GSE helps middle-school kids 'invent the future'

By Ken Gewertz

Gazette Staff

Since her trip to Washington, Kaisa Luna has a new ambition. She wants to be president.

No, she's not after Bill Clinton's job, at least not for now. Her goal is to be student president of the Edwards Middle School of Charlestown.

"As president, I would try to get kids to grow up and take their work more seriously," she said. "A lot of kids are very immature and spend too much time fooling around. I would try to get them involved in after-school activities."

Kaisa is one of 20 students from the Edwards School and the McKay Middle School of East Boston who went to the Stand For Children Rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., last summer.

They were accompanied by Mark Taylor, a counselor at the Edwards School, and Kris Allison, a teacher at the McKay School. Both Taylor and Allison were students at the Graduate School of Education (GSE) during 1994-95.

The trip was financed by several local community service organizations, including Teens as Community Resources (TCR), Boston Do Something, as well as individual contributors from around the country.

According to the terms of the grant from TCR, which provided the major portion of the funding, students had the responsibility of documenting the trip through journals, photography, and video and to bring the experience to their classmates and to community members, a task they have undertaken with great enthusiasm.

"We thought this trip would be a great thing for the kids to experience, and I think it did have a very positive impact," Taylor said.

Taylor's work at the Edwards School is supported by Project IF: Inventing the Future, a partnership by which the Graduate School of Education provides the Edwards and McKay schools with counselors who help middle-school students work toward positive goals. The project was developed by Michael Nakkula, a lecturer at the Graduate School of Education, and Sheila O'Keefe, an instructor in psychology in the Department of Psychiatry of Massachusetts General Hospital.

Taylor's hope that the Washington trip would inspire the students was borne out by their reactions.

"It was a great experience," said Luna. "I didn't think so many people would be there. It made me realize people do care for kids. I wish everyone could have that experience."

Jason Jusino of the McKay School said, "When I looked around and saw all those people gathered there for the march, it felt like everyone was family. I was really touched by all that. Everyone was there for one reason -- for the kids."

The June 1 rally was only the highlight of the trip, which lasted for six days and was full of thrilling experiences. For some students, even the train ride from Boston to Washington was an inspiration. Bernadette Connors, a student at the Edwards School, started writing in her journal as the train pulled out of the station and by the end of the trip was amazed to discover she had covered 30 pages.

"It was more than I'd written all year in school," she said.

Students from the two schools roomed in George Washington University dormitories, an experience that transformed strangers into friends.

"It took us a while to get to know one another," said Jason Deramo of the McKay School. "But now we kind of miss each other. It seems weird for the kids from the Edwards School not to be around."

The students spent their evenings discussing topics like racism and the rights of children, and their days visiting landmarks like the Washington Monument, the Vietnam Memorial, and Arlington National Cemetery.

At the Stand For Children Rally, some students roamed through the crowd with a video camera, asking people what they thought about children and their role in society. The video will be shown at a special presentation that the students are now putting together for their classmates.

The Washington visit is expected to have other reverberations as well. Taylor is working with some of the students on a special newspaper to publicize the event. Other students have taken a special grant-writing course that will help them to apply to local organizations for funding for other projects.

"This will allow them to come up with their own ideas for future projects," Taylor said. "It will show them that they can take a more active role and that they have the power to change their communities."