huge expansion not only of geography but also of possibilities.

Decontee came with her family to Providence in 2007 as a refugee. “I remember war,” she shared, “and I remember what it was like to come somewhere where there is no war, where it is peaceful and safe, where you are able to put your mind to something and get it. I want to become a doctor and travel. I want to know about different countries and how they work together. Having the opportunity to go to Washington gives me more details about how the United States works. I want to know everything and I am willing to do whatever it takes to get there.”

Jenly’s focus is the law. “Almost half of my family are lawyers in the Dominican Republic and through them, I’ve been able to see that laws are different here. In the United States, there is more structure and fairness. This has made me realize how important it is, when I become a lawyer, to defend people the correct way.”

Though both students received some funding from Close Up, they have devoted significant time and effort to raise money for the trip. Despite the significant financial challenge, assistant principal Jonathan Mendelsohn, who brought the Close Up opportunity to the attention of Alvarez’s faculty, is committed to including more students from throughout Providence in the years to come. “Students who are economically disadvantaged should have the same opportunities as others. They will benefit as leaders and students, and the community will benefit,” said Mendelsohn, who wants 40 or more students from middle and high schools across the city.

Alvarez is one of five Providence schools identified this year as needing intervention to spur academic success. “The students’ role in school change is critical,” said Mendelsohn. “We want students to get student government off the ground as a part of building positive school culture. We want students to more actively pursue opportunities to advocate for what they believe in, to address and solve issues. Students have to feel invested in their schools, not only here at Alvarez but all over Providence.”

For Jenly, the Close Up trip feels like destiny. “I want to be a leader for the whole school. I want everyone to want this for the school. I want Providence to want this for Providence. We are going to raise the game for everyone.”

So do your part. Find ways to light and stoke fires under our city’s teenage students, either by supporting their participation in Close Up or in other ways. As Jenly says, let’s want this for our young people.

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* East Side Monthly's editors titled this column "Capitol-izing on Education." I am not great at titles and headlines so I appreciate the catchy title. I think "Capital-izing" is a better fit as the Close Up trip is focused on DC as a whole, not just Congress. 

I Was There at Vartan Gregorian Elementary School (and perhaps at your school)

For May's East Side Monthly, I wrote about I Was There, a fabulous multi-dimensional oral history (and much more) fourth and fifth grade project. Text follows and is on the ESM website in prettier form here.

I didn't have the necessary magic ahead of deadline to do the project justice. I Was There is a great example of the ways learning happens inside and outside the classroom seamlessly for kids, of the ways that neighborhoods have valuable resources, of the way the school itself can and should be an essential resource for a neighborhood, and of the abilities of young people when they're engaged and supported in the right ways.

This is the sort of interdisciplinary, community-based learning that could and should happen at all schools, and though it's way late notice, I do want to share that there will be an I Was There  Teaching Institute on Friday, May 11 from 4:30-8:00 PM and Saturday, May 12 from 8:30 AM-5:30 PM at the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage. If you're interested in participating, let me know via comment or email to jill.davidson (at) gmail.com ASAP and I'll connect you with the organizers.

Illustration BY JESSICA POLLAK

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Living History: Experiential Learning and Place-Based Education
Immigration and neighborhood life. Narragansett Bay. Work in the Jewelry District. These are the themes of I Was There, an annual project at Vartan Gregorian Elementary School at Fox Point, a Providence public school built in 1951 and located on Wickenden Street in the heart of the Fox Point neighborhood. I Was There connects Vartan Gregorian Elementary School’s students and teachers with Fox Point community members, historians, storytellers, scientists, business and industry representatives, public officials, artists and chefs. Together, they all take a deep dive into topics that bring the community together as learners who create content that is displayed all over the walls of the school and shared online.

This year, Vartan Gregorian’s fourth and fifth graders are learning about the role of food in the neighborhood’s families, cultures and memories. “Placebased multidimensional education” best describes I Was There, which provides an arena for students to use resources throughout the entire neighborhood to learn about where they are, how history has evolved and what matters in their lives now. They learn oral history skills – taught first to their teachers by staff members and graduate students from Brown University’s John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage – to interview Fox Point residents and professionals. They go on field trips, this year to Johnson and Wales’ Culinary Arts Museum. They learn about food scientifically, studying taste, refrigeration and sanitation. They incorporate standards-based learning from across the rest of the curriculum to create a final presentation and add to a living museum in the school, for which they serve as trained docents. They create content for the I Was There website. The project provides multiple avenues for students to be historians, archivists, writers, photographers, videographers, event planners and artists. Every Vartan Gregorian fourth and fifth grader learns, develops skills and makes a lasting contribution to their school and its neighborhood.

In collaboration with teachers and the principal, Vartan Gregorian parents Wendy Grossman and Catherine Carr Kelly started I Was There in 2008. Grossman and Kelly wanted to know more about the neighborhood where their kids were going to school and felt that the school urgently needed more arts education in the curriculum. “We thought that there should be some way to honor the school itself, the neighborhood and the past,” said Kelly, the executive director of the Central Square Theater in Cambridge. “We wanted to know what had made the neighborhood important,” added Grossman, an activities therapist at Butler Hospital. To support and sustain I Was There, Grossman and Kelly have secured funding from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, the Rhode Island Foundation, the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities and VSA Arts, which funds arts and humanities projects for people with disabilities (the project fully includes all fourth and fifth graders with learning and other disabilities at the school).

Vartan Gregorian Elementary’s fourth and fifth grade teachers say that I Was There is powerful for them professionally, reporting extraordinary engagement among their students and an appreciation for the professional development opportunities that result from the connection to the John Nicholas Brown Center. They also appreciate the ways that I Was There reinforced the role of the school as the center of the neighborhood. As special education teacher Maureen Kenner described, “People in this area were forward-thinking. Where the school is now had been a park. The neighbors wanted to preserve green space and advocated that the school keep that sense of place with a courtyard, which still has a beech tree that connects the past to the present.”

Fifth grade teacher Jacqueline Fish observed that I Was There created a unique opportunity for experiential learning fused with critical thinking. “One of the best aspects of this project is that our students learn how to ask real, deep, meaningful questions,” Fish commented. Fourth grade teacher Eileen Pedroso Afonso agreed, noting, “This isn’t a textbook. It’s living history through talking with community members - our students learn through conversation.” Pedroso Afonso grew up in Fox Point herself and has brought family and community members to the school to be a part of the project over the years. “Every year, people want to come back. They’re excited to be a part of the history that our students are documenting and sharing.”

This spring, I Was There will culminate with an exhibition and presentation open to the public on May 6-8 CORRECTION: Thursday, May 3 from 6:00pm-8:00pm*. Students and community members will share memoirs, cookbooks, photos, poems and more at a community dinner and other events. They hope you’ll join in.

Visit  http://www.iwasthereproject.org/ for more info.

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*Very sorry to have reported the wrong date!!!