High school students in two anthropology classes go to school only 15 minutes apart in Upper Arlington and North Linden, but the distance between them felt farther than it really was.
That was, until Erase the Space, an organization that facilitates year-long learning exchanges between different schools in the Columbus metro area to encourage students to research a social issue, brought the young anthropologists from suburban Upper Arlington and urban Columbus Alternative High Schools together.
The two groups worked so well together they decided to extend their collaboration past their junior year.
Erase the Space held an event Tuesday at the Community Impact Center in downtown Columbus where groups containing both Upper Arlington and Columbus Alternative seniors could present their research and ideas on affordable housing issues to city leaders.
Organizations present included the Neighborhood Design Center, Affordable Housing Alliance of Central Ohio, Ohio Community Corrections Association, The Student Stakeholder, YWCA Columbus, Franklin County Children Services and the South Linden Area Commission. Columbus City Schools' Board of Education President Antoinette Miranda was also in attendance.
Derek Burch, executive director of Erase the Space, said the seniors are a “special group” who wanted to address the affordable housing crisis in Columbus and how it will play out for young people. The students went to the Affordable Housing Alliance of Central Ohio in December to get a “Housing 101” lesson.
“Then [they] started to kind of lean into their interests of the problem, because we know it's multifaceted,” Burch said. “And so since [December], they've been kind of diving into those [issues] and having conversations about how their group is going to address a specific aspect of that. And now they get to pitch to adults like, ‘here's the things we want you to take care of if you want us to stay here.’”
Burch said it's important for leaders to listen to student voices because they may present ideas that break out of the typical mold.
“Kids have great ideas,” Burch said. “They're geniuses and oftentimes when they suggest things, it's adults that are like, ‘but I might have to change the way I do things if I do that.’ And so we want [adults] to hear these great ideas and be curious about how these [solutions] could happen.”
Not only do kids brainstorm solutions to pressing city problems together, but they also form friendships and get together outside of school, Burch said.
“We've had kids go and do homework at their friend's house from the other school, and we know that with this group specifically, because they got to loop and do this together [for] two years, they've been telling their teachers, like, ‘yeah, we're going to the movies this week and the [Columbus Alternative High School] kids are going to be there,’” Burch said.
Esther Kim, a Columbus Alternative High School student, said she wanted to extend the collaboration with Upper Arlington because the students felt there was still work to do.
“I feel like last year we had a good experience, but it felt incomplete,” Kim said. “There was still more that I wanted to discuss with UA.”
Presley Joe, an Upper Arlington High School student who was in the same group as Kim for the Erase the Space event, said the work of previous classes made the students want to continue to work together and build something greater.
“I feel like it made us want to have an initiative to see if we could build something up like that, and just what type of impact we could have if we really worked together and stuck together, and the fact that we've stuck together for two years, I feel like it's been able to help us be more involved in what we're working on,” Joe said.
