As 150 middle school students from a Chicago charter school toured Northwestern’s campus Thursday, the group broke out into song, belting an educational twist on T.I.’s “Whatever You Like.”
The Knowledge is Power Program Ascend Charter School organizes university tours each year to inspire its students to do well in school. The hope is they’ll be motivated to go to college and then do “whatever they like.”
The school worked with Students for Teach for America to arrange the interactive tour. STFA is an NU student group that promotes Teach for America, a national organization whose mission is to erase educational inequities by providing teachers for urban and rural areas.
“(Educational inequality) is our nation’s greatest injustice,” said Melissa SiMonday, recruitment director for the Chicago area. “Our mission is to get minority, low-income students to and through college.”
KIPP was founded in 1994 by Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, two Teach for America teachers. The KIPP Ascend Charter School in Chicago is one of its 99 branches. During the tour, the students visited academic buildings, sat in on classes, talked to professors and met some of NU’s athletes at Ryan Field. They were also treated to a pizza luncheon at the Technological Institute.
Once they arrived on campus, one student said he thought Tech was a mansion, and another wondered if its doors were so heavy because they were “made of gold.” As they then walked up the staircase to the Norris University Center, another child said it “must have been hard work” to tape all of the flyers to the ground.
Weinberg senior Divya Chhabra, co-president of STFA, said the educational potential of students should not be limited by factors such as class.
“I don’t think the zip code someone’s born in should determine their future,” Chhabra said. “They have the potential to succeed, but they’re stuck in a vicious cycle of poverty that gives them a lack of resources. Our colleges that lead America should represent America.”
Beyond promoting higher education, the program encourages students to use their degrees to give back to their communities.
“The students who come back look like the people in these communities,” said China Hill, KIPP Ascend’s 5th-grade social responsibility and citizenship teacher. “They’ll have a greater influence because they’ll be role models. (Community members will) see someone who looks like them, who is successful, and they will think it’s more attainable for them.”
