We realized that we had power in the sense of writing and created a powerful piece of work. Not only does this prove that we aren’t quitters but it also proves that we can work together to benefit the community. This is what high school should look and feel like.
We are the first graduating class of the Margarita Muñiz Academy, the only two-way bilingual high school in Massachusetts to date. We hope that the proposals in this book will be taken seriously.
As seniors, we may not benefit directly from any changes Boston Public Schools decide to make, but we hope that the proposals in this collection will be taken very seriously. Many of us have younger brothers, sisters, cousins and friends in the school system—we want them to have access to a richer and more engaging high school experience.
We are the voices of minorities. We come from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, México, Colombia, India, Guatemala, Barbados, Honduras, El salvador, Cuba, North America and Haiti. Some of us were born here, but many of us were not. The fact that many of us started our education in our homelands gives us added insight into what about our high schools works and what needs improvement.
We were surprised when our teacher Ms. Laura Gersch announced, “We are going to write a book!” She was very excited. We were not. We felt overwhelmed. Most of us were completely new to the kind of research that this project required: first, we were required to seek out and evaluate a variety of texts from academic journals to newspapers and magazines. Then, we contacted and interviewed experts, from vocational students to school principals to directors of Nonprofits to Boston’s Superintendent of Education,Tommy Chang. Our attitudes changed as we became engaged and learned more about our topic. We could not have done this on our own. We were fortunate to have tutor support from 826 Boston from beginning to end. They worked with us in groups, one-on-one, and online, empowering us to find our own voices.
Another big obstacle for our class was to write our proposals full drafts in both English and Spanish. Each of us were faced with the challenge of writing a proposal in a second language. The translation process was very collaborative Our Spanish teacher gave us resources on the web to help us translate, but our classmates were way better resources than any website. Native Spanish speakers were able to help their classmates with translating phrases or words so the meaning of our proposals stayed consistent. Although, we worked together to translate, it took our class about two weeks both inside and out of class to complete this task. By the end of this process we all felt that we had two versions of high quality work.
Before we knew it, we realized that we had power in the sense of writing and created a powerful piece of work. Not only does this prove that we aren’t quitters but it also proves that we can work together to benefit the community. This is what high school should look and feel like. As we go on to college and careers such as teachers, nurses, scientists, musicians, and mathematicians, we will take both the skills and confidence we developed over the course of this project out into the world.
Margarita Muñiz Academy Student Editorial Board