Back at Wallenberg High School, seniors were joined by four 826 volunteers.
The students formed circles of four with each volunteer, taking turns to go over their second round of edits for their personal statements. Meanwhile, Guilan Sheykhzadeh, their AP-English teacher, talked with me while the students worked on peer editing with each other and the 826 tutors.
“Peer editing helps to validate the process of editing and how much can come out of it ... It’s a really empowering experience [for the students] to realize, ‘Oh, getting other voices and ideas can really help facilitate some positive change.’”
I walked around to see some of the feedback that students were receiving from volunteers, and was touched to see what topics these kids were broaching in their statements. For example, several described feeling as if they were living in two worlds due to separated families. One student wrote about her mother and the effects on her due to her parents’ divorce, while the 826 tutor probed her for more details.
“You kind of glaze over here, delve in, and pull the story out. You need to show how strong your mother is. Is she your role model? What has your relationship with her done for you?”
The student tilted her head shyly, but with the tutor’s support, she appeared ready to reach deeper.
“It’s made me want to be a stronger person,” she said.
“But in what way?” The volunteer continued to probe for answers to those questions sixteen year olds might not instinctively go to, and explained that she had to show the reader ways of being that her mother had exhibited to handle the situation.
“Focus on how you’ve learned to overcome your flaws,” the volunteer said.
Back with their teacher, Guilan, I asked how working with 826 had helped her students.
“826 shares a lot of our same ideas. Often when you work with outside organizations, they have their own agenda and you have yours, and it’s hard to reconcile those, and you might think, ‘Can I really bring this [project] in when I have all of these standards to touch upon?’ Because you have people [at 826] that come from backgrounds in literature, English, and education, they understand it, and this is huge—they respect teachers. I remember with Nínive (co-founder of 826 Valencia and CEO of 826 National) was that one, she had been a teacher, but two, she had remembered being a teacher.”
