[Music]
how many of you remember the name of
your first grade teacher okay Constanta
how many of you remember the name of the
program assistant who worked in the
local community nonprofit that worked in
your school not a single hand but for me
and for many students with who come from
backgrounds like mine the answer to that
second question actually could have been
the difference maker it could be the
difference for me between being here and
giving this talk this morning
or being incarcerated being unemployed
or even worse so today I want to talk a
bit about how we frame the idea of
underachievement so when you think of
underachievement or underperforming
schools the reality is that there are
certain students who come to mind and by
and large the students are low-income
and mostly of color now let’s take a
step back and think about those words
for a second underachieving at-risk
challenged how might you approach your
life approach approach your work or
approached in the classroom if you were
perceived to be at risk or challenged or
underperforming however my life
experience has taught me that that
oftentimes not only leads to a negative
perception of oneself but also leads to
misinformed policy decisions but also
can lead to a deficit thought in deficit
approaches to education so with that
some of the things that I’ve been able
to encounter in my life and in my work
has taught me that that does not have to
be the case I want to talk today a bit
about kind of bridging the gap between
schools and communities working to
identify the assets within communities
that already exists and partnering those
with classrooms and school teachers in
an effort to leverage and create the
most opportunities for students I have
seen how students take the most shape so
with that I want to talk a bit today
about kind of what it means to bridge
the gap between schools and communities
so when you think about life outside of
the classroom or a life outside of work
when you walk into work in the morning
you don’t leave everything that happened
to you the night before
or that morning or especially not the
years of life experience to that date
you bring all of that with you in an
inner and it impacts and interacts with
the ways in which you’re able to engage
with that space that’s no different for
schoolchildren if you live in poverty or
you’re experiencing homelessness or a
difficult family situation all of those
things undoubtedly is going to influence
how you’re able to interact and engage
with the educational space so given that
and given that these issues are historic
and have historically impacted certain
communities how might we approach how we
educate students and how we bridge that
gap between what students walk in the
classroom with and what we’re teaching
them in school and for me I’ve seen that
take shape in a few different ways even
though this is a complex historic
problem there’s not one solution but I
do believe that when we work to bridge
the gap between schools and communities
and identify programs in neighborhoods
that help support students we can help
students help realize their full
potential so today I want to share a few
examples with you that elucidate and
explain kind of how this has been most
influential for me so I’ll start with
the personal example so I grew up in
Bridgeport Connecticut as a low-income
kid and my neighborhood was deeply
impacted by poverty and our only means
of kind of sustaining ourselves and
sustaining our lives were Medicaid child
support food assistance cash assistance
all of those things so in light of that
talking and going back to kind of how I
interacted with the educational space
when I walked through the streets of the
east side of Bridgeport all those things
came to school with me if my family
didn’t know where my next meal was
coming from or how we were going to turn
the lights on that didn’t change when I
went to school the next morning I
brought all of that with me and despite
those challenges and despite the
circumstances that are plaguing my
community and plaguing my neighborhood I
got good grades I was the beneficiary of
a family even though I’m one of the few
who has received a high school diploma
will be the first to graduate from
college this year alright next year
despite those things I have that I was
the beneficiary of a family that
understood that education was the tool
and was going to be the means for
getting me out of that community but
every family and every kid is not the
beneficiary of that and even though I
had a strong family background and a
great pet a great mother and a great
grandmother who understood
kind of what education meant for me
getting out of my community I still had
no context for what life looked like
outside of the Eastside of Bridgeport in
fact it actually constrained me to the
east side of bridge for I could count
the number of times at one hand before
the eighth grade that I left my
neighborhood until this program this
program was called the Yale bridge for
gira
partnership and what this program did
was it partnered Yale University
students and Yale University with local
underperforming Bridgeport public
schools as it means to provide those
students who generally like I said never
left the confines of their neighborhood
with assets and resources available to
Yale University students so I was a
seventh grader 12 years old and angsty
as always and I got the opportunity to
go on this weekend trip to Yale
University and I brought home this
permission slip to my mother and they
were like absolutely not what is Yale
where are you going what does that even
mean and you know 12 and like I said
angsty I of course was you know baffled
as to what you know this is a university
what could be so bad about it but I
think upon growth in deep reflection now
I realized that this fear this
apprehension tell initially allowed me
to go on this trip was rooted in a
justified fear of the unknown that
unknown being kind of what life was
outside of the confines of our
neighborhood in bridge for it and what
that means and what that could mean for
me and what that could mean for my
brother eventually you know I am giving
this talk so they did let me go on the
field trip and I got up one Saturday
morning at 7 a.m. and wrote a school bus
of i-95 into New Haven and Yale
University is 15 minutes maybe from my
house but like I said kind of the
impacts of how the neighborhood has been
segregated and things like that
constrained me to this neighborhood so I
had no idea that this place and that
this place this Ivy League institution
with the beacon of hope and opportunity
for many people was this close to my
house it was a 15 minute bus ride and
when people were describing Yale
University I thought I was like taking a
plane somewhere going very far away but
in reality this was a resource that was
available to me right in my backyard so
I did you know the regular college tour
I toured the campus and ate lunch in the
dining hall and I went to the bookstore
and was really living the life of a
college student at the angsty age of 12
and after that after we took the usual
campus tour
we went into a Yale University lecture
hall and we sat down we watch – what is
still to this day one of my favorite
movies the Great Debaters and I was in
awe of you know the history and you know
the representation that that movie had
represented so I was watching the movie
and then after the movie they tell us
that we’re going to simulate our own
debate so now let’s take a step back
from this you know that Friday I was
just another low-income kid you know on
the streets of bridge for getting good
grades doing the work but still
constraints in my neighborhood now today
I’m in a Yale University lecture hall
engaging an actual intellectual academic
debate very shortly after we went to the
auditorium right next door and we
watched the annual great debate between
Howard University and Yale University
and I’m in awe of you know people who
look like me onstage engaging an immense
academic debate on an Ivy League ad on
an Ivy League campus at an Ivy League
institution 15 minutes from my house I
get on this bus and I’m completely
nerding out and like what has happened
today it’s been the most amazing 12
hours of my life and I’ve seen a world
of difference and I still cannot believe
that this week 15 minutes away from my
house and on that bus I remember
thinking to myself I’m gonna go back
there I deserve to be there I’m going to
go to college someday and after that I
embarked on a journey that would lead
that would later lead me to here and to
kind of being the student the person
that’s talking to you today that’s
example number one example number two
comes from the work that I’ve been able
to engage in embark on embark on here in
DC so as a college student coming to DC
I share a lot and with many of my peers
who decided they were going to come to
Washington DC for study I was interested
in national politics I was I want to see
the National Mall Congress the White
House all those really cool amazing
things but I came to the city and of
course was in awe of all that this city
had to offer and kind of the opportunity
here and it being such an international
beacon of hope for so many people though
very early on in my my life I had the
opportunity life here on campus I had
the opportunity to work in all eight
Ward’s of DC and they were felt like
eight completely different places
similar to the Fairfield County that I
grew up in
where you could be 15 minutes standing
in poverty in abject poverty and always
surrounded by folks who look like you
and share the same income bracket in 15
minutes down the road
VI Yale University I felt the same thing
here in DC it was baffled I had to come
to DC for you know to get trained in
city policy and things like that but the
same kinds of inequality that I saw
deeply rooted in my own community and
neighborhood manifested itself here in
Washington DC and I wanted to do
something about it and you know as you
know as I continue to work in the city
and work with communities and work with
parents and work with families I
determined that the void in the district
was similar to the void that I
experienced in my own neighborhood there
was no systematic way to address kind of
the gap between neighborhoods and what
communities were experiencing at home
and what was happening in the classroom
and you know through that work I came
across this program called adopted
school and I was like well that sounds
cool like adopting to school I’ve seen
like you know you seen the adoptive
block signs and all these other kinds of
things I was like what is what what does
it actually mean to adoptive school and
this program structurally partners
businesses and organizations with local
schools in an effort to meet shared
goals and help support the teachers the
community members and the students in
that school that’s like wow that sounds
cool like how do I get involved with
that and I think what really resounded I
mean what really what really what it
really meant to me was that it gave me
the opportunity to do the same kind of
work that had meant so much for me
growing up with that I applied with a
few members of my scholarship program
when we got a school and we adopted a
local school in Northeast DC a great
school a multi-generational community
that worked to support the same kinds of
students that look like me and that grew
up in neighborhoods like mine and
through that work were able to do and
accomplish a number of goals including
starting a mentorship program and
putting on a number of community events
but I want to tell you one story but I
think perfectly encapsulates the power
of these kinds of neighborhood community
connections this April we brought almost
200 students to campus now it was a lot
of course and it meant like a lot of
logistics and coordinating and things
like that
but from a structural standpoint LaSalle
Backus the school that we adopted is 15
minutes down the road similar to the
jetty at Hillsdale elementary school in
for that I went to that was 15 minutes
down the road from Yale and it took the
effort of course of a number of people
and a great team of dedicated teachers
and students and community members and
college students on our end but the
reality was is that it was connecting
students fifteen minutes down the road
and we saw what the power of that
connection could do and mean for a
student who was getting good grades and
achieving and saw the potential in
themselves but didn’t have the access
and didn’t have the exposure and didn’t
understand how to attain that so with
that we brought the 200 students to
campus from ages six all the way up to
eighth grade and the beaming the beaming
eyes I felt like I was seeing myself
again and so many of these little kids
who had never had the option to attend
or see a university like ours even
though it was 15 minutes down the road
I remember kids walking up to me saying
like oh my gosh I could just stuff my
face with ice cream or I just ate all
the hotdogs I could have never eaten
there imagine is this what college is
like you can eat unlimited Pizza what
does this mean and I think in that even
though like yes they were stuffing their
faces with ice cream they were also
running around a college campus and they
were seeing college students college
students who look like them and we’re 15
minutes away from their house and that
is powerful and that is powerful so with
that I want to I wanted to take a step
back and analyze kind of what these two
examples teach us I think first we have
to think about the ways in which like I
said these resources and assets are
twenty minutes apart and the effort it
takes to connect resources and
communities and use the assets in things
that exist within communities as a means
to bring people together saves time
resources and efficiency secondly like I
said access and exposure is key it it
means a world of difference to be able
to bring people together and engage
across difference in a meaningful way
both for people as people as a part of
institutions but also for those students
and their families thirdly this these
kinds of access and exposure programs I
think teaches a lot about kind of what
happens when we work we reverse how we
approach that deficit model that I was
talking about when they opened that if
we think and take a step back about kind
of how we frame underachievement
and how we frame students who are at
risk
and we’ve flipped on its head and think
about how we teach kids and how we show
kids that we map that they matter and
that we believe in them and that they
have the same kinds of access and
opportunities to access resources that
any other student does so I want to
leave you today with three key takeaways
if you get nothing else from kind of
what I’ve talked about today first there
is a danger of a single story and even
though I’ve given you two compelling
examples of kind of how the person who
got on the stage how I got here and
kinds of the examples of the works that
I’ve been able to engage in we have to
not be naive to think that that’s
everyone’s story and it’s important
incumbent upon us to do the work
particularly when we’re working with
marginalized communities to understand
the context of that community and not
ascribe a certain set of circumstances
or statistics to that group before we do
that work secondly engagement is key we
have to do the work to educate ourselves
and do the engagement in our daily lives
everyday if we’re going to ever reverse
this trend and bridge the gap between
schools and communities we have to think
critically about kind of what can we do
every day and it looks different for
everyone
maybe it’s reading an article a month
about schools in your neighborhood maybe
it’s mentoring a student maybe it’s
volunteering in your kids school figure
out what that thing is and do it and do
it continuously and don’t stop doing it
because once you stop doing it we see
the same kinds of trends that have
subjected so many students who look like
me and are from Bridgeport Connecticut –
the same kinds of circumstances that are
two different circumstances and the ones
in which I’ve occupied today in the last
example and the last key takeaway that I
want to leave you with today is kind of
education as a cornerstone no matter
your feel your discipline or what work
you do whether you’re a scientist or
you’re a doctor or you’re a lawyer or
you are an educator education is a
cornerstone of the work that we all do
how we educate and how we build a
generation of young leaders is incumbent
upon us and impacts every discipline no
matter what you do or where you sit it’s
not all of us to bridge the gap thank
you
[Applause]
how many of you remember the name of
your first grade teacher okay Constanta
how many of you remember the name of the
program assistant who worked in the
local community nonprofit that worked in
your school not a single hand but for me
and for many students with who come from
backgrounds like mine the answer to that
second question actually could have been
the difference maker it could be the
difference for me between being here and
giving this talk this morning
or being incarcerated being unemployed
or even worse so today I want to talk a
bit about how we frame the idea of
underachievement so when you think of
underachievement or underperforming
schools the reality is that there are
certain students who come to mind and by
and large the students are low-income
and mostly of color now let’s take a
step back and think about those words
for a second underachieving at-risk
challenged how might you approach your
life approach approach your work or
approached in the classroom if you were
perceived to be at risk or challenged or
underperforming however my life
experience has taught me that that
oftentimes not only leads to a negative
perception of oneself but also leads to
misinformed policy decisions but also
can lead to a deficit thought in deficit
approaches to education so with that
some of the things that I’ve been able
to encounter in my life and in my work
has taught me that that does not have to
be the case I want to talk today a bit
about kind of bridging the gap between
schools and communities working to
identify the assets within communities
that already exists and partnering those
with classrooms and school teachers in
an effort to leverage and create the
most opportunities for students I have
seen how students take the most shape so
with that I want to talk a bit today
about kind of what it means to bridge
the gap between schools and communities
so when you think about life outside of
the classroom or a life outside of work
when you walk into work in the morning
you don’t leave everything that happened
to you the night before
or that morning or especially not the
years of life experience to that date
you bring all of that with you in an
inner and it impacts and interacts with
the ways in which you’re able to engage
with that space that’s no different for
schoolchildren if you live in poverty or
you’re experiencing homelessness or a
difficult family situation all of those
things undoubtedly is going to influence
how you’re able to interact and engage
with the educational space so given that
and given that these issues are historic
and have historically impacted certain
communities how might we approach how we
educate students and how we bridge that
gap between what students walk in the
classroom with and what we’re teaching
them in school and for me I’ve seen that
take shape in a few different ways even
though this is a complex historic
problem there’s not one solution but I
do believe that when we work to bridge
the gap between schools and communities
and identify programs in neighborhoods
that help support students we can help
students help realize their full
potential so today I want to share a few
examples with you that elucidate and
explain kind of how this has been most
influential for me so I’ll start with
the personal example so I grew up in
Bridgeport Connecticut as a low-income
kid and my neighborhood was deeply
impacted by poverty and our only means
of kind of sustaining ourselves and
sustaining our lives were Medicaid child
support food assistance cash assistance
all of those things so in light of that
talking and going back to kind of how I
interacted with the educational space
when I walked through the streets of the
east side of Bridgeport all those things
came to school with me if my family
didn’t know where my next meal was
coming from or how we were going to turn
the lights on that didn’t change when I
went to school the next morning I
brought all of that with me and despite
those challenges and despite the
circumstances that are plaguing my
community and plaguing my neighborhood I
got good grades I was the beneficiary of
a family even though I’m one of the few
who has received a high school diploma
will be the first to graduate from
college this year alright next year
despite those things I have that I was
the beneficiary of a family that
understood that education was the tool
and was going to be the means for
getting me out of that community but
every family and every kid is not the
beneficiary of that and even though I
had a strong family background and a
great pet a great mother and a great
grandmother who understood
kind of what education meant for me
getting out of my community I still had
no context for what life looked like
outside of the Eastside of Bridgeport in
fact it actually constrained me to the
east side of bridge for I could count
the number of times at one hand before
the eighth grade that I left my
neighborhood until this program this
program was called the Yale bridge for
gira
partnership and what this program did
was it partnered Yale University
students and Yale University with local
underperforming Bridgeport public
schools as it means to provide those
students who generally like I said never
left the confines of their neighborhood
with assets and resources available to
Yale University students so I was a
seventh grader 12 years old and angsty
as always and I got the opportunity to
go on this weekend trip to Yale
University and I brought home this
permission slip to my mother and they
were like absolutely not what is Yale
where are you going what does that even
mean and you know 12 and like I said
angsty I of course was you know baffled
as to what you know this is a university
what could be so bad about it but I
think upon growth in deep reflection now
I realized that this fear this
apprehension tell initially allowed me
to go on this trip was rooted in a
justified fear of the unknown that
unknown being kind of what life was
outside of the confines of our
neighborhood in bridge for it and what
that means and what that could mean for
me and what that could mean for my
brother eventually you know I am giving
this talk so they did let me go on the
field trip and I got up one Saturday
morning at 7 a.m. and wrote a school bus
of i-95 into New Haven and Yale
University is 15 minutes maybe from my
house but like I said kind of the
impacts of how the neighborhood has been
segregated and things like that
constrained me to this neighborhood so I
had no idea that this place and that
this place this Ivy League institution
with the beacon of hope and opportunity
for many people was this close to my
house it was a 15 minute bus ride and
when people were describing Yale
University I thought I was like taking a
plane somewhere going very far away but
in reality this was a resource that was
available to me right in my backyard so
I did you know the regular college tour
I toured the campus and ate lunch in the
dining hall and I went to the bookstore
and was really living the life of a
college student at the angsty age of 12
and after that after we took the usual
campus tour
we went into a Yale University lecture
hall and we sat down we watch – what is
still to this day one of my favorite
movies the Great Debaters and I was in
awe of you know the history and you know
the representation that that movie had
represented so I was watching the movie
and then after the movie they tell us
that we’re going to simulate our own
debate so now let’s take a step back
from this you know that Friday I was
just another low-income kid you know on
the streets of bridge for getting good
grades doing the work but still
constraints in my neighborhood now today
I’m in a Yale University lecture hall
engaging an actual intellectual academic
debate very shortly after we went to the
auditorium right next door and we
watched the annual great debate between
Howard University and Yale University
and I’m in awe of you know people who
look like me onstage engaging an immense
academic debate on an Ivy League ad on
an Ivy League campus at an Ivy League
institution 15 minutes from my house I
get on this bus and I’m completely
nerding out and like what has happened
today it’s been the most amazing 12
hours of my life and I’ve seen a world
of difference and I still cannot believe
that this week 15 minutes away from my
house and on that bus I remember
thinking to myself I’m gonna go back
there I deserve to be there I’m going to
go to college someday and after that I
embarked on a journey that would lead
that would later lead me to here and to
kind of being the student the person
that’s talking to you today that’s
example number one example number two
comes from the work that I’ve been able
to engage in embark on embark on here in
DC so as a college student coming to DC
I share a lot and with many of my peers
who decided they were going to come to
Washington DC for study I was interested
in national politics I was I want to see
the National Mall Congress the White
House all those really cool amazing
things but I came to the city and of
course was in awe of all that this city
had to offer and kind of the opportunity
here and it being such an international
beacon of hope for so many people though
very early on in my my life I had the
opportunity life here on campus I had
the opportunity to work in all eight
Ward’s of DC and they were felt like
eight completely different places
similar to the Fairfield County that I
grew up in
where you could be 15 minutes standing
in poverty in abject poverty and always
surrounded by folks who look like you
and share the same income bracket in 15
minutes down the road
VI Yale University I felt the same thing
here in DC it was baffled I had to come
to DC for you know to get trained in
city policy and things like that but the
same kinds of inequality that I saw
deeply rooted in my own community and
neighborhood manifested itself here in
Washington DC and I wanted to do
something about it and you know as you
know as I continue to work in the city
and work with communities and work with
parents and work with families I
determined that the void in the district
was similar to the void that I
experienced in my own neighborhood there
was no systematic way to address kind of
the gap between neighborhoods and what
communities were experiencing at home
and what was happening in the classroom
and you know through that work I came
across this program called adopted
school and I was like well that sounds
cool like adopting to school I’ve seen
like you know you seen the adoptive
block signs and all these other kinds of
things I was like what is what what does
it actually mean to adoptive school and
this program structurally partners
businesses and organizations with local
schools in an effort to meet shared
goals and help support the teachers the
community members and the students in
that school that’s like wow that sounds
cool like how do I get involved with
that and I think what really resounded I
mean what really what really what it
really meant to me was that it gave me
the opportunity to do the same kind of
work that had meant so much for me
growing up with that I applied with a
few members of my scholarship program
when we got a school and we adopted a
local school in Northeast DC a great
school a multi-generational community
that worked to support the same kinds of
students that look like me and that grew
up in neighborhoods like mine and
through that work were able to do and
accomplish a number of goals including
starting a mentorship program and
putting on a number of community events
but I want to tell you one story but I
think perfectly encapsulates the power
of these kinds of neighborhood community
connections this April we brought almost
200 students to campus now it was a lot
of course and it meant like a lot of
logistics and coordinating and things
like that
but from a structural standpoint LaSalle
Backus the school that we adopted is 15
minutes down the road similar to the
jetty at Hillsdale elementary school in
for that I went to that was 15 minutes
down the road from Yale and it took the
effort of course of a number of people
and a great team of dedicated teachers
and students and community members and
college students on our end but the
reality was is that it was connecting
students fifteen minutes down the road
and we saw what the power of that
connection could do and mean for a
student who was getting good grades and
achieving and saw the potential in
themselves but didn’t have the access
and didn’t have the exposure and didn’t
understand how to attain that so with
that we brought the 200 students to
campus from ages six all the way up to
eighth grade and the beaming the beaming
eyes I felt like I was seeing myself
again and so many of these little kids
who had never had the option to attend
or see a university like ours even
though it was 15 minutes down the road
I remember kids walking up to me saying
like oh my gosh I could just stuff my
face with ice cream or I just ate all
the hotdogs I could have never eaten
there imagine is this what college is
like you can eat unlimited Pizza what
does this mean and I think in that even
though like yes they were stuffing their
faces with ice cream they were also
running around a college campus and they
were seeing college students college
students who look like them and we’re 15
minutes away from their house and that
is powerful and that is powerful so with
that I want to I wanted to take a step
back and analyze kind of what these two
examples teach us I think first we have
to think about the ways in which like I
said these resources and assets are
twenty minutes apart and the effort it
takes to connect resources and
communities and use the assets in things
that exist within communities as a means
to bring people together saves time
resources and efficiency secondly like I
said access and exposure is key it it
means a world of difference to be able
to bring people together and engage
across difference in a meaningful way
both for people as people as a part of
institutions but also for those students
and their families thirdly this these
kinds of access and exposure programs I
think teaches a lot about kind of what
happens when we work we reverse how we
approach that deficit model that I was
talking about when they opened that if
we think and take a step back about kind
of how we frame underachievement
and how we frame students who are at
risk
and we’ve flipped on its head and think
about how we teach kids and how we show
kids that we map that they matter and
that we believe in them and that they
have the same kinds of access and
opportunities to access resources that
any other student does so I want to
leave you today with three key takeaways
if you get nothing else from kind of
what I’ve talked about today first there
is a danger of a single story and even
though I’ve given you two compelling
examples of kind of how the person who
got on the stage how I got here and
kinds of the examples of the works that
I’ve been able to engage in we have to
not be naive to think that that’s
everyone’s story and it’s important
incumbent upon us to do the work
particularly when we’re working with
marginalized communities to understand
the context of that community and not
ascribe a certain set of circumstances
or statistics to that group before we do
that work secondly engagement is key we
have to do the work to educate ourselves
and do the engagement in our daily lives
everyday if we’re going to ever reverse
this trend and bridge the gap between
schools and communities we have to think
critically about kind of what can we do
every day and it looks different for
everyone
maybe it’s reading an article a month
about schools in your neighborhood maybe
it’s mentoring a student maybe it’s
volunteering in your kids school figure
out what that thing is and do it and do
it continuously and don’t stop doing it
because once you stop doing it we see
the same kinds of trends that have
subjected so many students who look like
me and are from Bridgeport Connecticut –
the same kinds of circumstances that are
two different circumstances and the ones
in which I’ve occupied today in the last
example and the last key takeaway that I
want to leave you with today is kind of
education as a cornerstone no matter
your feel your discipline or what work
you do whether you’re a scientist or
you’re a doctor or you’re a lawyer or
you are an educator education is a
cornerstone of the work that we all do
how we educate and how we build a
generation of young leaders is incumbent
upon us and impacts every discipline no
matter what you do or where you sit it’s
not all of us to bridge the gap thank
you
[Applause]
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