Naeema: My Passion
Video: Education Reform
Footage begins with Naeema in a classroom setting and proceeds to include interviews with her independent-study advisor Professor Preston Smith. The footage includes still images of Naeema with middle school students at the Achievement First Charter School in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where she was doing research for her independent-study project on education reform.
Audio from video
Associate Professor of Politics Preston H. Smith II:
“As someone who directs community-based learning, I look for students not only to get a sense of their academic interest and their intellectual interest, but what are their social interests. What is the personal motivation or even the social motivation that really drives a particular topic?”
Associate Professor of Psychology and Education Sandra M. Lawrence, off camera:
“Or, is he trying to dissuade them from believing in personal stereotypes?”
Naeema:
“I think it’s both. He’s trying to build their self esteem…”
Naeema, in interview:
“Going to predominantly black schools when I was younger, and then transferring to predominantly White schools, and seeing that the ways in which the White schools had resources. They had money, and Black schools, or in poorer communities typically didn’t have resources, and I was just really upset and annoyed by that. Why didn’t a certain person, who attended a predominantly Black school, didn’t have access to the same resources that I had when I attended my predominantly White school? … I’ve been in different spaces, and know different people in kind of different circles and realize that life doesn’t necessarily have to be you know bleak and sad. And every child should have access to educational resources. And I just see education as a tool of empowerment … My senior research project is looking a charter school reform policy in New York City, specifically looking at two charter schools in Brooklyn, New York, in Crown Height and Bedford Styvesant, and assessing the strengths and weakness in charter school reform policy in New York City. My advisor is Professor Smith, and he has been awesome in terms of helping me shape my project, and giving me these questions to help me narrow the focus.”
Professor Smith:
“I know that this matters to her while she is studying and it is going to matter to her also when she leaves. So the kind of conversations we have are seamless between what she is studying as to what she is going to be doing when she leaves Mount Holyoke. For me, I love having that really comprehensive kind of experience and exchange with a student. Because their life for me doesn’t end when they graduate from Mount Holyoke.”
Naeema:
“It’s just seeing things, and even going to South Africa, I just see inequalities, and I feel that’s not okay.”
For more information on education reform
(Links to related sites outside this tour)
- Meet Naeema’s independent-study advisor Professor Preston Smith…
- Read about education critic Jonathan Kozol’s inspiring visit to Mount Holyoke…
- Learn about the Achievement First Charter School in Brooklyn, New York where Naeema did part of her research on educational policy reform…
- Meet Amy Stuart Wells, a professor at Columbia University Teachers College whose writings on educational reform have been influential to Naeema…
- Visit the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs…
About This Site
This transcript is a companion to the My Point of View Tour, a multimedia site presenting the Mount Holyoke experience through photos, audio clips, and video clips. If you have suggestions about how to improve the accessibility of this site, please contact us.