This summer, 12+ welcomed six new talented individuals to the team through the 2014-2015 Fellows Initiative. These Fellows are commissioned to implement workshops, to provide academic assistance, and to serve our students in the PLUS Centers of our partner schools, Kensington Health Sciences Academy and Penn Treaty School. Here, we document their stories. 

Christine, a native to the Philadelphia area and graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, came to 12+ with a heart to serve inner city youth. She is currently pursuing her Masters in Biblical Counseling and enjoys sharing her love of dance and fashion with her students. 

In our neighborhood of Kensington, our students come from very different backgrounds. You walk around and you can’t help but notice the brokenness that defines this neighborhood and you meet these students and you see how this environment  has shaped them and their outlook in life. In the hallways you see the hustle and bustle of getting to class, you hear the yelling between people, you see fairly obvious cliques. In the PLUS Center, students come in to use the computer, to say “hi” to the staff members they know, or to just hang out with their friends. Throughout the school there is a mixing of minds, cultures, and personalities all in one place.

What does it look like to cultivate culture? How does culture shape who we are, how we think, how we act? What does culture mean to an individual versus a community? These were some of the questions that came to mind as I started thinking about this year and how my job description as “Culture Fellow” would play out. Often times whenever I think about culture, I consider what identifies me. My nationality, race, sex, religious affiliation, the list goes on. Everything that could define me, or anyone, has subcultures tied to it that somehow feed into a greater culture. How our cultures shape us, relates into how we shape society. So how do you go about creating a unifying culture in a place that has so many different cultures pulsating through it? How do you get the student body/school to “buy in” to what we’re trying to create?

PLUS Leader Team Building Activity

One of our programs is our PLUS Leader program which trains student leaders in developing their leadership skills. This past week we had our second PLUS Leader Workshop looking at the “Peaks and Valleys” in our lives and the value of our personal narratives. Our exercise was to map out the narrative in our lives identifying high and low points and then sharing them with each other. After I explained the activity, I mentioned that we’d be sharing our narratives with each other, and immediately I saw looks of panic across the room. This required them to be honest and vulnerable with their peers in a way that maybe they hadn’t before, and many of them were notably anxious. After giving them time to construct their “peaks and valleys” map, we split into groups and shared. I made sure the students knew that whatever was shared in this space stayed in this space, and in insuring the safety of their stories, many of them opened up in a way that I wasn’t expecting. It’s really easy to talk about oneself in a general way to meet the requirements of an activity without really pushing one to be more intentionally vulnerable. However these students went deeper, expanding upon their points and sharing details about themselves and their personal lives that both moved me and impressed me with how brave they were being. What encouraged me afterwards, was how the students responded after each person shared. They encouraged each other, they affirmed each other, they shared stories of how they related to certain aspects of each other's stories, and suddenly it didn’t feel like we were just a group of different individuals, but a community of people who had shared in the victories and hardships of life.

Walking into the doors of KHSA, there are seemingly apparent differences between the students and myself. In our society, we’re often taught that despite being a “melting pot”, these differences create two parties. “Us” and “them”. Between these two parties, there’s a feeling of apprehension towards the unknown, and so everyone has their walls up, guarding themselves from being vulnerable. On several occasions, our team has been trying to take pictures of our students, and when prompted to smile, a lot of them reply, “I don’t smile. I just don’t do it.” Even with something as little as getting someone to smile, you see how a culture shaped by toughness and mistrust of those around you has shaped a lot of our students to seem cold and   tough on the outside. But they’re only youths. Yet the harsh reality of life has taught them that the only way to survive is to “grow up” and fast.

I get it. In a lot of ways, I can relate to this caution towards anything vulnerable and “soft”. I know what it’s like to feel like there’s no one that believes in you. To not know who to trust. To feel stuck. So many times I see the teenage version of myself in my students, and my heart cries out for them. In the greater scheme of things, I can’t change what happens outside the walls of the PLUS Center, or our school. I can’t change the hardships that my students face. And if I was coming in with this savior complex, it’d be really easy to be discouraged in realizing how “little” I can actually change in a student’s life. But regardless of that, what I can do, is I can engage this culture of being cool and guarded and cultivate a space and culture for vulnerability, warmth, and inner strength to thrive. I think that’s why I value so much of what it is that we do here at 12+. Obviously, there’s this focus on academics and achieving post-secondary education and goals, but beyond that, we focus on building relationships with our students. By building these relationships, we engage this point of contact between cultures and create a new culture. In this space, we are able to break through the walls and see the core of each student: their dreams, fears, aspirations, etc. It’s in this space that we can Believe, Act, and Inspire. And it’s in this space that we can change and be changed.

Have I figured out all the questions that I’ve been wrestling with? Probably not. However I’m starting to understand that rather than trying to find all the answers to these theoretical questions and come up with radical ways to engage and cultivate the culture at the school, a lot more gets accomplished through the conversations, laughs, hugs, “peaks” and “valleys” that we share. And the culture that we create is no longer defined by segregation, but by unity and friendship.

This summer, 12+ welcomed six new talented individuals to the team through the 2014-2015 Fellows Initiative. These Fellows are commissioned to implement workshops, to provide academic assistance, and to serve our students in the PLUS Centers of our partner schools, Kensington Health Sciences Academy and Penn Treaty School. Here, we document their stories. 

Dustin, a Philly native and graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, comes to 12 PLUS with a background in education consulting and college advising and a love of ramen and Game of Thrones. Dustin shares his insights about his time at Penn Treaty School. 

We started our 9th grade RAISE workshop with a simple question. “If you were to live the rest of your life wearing a t-shirt with one word on it, what would that word be?” Responses ranged from “ACDC” and “Eagles” to “weird” and “trust,”

But when we asked Atiya, a student who was new to the class, she responded with “Autism.”

The word hung in the air for a second before Andrea, our site director, evenly asked further, “Why autism?”

“Because that’s who I am. Everything about my life is centered around it.”

A short dialog around personal identity vs. labels, of awareness vs. prejudgment followed, but because of limited time, the conversation was left very much open ended. Nevertheless, the room, which had been rowdy a second before her response, became hushed and attentive and transformed into a safe space for students to open up. I felt the atmosphere in the room shift, and the workshop organically evolved into something more than I thought it could be.

Perhaps the greatest misconception that I had was that as an educator, I was the one approaching students. I felt assured that I was the one coming with the answers. I, of course, made sure to be cautious towards having a messiah complex but I still felt somewhat self-important. However, Atiya and other students continuously chip away at that misplaced confidence. They challenge me when I see that as I take one step forward, they are taking a hundred steps to meet me. I see Atiya, Brittany, Michael, and so many of the students break through a layer of fear, of secrets, of battered self-confidence every time they speak up.

When students come for help, for them it’s very much a struggle to approach me. Eye contact made during casual conversations over food and football wanders when discussing their futures. Heads are held down. The loudest of students start to mumble. Still they diligently come back and sit before me. In workshops, students give jokes as answers to our serious questions, questions that make these students far too vulnerable in front of friends. At other times, students respond bravely to lighter inquiries as Atiya did.

Daily, there are also quietly powerful moments at Penn Treaty and in the PLUS Center: the first time that 9th graders have the courage to walk into the PLUS Center, morning greetings and handshakes from the shyest of students, workshop homework filled with real answers, and intimate and consoling discussions about home situations and broken relationships between students and fellows all dropping their guards. The courage and character students show at Penn Treaty gives me goosebumps. Sometimes it leaves me confused. With complexes and hardships that I will never be able to understand, the students constantly encourage and challenge me with their vulnerability.

Although there is little time to meditate upon what has been learned daily, I know that my perspective is becoming clearer and my future a bit hazier. I’m learning so much about the individuals and culture here at 12+ and Penn Treaty but I’m wondering now about how I’ll be at the end of this fellowship. I know I will have an enduring hunger to tackle my own demons as these students do each day, to push myself out of my box and overcome fears, but there is still so much more to process. It’s only been a bit over a month since the fellows started school at Penn Treaty and Kensington Health Sciences, but when we come together to discuss our experiences – some sad, some encouraging, most hilarious and candid – I feel as though there is an unspoken agreement that we will not end this school year unchanged.  Just for now though, I don’t think any of us has figured out in what way exactly.  

This summer, 12+ welcomed six new talented individuals to the team through the 2014-2015 Fellows Initiative. These Fellows are commissioned to implement workshops, to provide academic assistance, and to serve our students in the PLUS Centers of our partner schools, Kensington Health Sciences Academy and Penn Treaty School. Here, we document their stories and experiences. 

Jazzmin, a proud graduate of Yale University and lover of cheesy romantic comedies, joined 12+ after teaching in an after-school program in Southern California.  After the first two weeks of the school year, Jazzmin reflects on her time at Kensington Health Sciences Academy (KHSA).

On the first day of classes at KHSA, every passing period brought a new rush of students doing a double take as they walked into the Center. “It looks so different!”, and “Where’s Sarah/Ester/Albert/Ray?” were the two most frequently heard phrases that day. With a changed setup and a new set of fellows, Christine, Aelita and myself, we had altered what many students expected to return to on their first day. But as we talked to the students, introduced ourselves, and heard the stories of why they’d been looking forward to seeing the other 12+ staff it became clear that this space and its inhabitants were an integral part of this school. We had heard this from administrators, teachers, and the 12+ staff, but until students stormed in, happy to report back their summer adventures, ready to continue on their high school journey with 12+ at their side, it hadn’t seemed real.

 Throughout the day I realized why it was that our Center had been so many students’ destination. The PLUS Center, from the moment students passed through KHSA’s doors became so much more than its four walls. At any given moment it was a hangout spot, a place to do homework, a library, or a resource center. Most of the time it served all of these purposes at once, each corner buzzing with students and staff making the space their own.

Only two weeks in the school year have passed. Yet in that time, the other Fellows and I have become the faces sought out each morning. Students know our names, remember the silly things we do, and bring in the resumes/essays/applications we offered to help with the day before. We’ve cheered on the sidelines in their soccer and volleyball games (GO TIGERS!), and been floored by their skills in chess, poetry, and magic. In that same time we’ve gone from shaking hands and nervously introducing ourselves to teachers and administrators, to being sought out as resources and trading inside jokes. In short, we’ve become a part of Kensington.

Jazzmin and Aelita pose with KHSA freshmen who are excited about 12+'s new college readiness program, RAISE!