the pitch

On Monday, Melanie, Anna and I ventured out to Mart to meet with students at Mart High School.  Our first stop was the school library, where we met with students in the Leadership Class.  After the three of us introduced ourselves, we went around the room to give each student a chance to tell us his or her name and year in high school.  As we went around, the makeup of the tables where students sat looked showed a greater degree of integration than I had anticipated:  there were definitely groups of all white girls, or all white boys (white football players was my guess), and there were a few kids who sat alone at tables; however, several tables included both black and white students.  Not perfect, but definitely a change from some of the attitudes I had felt from adults in the community.

Interestingly, none of the students knew who Barbara Jordan was; I watched their teachers cringe.  A few claimed to enjoy learning about history; when asked why, one student explained that history "helps us learn from our mistakes."  A very quick storytelling activity, which required students to tell personal stories based on artifacts they happened to have on their persons, yielded spotty results; however, I think I managed to hook a few students in.  I left with quite a few names and email addresses on my sign-up sheet.  After my pitch, Melanie and Anna talked to the kids about the Arts Co-op, which garnered quite a bit of interest from several of the more creative kids.

The day went on in this fashion, as the three of us gave mini-pitches during each class period.  During lunch, we set up shop in the cafeteria.  I got one sign-up during lunch from a student who had heard about the Essay Workshop when other members of our class had visited previously.  Otherwise, however, we didn't get too much attention at lunch; most of the kids seemed too busy or too nervous to approach us.

As Melanie, Anna, and I headed out, feeling a little unsure whether we had made an impression at all, a girl stopped us on our way to the parking lot:

"You're leaving?  When will you be coming back?"

And then I remembered:  with kids, you never can tell.

I'm headed back to Mart High School next Monday.  I'll only have half an hour--from 8:45-9:15 am--but if I can get kids to show up for at least that long, maybe I can get a commitment from them to come a little earlier next week (a promise of donuts might help my case).  I'm crossing my fingers.  If even just three students who showed interest actually follow through, the early-morning trip will be well worth it.