Joseph Mayers, a tall and slender senior at Uncommon Charter High School, sat on a colorful rug next to a box of interlocking plastic bricks as 4- and 5-year-old preschoolers excitedly built and shared their creations with him.
Mayers, who plans to attend Syracuse University in the fall, was calm and patient amid the controlled chaos of activity time, admiring and praising the various assemblages of blocks made to look like a mango, a strawberry ice cream cone, a car, and a dog.
Mayers attended Uncommon Excellence Boys from kindergarten to eighth grade and now, as an Uncommon high schooler, has been coming to the pre-K classroom at Uncommon Excellence Pre-K every Friday afternoon since November as part of a paid internship offered by his high school. Over that time, Mayers said he has built a strong relationship with the students.
“They’re getting more comfortable with us,” said Mayers, whose younger sister is also in the class. “It’s fun to have her in the classroom. She’s so used to me being in school. She says, ‘Joseph, when are you coming to my school?’ She loves it when I come to her classroom.”
The paid pre-K internship is part of a larger core initiative by Uncommon Schools, which has four high schools in Brooklyn, to give students the opportunity to explore their passions, foster their talents, and find their purpose during their high school journey. Across all of Uncommon’s Brooklyn high schools, students can explore 87 project-based courses in 55 unique content areas, from video production to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu to competitive teams like robotics and speech and debate.
Those project-based courses, which are offered for 2 hours a week in students’ class schedules, also include competitive teams such as robotics, speech and debate, and Model United Nations. The third is career exploration through internships and career exploration events with corporations and non-profit organizations.
This is the first year for the internship program at Excellence Pre-K, said Ayo Alli, the director of Corporate Partnerships for Uncommon Schools who also directs the internship program.
“For high school students, career exploration is no longer optional, it has become a necessity,” said Alli. “We’re committed to providing career exploration and internship opportunities for high school students with the understanding that both play a critical role in the competitive college admission process and in providing a life of choice for students from underrepresented communities.” Uncommon Schools already partners with companies like Audible and NFI in other regions for internships, and “the Pre-K internship program is another layer in expanding opportunities for our students,” added Alli.
While Mayers has not yet decided what to major in while in college, he said working in the classroom prompted him to consider a career in education.
“I applied for this internship because I wanted to try new things,” he said. “Now I know I may want to become a teacher.”
Olivia Severe, a classmate of Mayers’s at Uncommon Charter High School, plans to attend college when she graduates in the spring. She is deciding between Hofstra University, Pace University and Hunter College, among others.
Severe hopes to earn a bachelor’s degree in nursing and work in a neonatal unit or pediatrics, and said her experience in the pre-K classroom helped her understand children better.
“Kids need a lot of patience,” Severe said. “They are not good at articulating what they are feeling so you need to sit down and have a conversation with them.”
Nyema Cassanova, another Uncommon Charter High School senior interning in the pre-K class, plans to major in psychology when she attends Colby College in Maine in the fall. She said the experience she is gaining in her pre-K internship at Excellence has helped her think about what she would like to do with her college degree.
“Working with children and building connections is definitely helping me figure out my career goals,” said Cassanova, who hopes to one day become a therapist for adolescents and young adults. The internship has also taught her how to support her 2-year-old brother.
“When he is not behaving, I know how to calm him down now,” she said. “It’s definitely helped me communicate with him better.”
For more information about Uncommon Schools NYC, please visit https://uncommonschools.org/nyc-enrollment/
