The Advisory: Class of 2006 - Episode 1 - The Met

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Natasha: A year ago, I got a phone call. It was from my high school. I graduated from there 20 years ago. So I wondered, what could they want?  They asked me if I’d sit down for an interview. They said we’d talk for a couple hours. They’d record it. 

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Basically, they wanted to know: How’s it going? 

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They were eager to find out what I’m doing now and what my education at that school meant to me. What sort of impact did it have? 

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Think about it. Has your high school ever called and asked that? I’m guessing, no. 

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But, it’s a good question. One that I truly believe every high school should be asking. “How’d we do?”

So I said “yes.”  

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Joseph: My name is Joseph. I am 38 years old 

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Samenta: My name is Samenta Baltazard. I am ugh… thirty seven. 

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And so did a lot of other graduates from my class, the class of 2006. 

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Justine: My name is Justine and I graduated in two thousand and six. 

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Anthony: My name is Anthony Molina, I'm 38 now. 

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We had a lot to say. 

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Vimar: Vimar and I graduated 2006.

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Which is pretty incredible considering some of us came close to dropping out. 

 

Willy: My name is William Diaz Lara and I'm thirty seven.

 

Natasha: Because we’d faced so many challenges before we got there.

 

Alberto: Alberto and I'm thirty eight 

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Noam: My name is Noam Bar-Zemer. I graduated in 2006. 

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Natasha: Or some people - like me - faced difficult things once we got to high school.

 

My name, by the way, is Natasha Luigui. I’m 38 now. And all of us… Joseph, Samenta, Willy … we all found ourselves in a school that was different. Completely different. No tests. No teachers. No classes. We had advisors and advisories instead. And, much of the time, we weren't even in school. Our education took place off campus. So, yeah, as one student put it, it was earth and sky different. 

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Our school was the Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center in Providence, RI. But none of us call it that. We call it The Met. 

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I’d like for you to hear about The Met’s approach and how it made such a difference and also about why the school matters so much to each of us. 

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Believe me when I say, we’re honored to be telling you about it. 

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We’re calling this series The Advisory: Class of 2006. You’ll hear more from me later. In the meantime, here’s the host, the guy who reached out to each of us - our advisor - Andrew Frishman. 

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Ep. 1 - The Met

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Andrew: When I called my former students, I asked them to meet me one-on-one at the Met. In the same room we used to gather in for advisory.

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I started by asking them about what school was like for them before they ever got to high school. 

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Noam: Uh, well, I was in a number of schools before I got here.

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Growing up in Rhode Island, Noam Bar-Zemer says he changed schools a lot. He went to private schools...public schools...

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Noam: Every flavor of school in Providence is a flavor I tried at some point. 

 

Noam changed schools so much because he had difficulties reading and doing his class work.  It was a real struggle. 

 

Now he knows he has adhd and dyslexia. but, back then… in the 1990s, school was a challenge for him... and Noam says there wasn't much support for students who weren't keeping up. 

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Noam: They had like one teacher who basically like took kids out of the room so that they weren't distractions and then just like give you like coloring books basically.

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By the time he was in third grade,  Noam says he was functionally illiterate. and that the school’s conclusion was he was just stupid.…

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Noam: If you're going to school where the teachers are calling you dumb and the kids are picking up on that and  bullying you and I mean like aggressive like physical bullying that left marks. Yeah I think by the time I was in third grade I was afraid to go outside the house. 

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Noam’s parents decided to transfer him. this time to a school that had specific programs to support kids with learning differences. They made him repeat third grade.

 

Noam: Believing that I was dumb and being in a school that was for kids who are learning disabled didn't help. 

 

Noam: I think I started doing a thing around then which is like finding clever ways to not have to do the work because I felt if I did the work, it would show that I was dumb. And so I created environments in which the work did not need to be done.

 

Noam began conning his way through school. But it didn’t work. And the private school told him he had to leave. 

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Noam: In private school, you don't get kicked out, they don't invite you back. (laughs)

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Andrew: An uninvitation. 

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Noam: Yeah, yeah, I was uninvited. 

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Noam went to a public middle school. And one day the school's special needs facilitator knocked on his classroom door.

 

Noam: She pulled me out of class randomly. One day in seventh grade, took me to a room and put - in seventh grade - Clifford, The Big Red Dog in front of me, which is a book for like four year olds. She's like, can you read that? And I was like, yeah. And she was like read it for me and I did. And she's like, I knew it. And she called my mother and she was like he's not dyslexic, he's just lazy and you're a bad mother. 

 

Noam gave up. He stopped caring. and he became angry. not just at school. at home, too.

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Noam: By eighth grade I was like walking out of the house at midnight on a Saturday and hanging out with people who were twice my age smoking an inordinate amount of weed. Driving around in cars with people that eighth graders probably shouldn't be driving around cars with seeing things eighth graders probably shouldn't Be seeing. 

 

High school was next. In 2002, Noam was slated to go to the large public high school in his neighborhood: ironically called Hope High. I say ironically because it was one of the worst schools in Providence at the time....graduation rates were abysmal. Around 50% -  bad enough that the state took over the school that year.

 

Noam: People called it Hopeless. And I think my parents were probably correct to be worried about what was going to happen if I went there. 

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Noam: If I had gone to Hope High School, I'm not convinced I would have lived four years. I think I probably would have just overdosed on drugs. 100%. 

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Noam's parents were distraught. They didn't see how Hope High School would provide Noam with what he needed. So, they decided to try one other option. A relatively new, small, public high school on the south side of Providence called The Met. It had been started by an organization called Big Picture Learning. 

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Back then, in the early 2000s, The Met had only been around for five years or so. Only a couple hundred kids had attended. Still, there were already rumors about it.  Rumors that, at its best, it was just a very different kind of school. And, at worst - it was a place where “those” kids went. 

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People said it was easy too.

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Noam: [00:26:12] And also, not for nothing, kids were like, that's the place, you don't have to go to class. 
 

Noam’s friends weren’t entirely wrong. The Met was and still is  a very unusual school. 

 

That thing about not having to go to class? That’s kinda true. students don’t shuffle from one class to another throughout the day. Instead students learn by following their own interests and passions. In fact, two days a week, students aren’t in the school building at all. They are out in the community. Interning at local businesses and organizations.

 

Oh - and there aren't any tests… or grades. Instead, students show what they've learned at something called an exhibition. where they present their work and share what they've learned.

 

So, yeah. The Met is not a typical high school. 

 

And back in 2002 - trying to avoid sending their son to a failing school - as a last ditch effort -  Noam’s parents enrolled him in The Met, and then… they all crossed their fingers.

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Vimar: [00:07:44] just being here just brings back a lot of memories… and just having this conversation is, it does bring joy. 

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Vimar Rodriguez has a brightness about her. And an infectious smile.

 

Her family moved to Rhode Island from the Dominican Republic just as she was about to start third grade. 

 

Vimar: [00:10:31] it's a whole new environment, a whole new language, a new culture.

 

In the D.R., Vimar was enrolled in a private school. but in the U.S., her family couldn’t afford private school. So she went to public school instead.

 

Vimar: and I get dropped down a whole grade because I don't speak the language. 

 

Vimar had to do second grade all over again.  Even though…she’d already learned some of the things they would cover that year.

 

Vimar: They tell me you cannot write in cursive because we're not there yet like I was not allowed to write in cursive. 

 

Vimar’s mom had earned a degree in education in the D.R.  but in the United States even communicating with teachers was difficult.

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Vimar: I very quickly had to learn to be the translator for my mom and I didn't speak English. So picture that. 

 

Vimar and her siblings faced other challenges. 

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Vimar: At school we were bullied the whole entire time because we were different, you know, we didn't dress the same. We didn't look the same. We didn't speak the same languages. So we didn't fit in. 

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Vimar’s parents worried about what they saw happening to their daughter. She got good grades, but Vimar’s mother knew she wasn’t thriving. In desperation, she  moved Vimar from school to school. looking for one that could see the potential in her daughter that she so clearly saw herself. 

 

When Vimar  started  high school, things got even worse. First off, there were gangs. On top of that almost every day kids would pull the fire alarm so they could go outside and fight.

 

That’s when Vimar started skipping school. a lot. 

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Vimar: Skipping school to go to parties, day parties. 

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And she got away with it because most days no one - not even the teachers  -  noticed she was gone. 

 

And on the days she did show up?

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Vimar: It didn't matter. There was still a phone call that came in, your student was absent today. 

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Andrew: You're saying it was both directions like if you were there they might call and say you were absent and if you were absent they might not call 

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Vimar: That would happen all the time 

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And then, at school one day… 

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Vimar: I got into a fight. And my mom lost it. She was like, what's going on? But a gentleman, a guy, came at me and crossed the line with me. And I'm a very peaceful person. 

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Vimar: And I'm usually a peacemaker and a mediator and de-escalate situations, but this guy crossed the line and touched my body inappropriately. 

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Vimar: And I lost it. And I fought this guy, and I punched this guy. And I couldn't stop punching him. So I got suspended. 

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The guy who crossed the line. The fight. The suspension. Being marked absent when she was there. And present when she wasn't. It all added up. Vimar felt invisible. Unseen. 

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Vimar: Not being seen that impacted my relationship with my education, my attendance, my actually paying attention in class, it affected my grades. It affected my desire to be in school. My desire of what I wanted to be in the future, it affected my everything. 

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And so, in 10th grade, Vimar’s parents decided to transfer Vimar - yet again….this time… to The Met.

 

Back when Noam and Vimar were struggling in school, I was too.To be sure it was a very different struggle…vastly different. But like them, I was feeling increasingly frustrated with traditional education.

 

I had studied biology in college because I loved science. and I wanted everyone to love learning about science. My plan was to become a teacher. 

 

I could picture it. I’d be up at the front of the room, teaching what I loved. Twenty-five students in rows. Hands up. Notes taken. Tests given. On fun days, maybe a lab. Maybe a documentary.

 

Then the bell. One class out. Another class in. All day long. Day after day. 

 

And for a while…I did teach that way. But I started to question whether it was really working for the students.

 

In fact, I started pushing at the edges… experimenting. Like this one time, I designed a neuroscience class where  - instead of learning only from a text book - I asked the students  to explore a topic that interested them. One student wanted to learn more about her grandmother’s Alzheimer's. another wanted to understand concussions. Another, addiction.

 

I paired them each with a real world scientist who answered all their questions.

 

The students  loved it! they went deep. They were more engaged than I had ever seen. Even their parents noticed a difference!

 

Still, at the end of the semester the administration told me the class was out of compliance and would never happen again.

 

So yeah…I wanted to teach but not if the goal was to just help kids do well on tests and advance to the next grade. In other words, just help the kids get better at doing school.  

 

At that time, I was also working on getting a teaching degree at Brown University. and one night, there was a presentation. I remember there were three speakers on stage from innovative schools across the city.

 

The first presenter stood up and talked about implementing a new math curriculum. Interesting. But I wasn't on the edge of my seat. 

 

The next presenter was a guidance counselor from another school. They had launched a restorative justice program that seemed to be reducing disciplinary referrals. important. But I still was not particularly wowed.

 

And then…Andy stood up… a 16 yr old… a kid. That got my attention... 

 

Andy shared how he’d always struggled in school. and his parents were close to giving up on him. 

 

But then, he landed at The Met. He told us one day in school - early on  - his advisor  asked him  “What are you interested in? 

 

Andy said “I don't know. Hanging out with friends?”

 

“Okay. When you hang out with your friends, what do you talk about?” 

 

Andy said “Our lives. What it was like when we were little kids. What’s going to happen in the future. That sort of thing.” 

 

“Oh. sounds like maybe you're interested in developmental psychology.”

 

Andy asked…“What’s that?” 

 

The advisor explained. Andy was intrigued. and off he went. Looking into Developmental Psychology which led him to Sociology which led him to Anthropology…. 

 

He told everyone in the room that for the first time in years, he  was actively engaged in learning about stuff that interested him.

 

Now, I was on the edge of my seat. And then Andy said that the Met helped him set up an internship… at an anthropology museum. Andy got to do hands-on work designing and building exhibits.

 

Finally, Andy said something that has stayed with me ever since. He said:  “if I had gone to a regular school, I would have done more school work, but I would have learned less.” 

 

That was it I was hooked. I applied for a job at the Met. And was hired as an advisor for the next school year. I was 26 years old and had no idea what it meant to be an advisor.

 

so, one of the first things i had to do was something i’d never done before. something i’d never even thought of doing. but every advisor does it. we visit students at their home.

 

I had to learn that The Met doesn’t just enroll kids. It enrolls families too. And that meant I had to look to families for insight and input. And it meant knowing first hand what each student’s home life and community was like. 

 

In other words the school goes to the students before the students even come to school. 

 

So in the summer of 2002, before school started, I got in my car and drove around to all of my student’s homes. 

 

Remember I was pretty young. And liked pushing at the edges. So back then I was driving a 15-year-old midnight blue Toyota Corolla. The shocks had mostly given out, so I had outfitted it with a giant kangaroo hood ornament that looked like it was leaping as I bounced along, and I had also glued  about 50 action figures to the roof of the car. 

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Natasha: And it's like, this dude's weird why does he have toys on his car? 

I thought it was funny. I thought the students would think it was funny too. apparently not. 

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Natasha: I lived in the Chad Brown projects at the time. 

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That’s Natasha. She’s the one who talked about getting that phone call from me.  

 

Natasha: Here's this guy with a car, with toys in a community where there's like a lot of violence and things like of that nature. And it's like. All right, what are you doing? What is he here for? Is he here to look for drugs? What is here for?
 

I was going from house to house to work with students and their families to create a learning plan -  a kind of custom road map - where each student lays out their goals for that quarter.  

 

That day, I chatted with Natasha and her mom for a couple of hours at their kitchen table. I needed to begin to get to know Natasha and find out about her and her interests. 

 

I started by asking her lots of questions…things like who in your family does something that’s interesting to you? Is there something that you want to change about the world because it makes you angry? What’s something you’re good at?

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Natasha: Before that interaction, I never really thought about what I wanted to do… no one really asked me, you know to think about these things. 

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I loved getting to know more about natasha. and having her mom there to provide insights was key.

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Natasha: So… that was our highlight, me and my mom. Cause… After you left it's like oh that was actually a good thing for us to like really think about because we never really thought about that stuff.

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Natasha: But you should have chose a different car to come in. So it's like, can you just park down the street next time? 

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Vimar: You came to my house.   like you came to my house before I even came to the school. That, to start with, was like What?? 

 

That’s Vimar again. Remember, she was told she couldn’t write in cursive because the other students hadn’t learned how to yet. She started at the Met her sophomore year, but the process was the same. 

 

As I mentioned, Vimar’s family moved to the United States from the D.R. Her mother only spoke Spanish so communication between her mom and schools had been difficult. 

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Vimar: There was a shift when you walked in, sat down, that eye to eye, yes. You looked like a teacher with your binders and things. 

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Andrew: And I think I remember trying. I was still working on my Spanish. Fue tratando de practicar mi español. Mi acento fue una porqueria. Fue terrible. 

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Vimar: No, but I think the fact that you were trying to speak in Spanish in a language that was familiar to us, that you get points for that… You spoke a language that my parents could understand. You sat at a table, you put out papers, and you said, this is a learning plan. 

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We talked about Vimar’s interests…health care disparities and non-violence. We brainstormed some possible internships. and we discussed what Vimar could learn from those experiences. We wrote out an initial learning plan we would continue to build together.

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Vimar: I was a little afraid or nervous, but I was excited because it was almost like I was driving my education. And that made such a difference in just me wanting to be here, me wanting learn. That made me want period. I mattered in that moment. My learning mattered. My future mattered. I was seen. I was visible. 

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When the summer ended and school began Natasha, Noam  - and eventually Vimar - along with a dozen or so other young people came together as the students in my advisory.

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Alberto: We had one of everything. We had in quotations gangster, we had the homeschool kid, we had, the hard body, we had the the jock, I mean we had everybody in our advisory definitely a mix of personalities for sure. 

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Some students enroll at the Met because the approach appeals to them. They like the idea of pursuing their interests. 

 

For others the Met is appealing because more traditional schools haven't worked. and they were disengaged. disinterested. done.

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Justine: I think we all came from different backgrounds and we all had different experiences and different families.

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They really need the Met to be a place that works for them. a place they want to be. And I was looking for that, too. I wanted to wake up each day excited to go to work… in a school that was driven by what each student wanted to learn. 

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As the school year began, I figured everything would just slide into place, maybe with a few bumps along the way….  but, I’ll tell you straight up, that first year did not go smoothly. 

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Anthony: I told my Mom I don't wanna go to The Met. I never even heard of that school. 

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Samenta: I was like, uhuh. I'm not gonna do this. I think I was trying to leave. Honestly. 

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It turns out, part of the problem was me. 

 

Anthony: I was like, damn, I got this hippie-ass dude as my teacher. 

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Justine: What the hell is this this white dude doing in Providence? 

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Alberto: I remember telling my mom, he's got toys on his car. What do you mean he has toys on his car? I was like, There's toys super glued to the top of his car, mother. And she said, This is your teacher? Said, Yep. 

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As for Noam, he took one look at me and figured he would just keep conning his way through school. 

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Noam: Honestly, I was like, this guy's gonna get eaten alive. This guy's an idiot. And I was, like that's great for me. Feed him to the sharks and I'll just be over here doodling. I was like this is gonna be really easy. 

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But it wasn’t easy. for any of us. And not just because of the art installation on my car. 9th grade there was a lot of bitterness in the advisory. 

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Alberto: We all had our like anger issues, like we were all just angry. 

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Anthony: I would get mad quick. I remember like I used to talk back to you guys. 

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Noam: I was pretty angry back then. 

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Samenta: We put you through hell. 

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Justine: I wish I wasn’t such an angry kid. And, I did take it out on you, and I probably was pretty mean.

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Some days the kids were mean. to each other and to me. There were days I felt like a punching bag. 

 

I knew it wasn’t entirely personal. There were lots of reasons they were angry. Some faced violence in their communities. Others had struggles at home. For some, school seemed kind of useless.

 

And now they'd walked into a new school - a very different kind of school.

 

What do you mean there are no classes? How am I supposed to know how I’m doing well if there are no grades? I have to do internships and public speaking? How does all this work? Will it help me?

 

Even I was unsettled. And I was supposed to be the adult in the room. The one with the teaching degree. But I had no experience teaching the way I was being asked to teach at the Met. 

 

The Met required a leap of faith from all of us. 

 

I’m not giving anything away by telling you that things got worse before they got better.… still…we eventually found our way. 

 

And I wanted to reach out to my students – on the 20th anniversary of their graduation from the met.

 

I’ve never done this before. sit with students to ask, how did we do? How did I do? Twenty years later, do you feel that this very different type of school - the relationships you developed and the learning experiences you had - did it make a difference?  Did the Met prepare you to make a life you love? And live a life of your own design?

 

I suspect, if you have an interest in young people, in schools… if you’re at all concerned about the state of education, you’ll want to hear their answers.

 

And you will hear all about it, in the episodes to come. 

 

And you’ll also hear from students at the Met today. They’ll show you the school and how learning takes place there.

 

But for now, I’ll leave you…..with this… 

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Andrew: I want to show you something. 

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Anthony: Wow! I remember this, look at this. I still got this picture too. 

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Just before we graduated in June of 2006, my advisory decided to take  a professional photo,  with all of us in it. 

 

[hear her opening the photo and laughing]

 

Samenta: Our advisory. 

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Andrew: Who do you see in there? 

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We called a place in the mall. One that takes those cheesy portraits. We made an appointment… and off we went.

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Justine: Vimar, Joseph, Natasha. 

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When I sat down with my advisees to talk with them about our time at the Met together, 

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Natasha: Justine, Noam, Willie, Chris, Jeremy. 

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I showed them a copy of that photo. 

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Samenta: Crystal, Brenda, Stephanie, Alberto.

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Alberto: Samantha, let's see, Bennett, Anthony, and you when you had hair. 

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As I handed it to each of them,  I asked them to tell me what they saw.

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Vimar: This photo is a family photo. That's what I'm going to describe it as. 

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Noam: These are people who I trust in a way that I don't really trust many people, to be honest with you. 

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Samenta: I love these people. 

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Natasha: My advisory is my family.

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Justine: We all grew together. 

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You’ve been listening to The Advisory: Class of 2006. Join us next time for Episode 2, “What Is This Place?”

 

Justine: I was how old, fourteen, fifteen? Who the f*ck knew what I wanted to be? You know what I mean?

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Noam: I really felt like I was getting away with murder. This is like the least schoolish thing ever. 

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Samenta: So, sorry again. 

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Andrew: I've been waiting ---. 

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Samenta: Woah. 

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Andrew: I’ve been waiting twenty years to get you to read that Samenta!!! 

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Samenta: *big laugh*

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To see photos, learn more about The Met, Big Picture and our advisory, visit our website: classof2006.org. If you enjoy this series, please help us spread the word by telling your friends about it and by leaving us a review wherever you subscribe.

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From Big Picture Learning, I'm Andrew Frishman. Thanks for listening.