A Student Speaks Out

My experience in school has been hard because I have been told that I would never amount to anything. I’m organizing with the Philadelphia Student Union (PSU) to prove to those people who have counted me out that I am somebody and my opinion matters. I come from University City High School, which is an Empowerment School. Empowerment Schools are the district’s “lowest performing” schools on standardized tests. So the message that I get is that I am a troublemaker, that I am low class, or that by the time I get to 12th grade I will drop out.

At University City we are portrayed as delinquents, but did you ever ask us why we sometimes act out? Well now I’m telling you that one of the main reasons is that we don’t have enough of what we need - books, materials to learn, classes that are helping us stay engaged in what we are learning, and supports for the issues we are having in life.  Dr. Ackerman has provided extra resources to the Empowerment Schools, but we still have a long way to go.  Worksheets and copying from the board or a book make learning boring.  It makes people not want to come to school.  School feels like a prison. How many district officials, politicians, and parents would really want their child to learn under these conditions?

Although many people hold the perception that students from empowerment schools don’t care, the truth is that we do care. It could be that no one has faith in us so we give up. I would ask the school district officials if they have ever thought that we are being put down so much that we don’t want to get up and fight.

I joined PSU to change the way myself and other students are being portrayed.  I am not bad, I am good.  And now I am getting other students from my school involved.  I spoke at a School Reform Commission meeting about my school and how it is affecting me in life.  The next day, I could see changes in the way my teachers taught and many of my classes had interactive lessons.  I am also in PSU’s Blogging Team and Video Squad to get out that students need these tools, we need education, we need to know that someone other then ourselves believes in us. We want to learn. I can tell you that from experience.

Who is empowered within Empowerment Schools?  It is not the students.  The more of us that are engaged, the more we will care about what is happening.  I know that if more students could use their voice in a postive way, less would use it in a negative way.  Our success will help others want to get involved.  I am not giving up on my school and I don’t want to go to another school.  I want to go to University City.

PSU is an outlet that lets us express ourselves instead of holding it in.  I’m not saying everything is bad, but I’m tired of being told that everything is fine.  At PSU I learn skills that I don’t in school.  I have also learned about the value of education.  My education matters a lot to me now.

By Othella Stanback, Freshman at University City High School

PS- I wrote this article before they announced that Uni was one of the Rennaissance Schools. I hope that whatever happens at my school during this Rennaissance process, the students' voices will be listened to. No reforms will work unless the students inside the school have a say in what happens to us and a role in the change process.

Othella Stanback