Author: Lisa Kraege
About 20 Occidental students joined with Benjamin Franklin High School students on Saturday, Feb. 28 to canvass local neighborhoods in support of the Algebra Project, a non-profit educational organization being implemented at Franklin next year.
“The Algebra Project is an innovative program that focuses on algebra as the next step in Civil Rights for the lowest performing quartile of students in under-served communities,” participant Trevor Fay (senior) said.
The canvassing on Saturday joined the Algebra Project with the Young People’s Project (YPP), an outgrowth of the Algebra Project. “It is the mission of YPP to use math literacy as a tool to develop young leaders and organizers who radically change the quality of education and life in their communities so that all children have the opportunity to reach their full human potential,” one of the student organizers Margot Seigel (senior) said. YPP involves students in their education, evidenced by the Franklin student involvement.
The students were trying to inspire awareness and excitement about the Algebra Project in the parents of incoming Franklin students. “We sent the Oxy students out with the Franklin students. They were working at an equal level, going door to door. The Franklin students were all so excited,” Siegel said.
Along with promoting awareness of the project, students also wanted to ensure that there would be enough individuals participating to truly actualize the project’s goals. “We talked to 100 kids, but we only need 25 to have to class,” participant Samantha Sencer-Mura (sophomore) said. “Although ideally, it would be better to have more.”
Students from Franklin and Oxy were also working side by side with the greater Los Angeles community. “Oxy students [were] among around 100 supporters from the community, and those involved with implementing the project in L.A.,” Fay said, “[participants] individually visited each of the 100 target households and have interpersonal conversations with the parents to build support.”
Most of the response was positive, students said. “Everyone we talked to seemed excited about the project,” Sencer-Mura said, “but I’m kind of skeptical, because you never know who is going to really listen and show up.”
Sencer-Mura and many of the Oxy student participants are enrolled in Professor Ron Buckmire’s Math, Education, and Access to Power class in the Math department (MATH 201), which requires them to participate in local educational projects.
“The kids that were targeted were ones that are often overlooked or given up on. We are trying to make the system work for them,” Seigel said.
A main goal of the canvassing was to inspire attendance at the official meeting concerning the implementation of the project. “The next step in this plan is to get these parents to come to a community meeting in which the founder of the Algebra Project – famed Civil Rights leader Bob Moses – will make a presentation using middle school and high school students who have already been working on math literacy work,” Fay said.
Occidental acts as a partner with Franklin High School in order to help aid the implementation process of the project.The March 14 event will be at Benjamin Franklin High School at 12:30 p.m. “We will need volunteers and would love for Oxy students to attend,” Seigel said.
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