“We’re so close to greatness. I can feel it!” ~ Cliff, Citizen Schools Teaching Fellow working with Innovation Station
Last week at my training session for Citizen Schools, Cliff, the Teaching Fellow who will be with me every step of the way in the classroom, let this quote fly as we talked through ideas for the apprenticeship that begins next week. The apprenticeship, Innovation Station, is going to help students build their own prototypes and models of products and services that they would like to turn into businesses. On Tuesday, students at M.S. 45 will have the chance to attend an apprenticeship fair where I’ll be giving an elevator pitch on the subject of the apprenticeship and what we’ll do during the ten weeks that we’re together.
Originally, I thought I’d run a brainstorming session. Cliff looked at me, kindly, and said, “I think that’s going to get really out of control really fast. Let’s hold off on that idea. All the content is here – we know what the apprenticeship is about and the ultimate goal. We’re so close to greatness. I can feel it! We just have to figure out how to get and keep their attention.”
Cliff’s enthusiasm for the subject and for the kids helped me see that there was a better way forward. I could communicate the same content as originally planned, but there are so many other interactive avenues to get the kids interested than I first thought. Infomercials, celebrity examples, new uses for every day items, the element of the strange and unknown as a catalyst for curiosity. Cliff’s got a million tricks up his sleeves. More importantly, he believes in the idea as much as I do, and he can quickly get inside the minds of these kids. He knows what piques their interest.
What I needed was that extra push, that extra encouragement to knock down any perceived boundaries to what we could accomplish. As Cliff and I talked it out, we began to discover so many new ideas that we could barely keep track of them all on the paper. And the real beauty, is that the ideas were spontaneous. Neither of us had even considered them before sitting down to talk about the apprenticeship fair. Like little pings of inspiration, I could feel their magic falling down all around us.
We just needed to up our game a little – that’s what the prospect of a middle school student’s critique will do for us. It pushes us to go that extra bit. They don’t just want an apprenticeship that’s decent; they want one that makes them run to the session every week, one that makes them believe that they really do have hope for a brighter future and the ability to make it happen. They want greatness in action, and I mean to create that for them.
The image above is not my own. It can be found here.
Christa Avampato 
