Life of a Fellow: Olivia
Olivia studied Film, Cinema and Video Studies as well as English at Oberlin College before joining the 12 Plus team. She is committed to tackling issues regarding equal pathways to post-secondary opportunities, and it’s a great privilege to have her as a Fellow at Kensington Health Sciences Academy this year!
The first people to make an impact on me at Kensington Health Sciences Academy were made out of plastic. I was walking through the empty, humid halls in August, no more than a week after moving to Philly, still unsure what exactly the job I had moved for would entail, or what school I would be placed in, when I turned a corner into a classroom and was greeted by piles of medical mannequins strewn out among the desks and chairs. The mannequins ranged from fragments-- the stray arm, leg, and brain stacked above a pile textbooks or peeking out of a half- open file cabinet-- to full on tableaus. In the back of the classroom, a plastic woman wearing a patient gown lay propped on a hospital bed, waiting to be operated on.
I had been told about KHSA’s Career and Technical Education programs- which allow students to participate in intensive classes in either Dental, Health Related Technology, or Pharmacy in order to gain real life experience and even licenses in their desired fields. However, it wasn’t until seeing these mannequins that I saw how integral this program and the hands on learning that comes along with it was to KHSA’s culture. What I saw in that classroom was strange, chaotic, and completely unique and special, and so has been my experience so far at KHSA.
Shortly after my introduction to KHSA’s plastic people, I got to meet the schools’ real ones, who, of course, play a much larger factor in making it the place it is. What has most impressed me about KHSA is the emphasis on community. It’s a vague word that manifests in many different ways-- from the community of English As a Second Language students who act as welcome wagons/ translator/ tour guides to any new students who don’t speak english, to the community of musicians who meet almost every day during lunch and after school to play 11 person ensembles of the saddest Adele and Drake songs, but always leave grinning. Then there’s the overarching sense of community, the thing that keeps students hanging around for up to two hours after school lets out, and has graduates coming back several times a month to offer words of wisdom to current students and recruit former teachers (and us at 12plus) to help edit college essays or polish resumes.
“I’ve learned that so much of the job is not in the teaching, or the doing...but in the being.”
It was clear from my first days that members of the KHSA community have each other’s backs, and working there has been about trying to return the favor. I’ve learned that so much of the job is not in the teaching, or the doing (although it definitely requires a lot of both) but in the being. When a student asks me for help, I go to sit next to them to see what needs to be done, and more than half of the time, (whether the students realize it or not) my job is done after that: with the sitting. Often, whatever math problem, college application, or scholarship essay will appear next to me as if like magic.
I know it’s not magic, my presence isn’t a good luck token that inspires academic success. And I know that in September, when the Seniors I’ve grown close to go on to their colleges, jobs and training programs they will be able to thrive without me next to them. I know that. Hopefully, they know that; I’ll keep reminding them. But in the meantime, I feel lucky to get to play my part in the community that exists in KHSA, and after I leave I will still be connected to this community, which is caring, supportive, constantly growing and adapting, and unlike the mannequins who greeted me on my first day, couldn’t be more real.
