THE WAY WE SEE IT:

WHAT MAKES A SCHOOL WORTH GOING TO?

TRANSCRIPT

Hosts

Sean

Hi! Welcome to In the Mix. I’m Sean.

Sharese

I’m Sharese. Why do you think so many kids don’t care about going to school?

Sean

I don’t really know. But it seems that a lot of teens just find school incredibly boring. They feel that get lost in the large class size and that a lot of the classes just aren’t relevant to their life.

Sharese

Today we’re gonna hear from teens across the country about what makes their school so great. Listen Up!, the youth media network, gave teens the chance to shoot, edit, and produce videos about what makes their school worth going to.

Sean

First, let’s visit Española Valley High School in New Mexico. Here we’ll meet Thomas, who struggled with school every day of his life. He hated school so much, that he thought about dropping out, every day.

Sharese

Watch what happens when Thomas is introduced to arts and television programming at his school. He goes from being a below average student to graduating at the top of his class.

1

Thomas Vigil

I’ve been doing art my whole life. I love doing art. Since I got into kindergarden as soon as somebody handed me a box of crayons… Not really anybody in my family is artistic. I just, I don’t know for some reason, I am.

Thomas Vigil

I see a lot of kids that have, that are very gifted especially in our community in Espanola. We have a lot of kids that are real good at working on their cars, on doing artwork, but they’ll just throw it all away they won’t go to school, they’ll drop out.

Thomas Vigil

Yea school can be rough on a lot of kids, especially if you don’t wanna be here. It’s rough on me. I’ve constantly thought about dropping out.

Thomas Vigil

Out of the freshman class of about 400, only about 120 graduate. We have a lot of kids that come from broken homes and kids with bad backgrounds.

Monica Smith

How do you cope with mom and dad being divorced? How do you cope with mom drinking alcohol and doing drugs? When you, and you have to take care of 3 siblings, and do homework and work and… It, it’s a lot to deal with, and many of these kids are are facing these challenges alone.

Thomas Vigil

As you can see there’s not too many kids here, but not just because it’s 7 o’clock in the morning. Most kids don’t come to school til 8. I only come to school at 7 because I have early bird class. Algebra 2.

TEACHER (Blonde Hair)

Anything to the zero power is 1. If we put zero in for x. Two to the zero power is one.

Thomas Vigil

Basically what I think about when I’m in algebra 2 class is…That I don’t really wanna be there. And It like, blocks me from wanting to learn. If I’m…getting all kinds of equations and…different things shoved in my head. I just get all confused and I rather be doing something else. So I tend to get bored and distracted really easily.

TEACHER (Black Hair)

This is the Rubiat by Omar Kayem, you only have 2 pages of it.

Thomas Vigil

When it comes to English I get frustrated very easily. When I look at words on a page, it’s…it’s like more confusing than math. Like some people think that all these equations make, like a different language. That’s how I feel with English; it’s just a different language for me. I see one word, I see the last word, I get them mixed up and…I get confused real easily and I can’t comprehend things right. Sometimes I don’t know what the teachers saying and…

Thomas Vigil

My mom thought I had ADD, but I’ve never been tested for it. And I don’t want to get tested because I don’t want to take all those drugs that just make you a boring kid and are supposed to cure you. I think they just make you dull and tune into stupid things that nobody else wants to hear about.

Monica Smith

Thomas is a target also, because he’s noisy, you know he’s daring…I think Thomas is one of those kids who has had it rough at home and he’s learning to work through those problems.

Thomas Vigil

This is in school suspension. I got a note in school suspension for going off of campus…I’m still not admitting to it, but it’s alright.

Thomas Vigil

What sucks about being here…um…the fact that I have to be everything that I’m not. I can’t draw, I can’t stand up, I can’t talk…And that’s everything that I’m not.

Thomas Vigil

ok, here’s the best part about school seeing my friends, and most importantly my girlfriend.

Thomas Vigil

Heres my favorite class in school, Art. I love art, I just love seeing other people do it.

Robbie Garcia

Thomas is doing pretty good in my class. He’s a really talented artist; his uh strengths

are mostly in drawing. Anything hands on for him that keeps him in school, that’s the best thing for him.

Wayne Sanchez

He really does love art, he’s fierce at it, and he just doesn’t do it just to do it because he’s bored, he does it all the time. He’s always drawing…on people’s arms, on his arm, or on a piece of paper, and everybody always wants something of his because he’s so fierce at it.

Thomas Vigil

TV production is a real fun class, I get to get up and out of class and…spend time doing what I wanna do. And I get to learn new things about camera equipment and editing systems.

Ellen Kaiper

Thomas, has gone and learned all the ah…computer editing system. and his fellow students call him a genius, because he knows a lot more than a lot of the other students, certainly a lot more than I do. It’s my strength I can right grants, I can bring the equipment in…and luckily I have these wonderful students who can deal with all the equipment.

Thomas Vigil

What makes this school worth going to? If I didn’t have a school that allowed me to express myself through TV and, through media and art…I probably would go crazy. Cause that’s the only thing that keeps me sane at school besides my friends. Being able to express myself through art I’d…That’s what I do.

Hosts

Sharese

It’s great that Thomas is able to use his artistic ability to keep his interest during the school day. Sometimes it’s really hard to get noticed when there are so many kids in your school.

Sean

Next, we’ll go to San Antonio, Texas, where we’ll meet Nicole, who began high school as one of over 3500 students on a huge campus. She felt lost in such a big school. After transferring to a smaller magnet school with only 450 students, she felt that she could really connect to teachers and the other students.

Sharese

Let’s see what her typical day looks like.

2

Nicole Bernal

I’m just ah, putting up my posters for student council. I’m running for vice president.

NARRATOR

This is Nicole, She’s a junior at Communications Arts High school in suburban San Antonio, Texas. Comm. Arts is a magnet high school with an emphasis on skills in all areas of communication. With only 450 students in ninth through twelfth grades, Comm. arts is small, especially in this part of Texas where it is not unusual for schools to have 3 to 4,000 students. We know this first hand…because Comm. arts is a school within a school. We’re located on the campus of a high school that has 3,500 students. So let’s follow Nicole, as she and he classmates have a unique perspective on the difference between large and small schools.

Nicole Bernal

Because there’s so many students at a large high school, and the class size is just humungous, and the teachers are responsible for so many kids. I didn’t really feel like the teachers cared about me. I felt like they were just going through the motions, and they were just, you know giving us the assignments, and they didn’t really care about what I was learning.

Richard Tobin

One experience I had at the big school was a communication graphics class I took that touched on the basics of photography. I felt um, that a lot of the experience was taken away due to the size of the class. The teacher spent a lot of time trying to manage the students. In a smaller environment teachers allowed to concentrate on you as a person. You’re participating in an intelligent conversation, in an intelligent environment.

Nicole Bernal

Next year I really hope to bring my knowledge of

Nicole Bernal

The small school environment allows students to be heard and…form and voice their own opinions. And uh…it’s really cool because a lot of the teachers really support that and they wanna hear what you have to say.

Bret Wilkinson

We’re able to do a little bit more in classes you know, as opposed to someone who has 30-35 kids on a regular basis. You know their a little bit more limited because they have to focus more so on management of their students as opposed to, being able to devote more time towards educational pursuits.

Kari Minter

One of the schools I student taught, I never even met the principle. And at another one I had met him briefly, but we never had a conversation, and it was you had to set-up an appointment to even go into his office because he was so busy because he had a larger school. At Comm. Arts it’s been, it’s kind of a unique relationship because at anytime I can walk into Miss. Reacken or Miss Barker’s office and talk to them or show them a different project I’m doing. So I think that’s a unique, unique thing our principles now what’s going on in our classroom and they know what our curriculum is.

Nicole Bernal

Also one of the benefits at a smaller school is that…parents are a lot more involved. For instance, my mom is in the parents support group here at Communications Arts. And it’s really cool because I enjoy having her come with us on the field trips, and she gets to you know hang out with me and my friends.

Nicole Bernal

Some of the best aspects about having a small, you know, community environment is that um, the students feel closer and so when we have activities, when we have special events; it helps to bring them together because you know everybody knows everybody.

James Ruiz

Recently one of my fellow classmates, she’s been going through chemotherapy and different health problems, so she’s been losing most of her hair. So on her first day back, to make her feel as comfortable as possible, it was arranged for the students and faculty of our school to wear hats and brings hats. To really show that we care about her. and to further that I decided to shave my head to show support that she really is a big part of all our lives.

Girl Announcing Winners

Congratulations to the winners of the student council election. President. Sarah ??. Vice President. Nicole Bernal. Secretery. Victoria Saunders.

Richard Tobin

It’s definitely the sense of belonging that makes this school special. You know it’s that experience that you get ah actual learning instead of just trying to get through the system.

Nicole Bernal

I think that a lot of the self-confidence that I have now goes back to just the experience of coming to this small school. And having all these friends and having all these people say hey you know we’re in this together we all support each other.

Hosts

Sean

Imagine being beat up in school just because of who you are. Because of the way you look, because of the way you act, or just because of what you think, or believe in. In Lakeville, Minnesota, Ron was attacked during the homecoming football team beacuase he is gay.

Sharese

When the school didn’t do enough to help Ron, he transferred to Perpich School for the Arts near Minneapolis. Here’s a school that promotes safety and acceptance. So Ron doesn’t have to fear violence because of his personal choices.

3

Ron Kaplan Everson

It was…in seventh, I was in seventh grade when it happened.

Ron Kaplan Everson

and I was surrounded by a group of boys, um probably about 10 of them.

Ron Kaplan Everson

No one tried to stop it. No one…around me even made a remote attempt to notice, even recognize what was going on as something unusual.

Ron Kaplan Everson

It was at a homecoming football game, um at Lakeville High school. Something uh that’s pretty big in the town. Football is really, sorta a focus for the town, when I was beat up by these 10 guys probably about 4 or 5 of them were beating me with coke bottles that were half or full.

Ron Kaplan Everson

After the incident, there wasn’t really any steps to reprimand the individuals beyond suspending them. My mother talked to a police officer who told her that it would be best just to let it drop.

Peggy Everson

Ron came up to me after the incident at homecoming. Ah…I remembered it the day he told me. He knew he was safe telling me, there was no question in his mind.

Ron Kaplan Everson

I officially came out when I was 14. I started coming out to friends of mine when I was 12. After that happened I started, um, noticing a quick up rise in people verbally abusing me, physically pushing me in the hallways. Really people, a lot of people starting to um…really harass me daily.

Peggy Everson

We’d get obscene telephone calls at home; he was harassed in the gym. He ended up, Ron has asthma, and he ended up having asthma attacks so severe that the paramedics would be called to the school…to help him breathe.

Ron Kaplan Everson

It got to the point where…uh, my mother and I decided that it was dangerous for me to be living in this town and that I should probably be better off living with my aunt who lived in Salk, Minneapolis.

John Colburn

I’m John Colburn and I teach seniors in literary arts at, here at the arts high school and Ron is one of my students now. Some of the writing has been very direct. He’s talked about difficulties that he’s faced ah, hard times with his family, ah death of a friend, um difficulties at school and been very explicit about them. Ron is so honest, there’s an honesty in his writing. To be able to be open and honest is, uh, very import in the writing program.

Ron Kaplan Everson

I used to write a lot about um, the experiences that I went through at Lakeville. I don’t write about it a lot anymore just because it’s not something that I like to remember, and because I really don’t think about it being in the, such a liberal environment that I’m in now.

Susan Stemme

I think one of the things that was really important in creating a safe environment when Perpich started was that school started with only two main rules. And those rules were respect yourself and respect others. One of the things that we actually do it explain to the kids why we have those policies, try to talk about what the policies are there for, who they’re really there to protect, but the main thing is to get the students to see how it is their behavior is affecting somebody else.

John Colburn

Ron is a blast in the classroom. He’s a really, a fun guy to have in class. And coming in as a new senior is difficult because the juniors have already been together for a year and built that trust and then some new people come in…and ah, and Ron has navigated that extremely well and become kind of a…class favorite.

Peggy Everson

Our high school has probably given opportunities to children to feel safe where they haven’t perhaps in their home schools. Ron’s experience has been incredible. Ah…the teachers are extremely nurturing. Whenever there’s been a problem…everybody hops to take care of it.

Ron Kaplan Everson

I think the one point that I began to realize that I shouldn’t be afraid anymore, is probably when I moved to South Minneapolis, and started seeing so many support groups out there for me. Where other people saw me as a real person rather than, just you know, who I loved. It took a long time for me to be able to open up to anyone, just because I was so afraid that that would happen again.

Hosts

Sharese

In tenth grade, Jamaal had bad grades, even lower test scores, and had no support from home. But teachers, coaches, and administrators at Evanston Township High School near Chicago were able to set Jamaal on the right path. He graduated with a 3.7 grade point average.

Sean

Let’s see how Jamaal was able to overcome so many barriers and head to college.

4

Renee Dewald

Jamaal walked into my class, oh, about a week after school started and um, and he had a slip of paper that he handed me, and it was a schedule. And on the schedule was AP chemistry, and AP calculus, and AP English and…that was Jamaal.

Malykke Bacon

Jamaal never stopped aiming for the top, that’s what amazed me. You know he wasn’t settled, he wasn’t content with the A-. “Well what do I need to do to get an A?” And I was just amazed not, not just because… you know he’s African-American, or African-American male, but then I was thinking about that in, in respect to his extra curricular activities which include, (what) included diving and swimming and stuff, like how are you…juggling all of this?

Marion Kelley

I saw in Jamaal something special, he desired knowledge, he enjoyed learning.

Malykke Bacon

He proves that you really cannot judge a book by its cover. You know whatever you thought he was when you first saw him, in conversation with him you find out there is so much more beneath the surface.

Jamaal Applewhite

When I lived in Rogers Park, I moved around a lot. And I probably didn’t stay in a place for more than uh about a year.

Malykke Bacon

Jamaal faced obstacles that…the average adult would not have been able to deal with let along a teenager.

Jamaal Applewhite

My brother’s name is Lavell Lee Applewhite, and um…His nickname was bishop. I found out my brother was shot, where I grew up at. So, so I missed like a couple a weeks of school because of that also. And there was some of the reason that my mother wanted to move outside of the city in the first place, city of Chicago. Try to move to the suburbs. It’s like the farther north you go the safer it is and the more opportunities.

Denise Martin

We’re the largest high school under one roof in the United States. We have a million square feet under one roof. It’s dynamic, it’s diverse, it is a school full of resources. We are a very good suburban school with all the problems of an urban school.

Jamaal Applewhite

When I moved to Evanston township from Chicago, um many of my classes were much different then those in Chicago. I knew that having the top classes would be important to get into one of the top colleges. Miss Kelley, kinda helped me uh, to figure out that that was important.

Marion Kelley

I said to him, “look Jamaal…whatever you need, I want you to get to calculus before you’re a senior. Rather than to do senior year Trig. I worked with him to go to Oakton Community college. And he went, and he completed it and he’s in calculus.

Jamaal Applewhite

Um, now I’m in AP chemistry, AP calculus, and AP English.

Marion Kelley

There were a couple of times that I got on him and he got sort of, you know an attitude like “Who Do You Think You Are?” But then after awhile he realized I was not going to back down, I was not going to go away, and that I had his best interests in heart.

Jamaal Applewhite

This year, my senior year, uh things were pretty rough. My mother and I were growing further apart. And then she kicked me out the house, so our relationship was real bad then.

Malykke Bacon

I thought Oh My Gosh, here’s a kid who has busted his butt, you know to, you know, reach the top. And here we are the pinnacle year, the senior year, and he’s not going to be able to enroll in Evanston.

Jamaal Applewhite

It got so bad that I thought I wasn’t going to be able to make it, at school. That’s when uh, the teachers really stepped in and help me and helped, helped encourage me.

Malykke Bacon

I called Mrs. Madden who is the um, director of pupil personnel services and said you know, here you got a situation where there’s a homeless student. Don’t we have some policy.

Marilyn Madden

And he called and said, you know Mrs. Madden can you please take a look at this student as see if there is anything that we can do. So, um, I tried to find out what was going on with the residency issues. And then I realized that he was homeless.

Jamaal Applewhite

I tried my best to work hard and do things myself. I wouldn’t been able to make it without help from um other people.

Marilyn Madden

Mr. Logan and myself decided that we would look at how we can keep him here in the high school. And so we were able to do so and he was able to stay here.

Malykke Bacon

Jamaal is the type of person, if you get to know him, If you…and you have anything that you can do to help him, you will help him. You know what I mean, he’s just that likeable.

Denise Martin

Students respond if you care. If they think that you recognize them as an individual not as just an ID number in that seat.

Marilyn Madden

I knew about a program called the “Posse.” Jamaal…was selected for the $100,000 scholarship.

Jamaal Applewhite

They were on the speakerphone at like 2 in the morning. “Well you got the Posse thing” and then uh…I was pretty much speechless.

Marilyn Madden

It was just so rewarding to me. I was so touched by it that um, here’s a student who has, beat the odds.

Malykke Bacon

A student comes in and you help them and then what-do-you-know, there’s some success there, then you got a connection with that student.

Denise Martin

You don’t have to be a black teacher, you don’t have to be a Hispanic teacher…you know you can be any teacher, but you have to act like you care.

Marion Kelley

So it’s really a personalization of the school system. And I found particularly for minority students…they need to know that they are more than just a number. They need to know that they are part of a system, that they’re not gonna be allowed to just disappear.

Denise Martin

You don’t have to go to 99 workshops to learn that how you… um, communicate your commitment to their success, makes all the difference in the world.

Malykke Bacon

He was like, “hey I wanna do something for all the people that helped me uh, make it through you know high school you know. What should I do?” And I was like you know honestly I don’t want anything and I think that most of those people don’t want anything material. What we would probably want you to do is just do the best you can with your life and when you have the opportunity throw back a hand and help somebody else.

Jamaal Applewhite

But in spite of all the things I had to overcome, I overcame them with the help of many teachers and administrators at the school. And um… they’re people that are worth listening to.

Hosts

Sharese

Today we’ve seen how these four high schools have made it both challenging and interesting for students to feel comfortable and succeed in getting a good education.

Sean

In another program, students produced videos highlighting really effective teachers. It’s called “What Makes A Teacher Worth Listening To?” Check our website for when it airs.