As a teacher at an urban high school, I try to prepare for the unexpected. Answering questions is a normal part of my day, but as we drove in a bus up North Capitol Street two years ago, a curveball came my way.
“What’s that building up there?” one of my students asked. It wasn’t just any building, it was the United States Capitol, a building instantaneously recognized by perhaps billions worldwide but unknown to a child who lives only two miles away.
This student lives in Southeast D.C. and attends Anacostia High School, where I have taught for the last three years. I turned my initial shock and disappointment from the school bus into something more productive.
So I began preparing our newly formed team on “It’s Academic,” the world’s longest-running quiz show at 51 years and counting. It featured our dynamic school team in action yesterday.
Years ago, in 1951, our school fielded a team on the show when Mac McGarry was the host. However, as decades passed, our presence on the show severely diminished.
Its absence reflected some grim realities: Anacostia High had become known as a failing enterprise, a place of abysmal academic performance and increasing violence, including the murder of a student outside the school in 2003.
With students from the District’s most vulnerable neighborhood, Anacostia has 19 of every 20 students living in poverty.
Ward 8, which encompasses the wider community, has the highest unemployment rate of any area of comparable size in the nation. Nearly one in 10 students is homeless and one in five girls is a teen mom.
Since 2009, the challenge of reviving the school has fallen to Friendship Public Charter School, which operates public charter and traditional public schools in the District.
It has brought in a largely new faculty and a new emphasis on high expectations. Compared with the public schools in Fairfax or Montgomery counties, our turnaround statistics might not seem all that impressive, but they point to progress.
Student attendance, for instance, was 72 percent last school year, up from about 50 percent before Friendship came on the scene.
And last year, when 79 percent of the seniors graduated, 90 percent of them were accepted to college. In June 2009, just 56 percent graduated.
This school year, more than 150 students have taken Advanced Placement courses, previously only sporadically offered.
Forty students have received Gates Foundation-funded D.C. Achievers scholarships, prestigious awards that include full financial and emotional support throughout college.
One student is a Gates Millennium scholar and will receive a full ride for an undergraduate and postgraduate degree.
The accomplishment that means the most to me, though, is that Anacostia has fielded an “It’s Academic” team two years running.
Of the 81 teams that compete throughout the “It’s Academic” season, only four are District of Columbia public schools.
Besides Anacostia — the others are Banneker, School Without Walls and Wilson — a selective, a magnet, and a Ward 3 school.
When I initiated the team as head coach and recruited two outstanding teacher — Brianna Copley and Abraham Pachikara — to join me, we had a lot more enthusiasm than experience.
We found students, though, who were willing to work hard. They did and we did, day in, day out, and many weekends.
Our teams went to tapings of the show to get used to the pressure of the spotlight. We entered high school quiz bowls, knowing we would probably lose, but needing the experience of competition.
We formed a partnership with Georgetown Day School, one of the best schools in the area, for practices and the occasional scrimmage.
Our students’ work even impressed the District of Columbia’s mayor, Vincent Gray, who supported us at our taping.
It wasn’t easy, but our students are now intimately familiar with presidents and world geography, science and literature.
Perhaps most astounding of all was that the boy who could not identify the U.S. Capitol was on the show and performed magnificently, answering questions about algebra and President James A. Garfield with ease.
Sure, our students got to compete on a television show, but what’s more is that they competed with the best as if they were the best.
Excuses, so prevalent in the world of urban America, have disappeared in our case because our students believe in themselves and because their community believes in them.
If you missed the results of our team’s hard work on “It’s Academic” yesterday, don’t worry I’m sure you will get another opportunity.
Ryan Benjamin coaches the “It’s Academic” team at the Academies at Anacostia and teaches there.
