Before attend­ing this Princetern­ship, I did some research into edu­ca­tion reform, watch­ing doc­u­men­taries like “Wait­ing for Super­man” and “The Lot­tery” as well as read­ing the arti­cles pro­vided to me by my alumni host Sylvia Mon­real ‘10. I didn’t con­sider myself an expert on edu­ca­tion reform by any means, but I thought that I had a pretty good idea of the issues sur­round­ing edu­ca­tion in this coun­try and the pos­si­ble solu­tions to those issues. I imag­ined that if only the edu­ca­tion sys­tem fos­tered ded­i­cated, pas­sion­ate teach­ers who were fully aware of their enor­mous respon­si­bil­ity to impart knowl­edge onto their stu­dents, all chil­dren would dis­play the drive to learn and con­se­quently, would per­form bet­ter in school. How­ever, after observ­ing the Cit­i­zen Schools pro­gram at the Dr. Mar­tin Luther King Jr. Mid­dle School in Newark, New Jer­sey, I real­ized how sim­pli­fied my model for edu­ca­tion reform was. Edu­cat­ing stu­dents at a school like this one where only 16% of sev­enth graders dis­played pro­fi­ciency in read­ing and lan­guage and only 20% of sev­enth graders dis­played pro­fi­ciency in math is not sim­ply a mat­ter of intro­duc­ing “good” teach­ers into the class­room. Each and every Cit­i­zen Schools teacher I observed was excep­tional in their self­less and seem­ingly infi­nite drive to help their stu­dents to not only learn basic skills like frac­tions but also to make thought­ful con­nec­tions between the class­room and the “real world.” Yet, to truly change a student’s life and put them on the path toward a col­lege edu­ca­tion and a mean­ing­ful career does not just require good teach­ers, I soon real­ized. To accom­plish this gar­gan­tuan task means chang­ing the stu­dents’ mind­sets, com­bat­ing other poten­tial fac­tors like bro­ken home lives and the neg­a­tive val­ues imparted onto them by their peers, fam­i­lies, and the sur­round­ing cul­ture of the area – a feat that would seem impos­si­ble to many.

How­ever, to the teach­ers I observed at Cit­i­zen Schools, this feat was just another day at the office. Watch­ing them metic­u­lously con­struct les­son plans and seam­lessly con­duct class in a chaotic envi­ron­ment gave me a new­found respect for the pro­fes­sion. Specif­i­cally, I remem­ber walk­ing into the class Sylvia was sub­bing on my first day at the Princetern­ship. Although these were not her nor­mal stu­dents nor was this her nor­mal respon­si­bil­ity at the work­place, Sylvia took on the task mas­ter­fully, lead­ing a quiet group of about five or six girls in their home­work in the midst of the tur­moil that is the com­bi­na­tion of a hot after­noon and tired chil­dren. The gen­tle way she inter­acted with the stu­dents was extra­or­di­nary and was mir­rored in numer­ous other classes I observed. For instance, see­ing Mr. Tay­lor help the kids with their home­work on the sec­ond day of my Princetern­ship was like watch­ing a con­duc­tor direct a world-class sym­phony. Keep­ing the class under con­trol, he deftly went from desk to desk, using care­fully con­structed ques­tions to encour­age his stu­dents to arrive at the answer inde­pen­dently, fos­ter­ing per­sonal growth and self-reliance. Observ­ing Ms. Lopez con­duct a dis­cus­sion on whether the wealthy have a respon­si­bil­ity to help the poor or see­ing Mr. W begin a con­ver­sa­tion with his stu­dents on the link between edu­ca­tion and poverty pro­duced sim­i­lar feel­ings of amaze­ment in me. And these are just a few iso­lated exam­ples – every day at Cit­i­zen Schools was a new oppor­tu­nity for me to look at the inspir­ing work of these teach­ers, giv­ing me hope for the future of edu­ca­tion in this country.

This Princetern­ship truly changed my per­spec­tive in a way that no other expe­ri­ence in my life has. It taught me to look for the pos­i­tive in all sit­u­a­tions, to devote your­self fully to what you love, and to per­sist even in the face of seem­ingly insur­mount­able chal­lenges. It opened my eyes to a com­pletely dif­fer­ent world, forc­ing me out of the Orange Bub­ble men­tal­ity and broad­en­ing my out­look as a whole. Finally, it solid­i­fied my desire to do a pro­gram like the Cit­i­zen Schools teach­ing fel­low­ship after I grad­u­ate so that I too can work toward the bet­ter­ment of the Amer­i­can edu­ca­tion sys­tem. I really can­not thank my Princetern host Sylvia and all of the teach­ers and staff I encoun­tered through­out these three days enough for allow­ing me to expe­ri­ence this extra­or­di­nary opportunity.