[this from rebecca argudin and stephanie wittenaur with wicked dan brown leaning in]
From Kingston to Cambridge: What 2 Harvard Law School Students Learned from 20 Jamaican 9th Graders
As second-year law students at Harvard Law School, we have arguably been exposed to the best education that money can buy. Our professors are world-renowned legal scholars, and our fellow students are future Congresspersons and Supreme Court justices. And yet, after two years of classes here at Harvard Law, we can both honestly say that we have learned our most valuable lessons from twenty underprivileged 9th graders in Jamaica.
Each week this semester, we met with students from Ascot High School in Kingston, Jamaica, via Internet video chatting. With just a laptop computer and Internet access, we were able to instantly connect with students thousands of miles away.
Throughout the semester, we taught the students various lessons using fun and challenging strategic games. Although we prepared lesson plans and acted as teachers, we soon found that these students were actually teaching us in ways we had never expected.
Here are some of the most memorable lessons we learned…
Lesson #1: Kids have so much to say; they just need someone who is willing to listen
From the moment we first logged on to the video chat, it was apparent that the kids were eager and ready to interact with us. One by one, they walked up to the camera, waved to us, and started talking. They sang their school song, danced, asked us questions, and just talked to us about anything and everything. There was never any need to worry about if our lesson plan was too short or whether we would run out of things to say, as the kids were ready and willing to fill the time with questions, stories, and intriguing conversations. We learned about their lives, their school, their culture and even their uniforms, and shared with them anything they wanted to know about ourselves, the United States, and Harvard. We were so impressed by their politeness, vivid stories, and eloquent questions. We learned more than we could have ever imagined from these impromptu conversations and hopefully were able to satisfy a little bit of their curiosity about us. These students are so eager to learn new things and share their thoughts, but they need someone who is willing to listen. Once the spotlight is on them, and they have an audience, the possibilities are endless.