Culturally Responsive and Community-Focused PBL

City-As-School is one of the oldest experiential-learning programs in the New York City public school system. The school’s population is composed of transfer students from all five boroughs. The admissions team is deliberate, and while the process is not perfect, the goal is to create a student body that represents communities across the city, especially those that are underserved, such as immigrants, multilingual learners, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, teen parents, and BIPOC students. Once admitted, students spend time learning skills at internships across the city, and the rest of their schooling takes place in-house with educators in classrooms.

An especially unique element in the City-As-School tradition is requiring students to be physically present in the building to register for their own educational experiences. They must meet each teacher and internship coordinators so they can learn more about the experiences before registering. Students select their courses and internships as well as the educators with whom they prefer to learn, a process that gives them more control over their education. An algorithm can quickly calculate a schedule to fulfill graduation requirements, but it fails to give students and educators a chance to get to know one another and to talk about preferred learning styles and content-delivery methods.

Visiting the school on a registration day might look like a strange social experiment. However, we who work there refer to the long lines of students flowing into the hallways and endless one-on-one conferencing as “controlled chaos.” I dare to call it magick because in the midst of a particularly busy registration period, the leadership course was (re)born.

At that time, my English classes were already full. I was diligently creating my rosters when I overheard a conversation between the school’s college counselor and a Black student patiently waiting for his turn to register for a class.

Their exchanges seemed lighthearted, nothing more than general chitchat, but then the conversation grew more serious. The student expressed frustration with “stop-and-frisk” tensions rising between police and Black male residents in his neighborhood. My colleague politely said, “I can see this upset you. Have you considered volunteering or talking to someone who can help make some change?” The young man smiled and said, “Miss, all due respect, but with what time? I got school and work. I wish I could, but I can’t. Not unless it’s a class that can get me some credit to get out of high school.” I perked up and interjected, “What if it was?” The student looked stunned.

My colleague turned her head and grinned. She knew my question was sincere. The student smirked and shook his head in disbelief. I asked, “What if you could take a class in which you volunteer to do things in your own neighborhood, but you earned academic credit? You’d show up? You’d take it? You’d want to do that?” The young man shrugged and said, “I guess, but do you have that?” My heart sank. “No,” I murmured. He shook his head as if he understood and explained that he was almost finished with earning his credits to graduate. I thanked him for talking and went back to finalizing my rosters.

The conversation ended there, but the idea the student sparked began to crystallize. Another colleague in the office, JP, a veteran math teacher, walked over to me at the end of the day. He said, “You know, I heard your conversation. I used to teach a class called leadership, and we did pretty much what you were talking about.”

Despite JP’s self-proclaimed “white guy from the backwoods of Maine” persona, he spent his entire career—over twenty years of teaching—in the complex system of New York City public schools and wasn’t jaded. I was a young Italian American woman and had spent my life in New York City and its surrounding suburbs. I attended public schools. I grew up in a multigenerational household; my single mother and my grandparents raised my older brother and me. JP and I were different, but we were two white educators who believed students’ voices belong in all school-wide decision-making. JP knew the importance of getting the adults, especially white adults, to move out of the way so kids, especially BIPOC children, could develop their own education. I shared his vision.

We immediately got to work. I grabbed a legal pad and a pen. We sat at the table in the office, and I asked JP to tell me what the leadership class was and why it disappeared. He talked about the course’s student-centered philosophy and student-created projects. He spoke about the leadership class as a way to get students involved in their own neighborhoods. The course fell by the wayside with pressure from No Child Left Behind and state standards changing what constituted an “academic” experience.

I knew that if we could demonstrate how the course would help students develop standards-aligned skills, we would have a solid chance to offer a course in which students would fully take the reins. We brainstormed, dreaming of what it could be. We agreed to talk to students coming in the next day for registration. We agreed that their input on the course outline mattered the most. We agreed that students, regardless of whether they chose to register for the class (if it was even approved), would be the ones to shape the course. JP and I started with the following outline:

• All projects and ideas are student generated.
• All projects and ideas have to be connected to a student’s lived experience and/or desire to affect positive change in something affecting their communities and their lives.
• Students cannot select projects in which they infuse themselves, their beliefs, or their ideas into a space that isn’t part of their lived experience.
• Any “outside” project requires students and educators to conduct thorough research on any organizations or leaders. Students will be required to work closely with someone with lived experience on the subject matter and allow that “expert” to lead us and guide us in the project.
• Students must create a proposal (written or verbal) and present their project ideas to one another. Proposals should address the following: the project focus, why students chose the project, ideas for implementation, students’ hopes, the project’s sustainability, positive and potentially negative project impacts, possible roadblocks, and how the project connects to students’ lived experience(s).
• The work is created in small groups or with the whole class, but it is ultimately the students’ choice in determining which projects to complete or combine.
• We, the white educators in the room, must remain facilitators and consultants only. We cannot take the lead. We support students’ efforts and help with logistics.
• It’s okay if projects do not come to fruition. “Failure” for a project to materialize does not equate to course failure.
• Reflection is an integral part of our lived experiences, and all class participants, including the educators, will reflect upon what did and didn’t work and synthesize why and how we can attempt to make the project work with different methods.

The following day, JP and I asked students for input. Several said they liked our ideas, but the inevitable question arose: What academic credits could they earn? I explained specific written and oral communication standards and tied them to the outline’s requirements. JP and I spent the morning rushing between offices, taking suggestions from students and adding their ideas to our outline.

Our excitement grew. We knew we were on the verge of something special and, most importantly, something that authentically connected students’ learning to using their voices and skills to enact real change in their lives.

JP and I revised our proposal with the students’ suggestions. We outlined step-by-step templates to help students with research methods, planning, contact and meeting protocols, and general guidelines to facilitate community building and open communication. We made an appointment to meet with our principal, Antoniette Scarpinato. When we walked into her office, she looked at the two of us and said, “What on earth did you two come up with?” She was half joking but curious. JP nudged me to speak first. I explained the whole course and how it came about, and her wry smile softened with sincerity. After presenting our detailed outline, the course was approved with the following conditions:

1. Students must be supervised at all times, especially if we are traveling off school grounds and/or working with the public.
2. All written communication between students and people outside of the school must be pre-approved. Verbal communication between students and people outside of the school must be supervised by a school educator or staff member.
3. Don’t screw it up.

The following registration cycle, the leadership course made the list. Administration approved one section. During registration, students mostly asked about the course content. JP and I replied, “What do you want it to be?” or “What do you want to do that nobody else in your neighborhood has given you a chance to do?” Some students shrugged with uncertainty. Others lit up with excitement. A few walked away saying the class sounded like too much work. We respected all responses. Thankfully, the class was full by the end of the first registration day.

Once class began, the students, JP, and I worked on community agreements. We talked about how we wanted to communicate with each other. Students required honesty, respect, and support for each other, even when they disagreed.

We talked about the kinds of responsibilities we’d have and how to hold each other accountable. Being present and admitting when you need help made the top of the list. The students agreed that a reflection after each project made sense to help us synthesize our experiences and potentially serve as a springboard for future class participants. JP and I made it clear that we were to be held equally accountable for these agreements.

When the first round of projects came about, students pitched ideas individually and then broke into small groups to talk with one another about how to make these projects happen. Not every student pitched a project. Some opted to help others with their pitches. JP and I listened and took notes. Our job was to record everything and read it back to the students at the end of each class.

Afterward, the students determined the next class meeting’s focus. The students took their time to weigh their options:

1. They could work in small groups to complete everyone’s proposed project in the short time we had together.
2. They could select a few projects and have larger teams work on them.
3. They could rally behind one project as a class and give it our full attention.

The students discussed these options for two class sessions. Finally, they came to a consensus: they agreed to work together on one project to make it a success.

The student who pitched the idea became the project “leader.” It was her job to work with her teammates to plan their project from beginning to end. The team brainstormed and often argued passionately about which ideas would work best.

That first project centered on contacting local food stores to help supplement the local food banks in Brooklyn. At the time, our nation was reeling from a recession, and food banks across the city were overwhelmed. The student who pitched the project worked in a local grocery store and was bothered by seeing groceries thrown away as they approached—but before they reached— their expiration dates.

She knew students in the class had experiences using food bank services and wanted to make sure the good food reached families in need. A student in the class with food bank experience said that despite volunteers’ kindness, she always wanted to shop for her own items. She had family members with health, cultural, and religious dietary restrictions, and she knew other families who used the food banks likely did too. She brought this concern to the class, and after a few disagreements, students came up with the “shopping” model: providing folks with empty bags to “shop” for their own items at the food bank.

Well before this project was complete, JP and I agreed that the students achieved success. They were collaborating. They were communicating. They were problem-solving. Students worked together to further humanize the food bank experience.

After the student who worked at a grocery store spoke to her manager, he offered to donate unexpired items. Another student from the neighborhood spoke to the person in charge at the local food bank and got them to agree to run a trial with the new model. Without hesitation, the students wrote up a proposal, made an appointment with our school administration, and got our school to host the food bank’s “shopping” event on a Saturday.

The event was a success. So much food was available that folks even drove in from New Jersey to pick up leftover food after someone in the neighborhood called a radio station and the DJ made an announcement about the event. A group of students was responsible for asking shoppers one anonymous “survey” question about the day’s shopping experience. The attendees all said they liked having the opportunity to shop for their own items. The following week, the class celebrated their success and took time to reflect. Students agreed the project’s personal connection and local focus legitimized their efforts. They agreed that they didn’t need “outsiders’’ to come in and “solve problems” without fully consulting the community and then leaving. They took ownership of it. It was theirs.

Excerpted from From White Folks Who Teach in the Hood: Reflections on Race, Culture, and Identity, edited by Christopher Emdin and sam seidel (Beacon Press, 2024). Reprinted with permission from Beacon Press.