Students Use Classroom to Inspire Others

Some of my favorite teaching moments are when I can shut up and let students teach each other. This magic happened recently when a group of high school students from one of Chicago’s most under-resourced neighborhoods came to our university campus—just a few miles—but an entire world away.

The high school students are part of the Umoja Student Development Corporation [2] writing program. They use all forms of writing—poetry, free-writes, reflective prompts—to reach the students. In this way, Umoja can be an extraordinary model for school-community partnerships.

Umoja provides the intensive educational services to high-risk students that most schools cannot. They offer homework clubs, spoken-word poetry teams, writing training, job shadows and college campus tours, all guided by the teaching staff.

The college students are models of success. They include leaders in university student government, presidents of student groups and a stellar student-leader-athlete. They are all students of color, of multiple ethnicities and identities, representing the diversity within “diversity.” They all have different majors. They come from hometowns that include New York, Los Angeles and Detroit. One college student grew up in a Chicago neighborhood not far from where the high school students live.

The college students introduce themselves. They talk about their majors and hometowns. They describe, with passion, their impressive lists of activities, leadership positions and accomplishments. One says she’s considering becoming a pediatrician.

Then the high school teens introduce themselves, describe their love of writing, of rapping, of poetry. Some are painfully shy. Others are full of adolescent bravado and boldness. Some had never thought of college. Most had never been to a college campus, nor did they know anyone attending college. Others said ours was now their “dream school.” One says she, too, hopes to become a pediatrician.

I’d planned a detailed writing lesson that we never got to, thank goodness, because the high school students start lobbing questions.

How did you stay on your path and not get distracted?

What are your friends from your neighborhood doing now?

What did you sacrifice most to make it here?

The questions are raw, honest and from the heart. So are the answers.

One of the college students says she comes from a similar background, pushed through similar struggles. She admits she was so tightly focused on her success she says she fears she left others behind.

“Take people with you,” she urged. She offered specifics: Talk about college to your friends, your brothers and sisters. Share what you know. Don’t go on ahead alone.

Another college student challenges the high school teens to keep focused. She writes down everything she does, keeps her whole life on track—in check—by having a specific plan for every single day. Create goals. Write them down. Don’t waste time. Only choose activities and friends that help you meet those goals. If it doesn’t help you move forward, cut it loose.

The fidgety, talkative high schoolers who lobbed questions are now silent, still, entranced.

“What did I sacrifice?” asked the college student-athlete, a charismatic powerhouse. “Being right.”

The younger students look confused until he offers passionate testimony on humility. It doesn’t matter if you know you did that math problem right or ran that play perfectly or wrote the world’s greatest essay, he says. If a professor or coach says you got it wrong, then you got it wrong.

“Learn to learn,” he demanded, literally spreading his arms wide across the table, as if pulling them toward him.

Nobody said a word.

Don’t you guys have anything else to say, any more questions, he repeated, visibly straining, pushing his arms out wider. “I’m trying to have a conversation, here,” he said. “I’m trying to reach you.”

The next day I get an email from one of the high school teachers. His students are abuzz about how they can stay in touch with mine. And, one of his most-struggling students “came to me for the first time today to help him find extra outside support.”

Cytrynbaum is a journalist and instructor at Northwestern University.