Today’s post comes from Suprita Datta, a member of generationOn‘s Youth Planning Committee, Young Women’s Planning Committee, and Service for School Success program.

On November 2, 2010 I went with a group of youth volunteers from generationOn to see the documentary Waiting for “Superman”.  Afterwards, we participated in a service project at the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) and talked to the COO, Anne Williams-Isom.

For the past two weeks, we had been meeting every Tuesday as part of a generationOn program for high school students called Service for School Success to discuss one of the city’s most troubling issues–the high school dropout rate.

Our goal was to discuss ways we could reduce this rate by engaging the youth in our communities through service and volunteering.  We had decided to watch this documentary because it discussed the education system itself and its shortcomings.  One of the solutions proposed was charter schools such as the HCZ that focus on students as part of a community and help them to succeed.

After the movie concluded, we walked a few blocks to the HCZ and had lunch with Ms. Isom.  We had many questions for her but first, she explained what the HCZ exactly was.

Dedicated to providing a quality education to children in Harlem, the HCZ works with a community that extends 97 blocks within Harlem.  It has multiple charter schools, a massive community center, gymnasiums, cultural programs and recreational centers.

She explained to us that education goes beyond enriching the minds of individual children.  Harlem Children’s Zone helps to build a community.  By providing kids with the tools to succeed, the goal of the HCZ is to create a generation of minds that will break the cycle of poverty and give back positively to their community.

Perhaps the most important message we took from this discussion was that education was really the catalyst for change.  And in order to provide this catalyst, the whole community must be involved.

When I first walked into the HCZ, I felt as if I had never seen a public elementary school like it.  Its walls were decorated with students’ work.  The floors were clean and the classrooms were neatly organized and filled with books.  Although students didn’t have class that day, there were quite a few students present helping out teachers or attending programs.

We participated in a service project which involved labeling books according to their grade level and creating an inventory.  Looking around the classrooms, I realized that it had resources that were scarcely available when I was in elementary school.  There were audio books that were neatly arranged with the hard copy ones.  Almost every classroom had three to four computers and was equipped with smart boards.  Flipping through the book reports that were hanging on the walls I realized that these kids were either reading at or above grade level.  Needless to say, they were certainly achieving.

On the train ride back home, I had a lot of time to think about our day.  The most important thing I realized was that a “high school dropout” didn’t begin in high school.  In fact, the issue started much earlier than that.  In order to succeed in high school, a student must also be challenged and succeed in elementary school and middle school.  We couldn’t just solve the problem by starting with high school kids.  We needed to start younger and earlier.  Some may call this intervention or prevention.  I call it a solution.

Suprita Datta is a high school junior currently attending Stuyvesant High School in New York City. She has been volunteering with generationOn for over four years and has been a member of the organization’s Youth Planning Committee, Young Women’s Planning Committee, and Service for School Success program.