Breakthrough

I thought I should say something about my summer working as an 8th grade teacher with the Breakthrough Collaborative, especially since I know no one in my family has any idea what I was really doing this summer. The Breakthrough Collaborative is a national organization (originally Summerbridge in San Francisco) which aims to give motivated sixth graders the support they will need to get to college. So, these kids, smart or not so smart, tragically poor or borderline middle class, English-speaking or Spanish-speaking, Native, Mexican, and White all apply as sixth graders to the Breakthrough Program. The program is a six year commitment and includes the following components:
Before 7th grade: Summer school
During 7th grade: Mentoring and tutoring after school
Before 8th grade: Summer school
During 8th grade: Mentoring and tutoring after school
During 9th-12th grade: Students can apply to be Breakthrough interns and during their junior and senior years to be teachers. The students are given college counseling through the program, including SAT prep and additional tutoring.

The only part I was involved with was the summer school aspect, although now that school has started I am going to meet some of the kids after school once a week to help them with homework and help keep them on track in the program.
My experience this summer was exhausting physically and emotionally. There are 50 kids in Breakthough Santa Fe. I taught four classes of science a day, was an advisory to two eighth grade girls and one seventh grade girl, was the head of a committee that organized the program's Friday afternoon events (career day, art walk, camping trip, etc.), and made lesson plans and did miscellaneous paperwork every night.


Fun with Mentos and Coke during a science Tuesday

The kids' home problems, their romantic hopes, their academic successes and failures, all of this was made my concern as many of them opened up to me about their experiences. There were several kids I feel very close to and truly love. There are others who never opened up to me, never bought into the idea that a lame college student who was trying to teach science (of all things, this definitely made it harder to connect to the girls who liked English and History) could understand what composes their existence. I love them too, but they didn't buy into the relationship, and I think that that's fair, because although I came a lot closer to understanding the importance of one girl's older brother's tricked-out car or another girl's hair extensions, ultimately, I don't really care about that stuff the way they do.

What I care the most about is that the kids succeed at what they love. The program is about going to college and raising these kids from their lower class backgrounds into an educated class. I don't buy into this 100% because I don't appreciate the program's emphasis on class change and making money, but I do want the kids to be life-long learners and to have the confidence they need to help them succeed in an America that is too white, too rich, and too Anglo-centric linguistically and culturally.

Here are some of Breakthrough's students:



Lynette Domiguez, a beautiful, strong, and extremely dedicated young woman. I had her in planetary science, which was definitely not her favorite subject, but which she succeeded in by the end of the summer because she knows how to ask questions and work hard.



Ari Morris and Leon Padilla were two awesome boys. Ari was one of four or five white kids in the program and was a sponge for information. He loved science (as well as all his other subjects, most likely) and was really a joy to teach. He is a very serious skateboarder. Cool. Leon is one of those kids with those disarming smiles who drove me nuts by being distracted in class and then turned around and smiled and...all my anger melted away. He wants to be a doctor.



This is Anthony Aragon, aka "Triple A" which is his DJ name. He always carried speakers around in his backpack (which I wasn't supposed to know about) and had the most personality of any of the kids at Breakthrough. Yeah, Triple A!

Well, this is already too long of a post, and Ben wants to fool around with the computer to set up our new Airport Express (yay!), so I'll quit writing. If any Breakthrough kids read this, you're awesome.