Adolescent Foodie

Isiah is a total foodie. At our first session, while talking about his family, he mentioned the fact that he cooked breakfast for his younger siblings – scrambled eggs, pancakes and hotdogs. I don’t know what impressed me more – that he was responsible enough to be in charge of his siblings' morning meal or that he knew, at thirteen, how to cook scrambled eggs, pancakes and hotdogs.

The subject came up again when the Thai food was delivered. As promised, the selections we made last week came, and we emptied the bag to put out the spread on the table in my office. And it was awesome. First, it was great fun to introduce Isiah to each dish one by one, talking a little bit about it and having him take some first tastes. The edamame – “Steamed soy beans with salt. You pop the beans out and suck on the pod.” The satay – “Skewered grilled chicken with a peanut-based dipping sauce.” The fried tofu – “Soybeans again, if you can believe it. Not much taste by itself, but it absorbs the flavor of whatever dish it’s in or sauce you dip it in.” The spicy noodle dish – “Wide noodles made from rice flour. Look out for the chiles and jalapeños.” The duck curry – “The duck breast is roasted with the skin and then tossed in a coconut curry sauce with some vegetables.”

I think this was my favorite apprenticeship session with Isiah for two reasons. First, Isiah was genuinely blown away by the experience of the Thai food. He must have said “This is so good!” fifty times, practically after each bite, most of which were completely new foods or flavors to him. Second, I was genuinely blown away by Isiah’s articulation of the experience. At one point he lifted a small plastic cup of dipping sauce for the fried tofu to his nose and gave it a couple sniffs. “This has got peanuts in it, and some chiles, and something sweet.” As he took in the duck curry: “The duck is so juicy and mixes well with the sweet pineapple and spiciness of the sauce.” This went on dish after dish. The kid has a refined palette. More impressively, he has a knack for talking about what he’s tasting and experiencing that most food personalities on television would envy. Being the cook in my family and a lover of lots of different kinds of food, I felt especially fond of this experience. I told Isiah he should think about doing a culinary apprenticeship next semester. He has a great affinity, a natural born talent perhaps, for food.

While the Thai dinner became the centerpiece of this particular session, we did accomplish some real work. We need to move our project along, after all.

Isiah and I actually spent the first part of our session video chatting with Rachelle Damminger, Spark’s Director of Communications. Rachelle is based in our Philadelphia office and, among many other responsibilities, handles all of Spark’s website updates. Since Isiah is building a special page on the Spark website dedicated to students, and because he’s big into networking and collaboration, I wanted him to connect with Rachelle to learn the mechanics behind getting the content he’s developing onto the actual website.

You can always tell when people are really engaged – whether an adult or a young person. There is that telltale sign of leaning in, eyes intently focused on the subject. Isiah’s attention was fixed on the screen as Rachelle gave him first an overview of her job and the important role she plays at Spark and then a peak at the “back end” of the Spark website. It was the first time Isiah was exposed to the inner workings of a website, namely the content management system that makes a site work. Rachelle was able to share her screen and walk him through an example of an update, which turned out to be an awkwardly large headshot of me placed smack dab in the middle of a page about Spark alumni. She promptly took it down, after we had a chuckle.

In addition to engaging with Rachelle, which Isiah liked a lot, and learning about the technology behind website maintenance, he got a taste for how professionals at an organization like Spark interact. Like many companies and nonprofits, Spark operates in multiple locations, with teams of people in each that must interact with one another from a distance virtually. It can be quite challenging at times. But, it’s an important practice to master in the professional world. I’m glad Isiah got a little taste of it.

Later on, Sahrish Saleem from the Spark Chicago program team popped in to spend some time with us as we worked on finishing up some of the content for the web page. Sahrish is new to Spark this year and serves as a Volunteer Coordinator, responsible for supporting mentors from five of our ten partner schools in Chicago this year and making sure the students are getting out of the program what we intend. Sahrish and her peers at Spark across our sites are in many respects the lifeblood of our program. They are the ones who make the magic happen among the students, schools, mentors and company partners. And, as in this instance, they are an important check on program quality.

I felt a little bad that Sahrish came in when she did. Not because she was disruptive in any way, just that she missed the best parts of the session! Namely the video chat with Rachelle and the Thai food. Nevertheless, as a mentor, I valued her presence and had a good check-in with her the next day to get some feedback. I have been reassured by the personal support I have been getting from our team. As I mentioned earlier, there is a weight of responsibility working with a young person, wanting to do right by them and make an impact. The attentive and personalized supports make the whole experience more manageable.

I don’t know how we’re going to top this one. But, we’re past the halfway mark now and zeroing in on our culminating project and Discovery Night. I wouldn’t be surprised if food sneaks its way into the final presentation somehow.

Go with the Flow

As a Spark mentor, you’re never quite sure what state of mind your student is going to be in when he or she shows up for the apprenticeship session. Just as we have many distractions as working professionals, young people have similarly dynamic lives. You might catch them on a day when their adrenaline is really flowing and they are super focused. Or you might encounter a student who would really rather be someplace else at the time, for whatever reason. It’s totally understandable and normal.

Isiah has always been pretty focused and eager when he shows up at Spark. And this week was really no different. We had our normal chitchat as we walked from the L stop to the office, which in large measure serves as our “opening ritual.” The practice of an opening ritual is an important one. Spark mentors are encouraged and trained to make room for this exercise at the beginning of each apprenticeship session as an aid to the student and the mentor to settle in and get focused. Isiah and I spend the time talking about his week, which invariably touches upon tales of him with his friends or siblings.

My contribution to the exchange is to talk about my kids and what they’re up to. It’s fun when Isiah picks up on the interests and activities of my boys and articulates how he relates to them. This week I was explaining how my youngest boy, aged three-and-a-half, was in a superhero phase – big time. Isiah took that and riffed for the duration of our walk on various superhero movies and television shows he’s watched and the lesser-known powers of many of them. Did you know that the Green Latern has more than just one green ring? Apparently, there are many colored rings with corresponding powers. I now have a better appreciation for one who often is seen as a bit of a second-tier crusader.

This week was the start of building out some content for our web page. We began by sifting through a bunch of pictures in our photo library of Spark apprenticeships and events. The first section of the webpage is to showcase what students can explore, so we wanted to find some good shots of students and mentors working together. We went back and looked at some of the survey responses to recall what jobs or fields students were interested in and then tried to find pictures to match.

This wound up being a somewhat tedious and slow process. I could tell Isiah was checking out. We shifted to writing some of the content, again based on the survey. I said I would take his dictation. We went along in fits and starts. This too turned out to be a bit laboring. I sensed Isiah was tired, or just not that into it, or both.

Curiously, out of nowhere, he began talking about pilgrims. He was learning about them in his social studies class earlier that day and started teaching back some of the history. He recounted much of the story: how in England at the time you had to subscribe to one (state-sponsored) religion and that the pilgrims were of a different sect and persecuted and so set sail for America to seek refuge and a new life to practice their faith freely.

His telling of the tale was engaging. He went on for several minutes and covered a lot of ground – the trip across the Atlantic, the encounter with Native Americans, the first Thanksgiving and what food and drink were on offer at the time. Some of my Spark colleagues were with me in the office as Isiah carried on and we were all at once entertained and engrossed.

I was a history major in college, and I confess Isiah was testing the limits of my knowledge and memory. I did at one point score some good points. Isiah was talking about the class groupings among the travelers by sea, whereby the wealthier folk would have posh accommodations above deck and those less fortunate were quartered below. He was hunting for a word to describe the poorer lot, and said it started with a “c” but that was all he could remember. I blurted out: “commoner.” Isiah was taken aback. “Yeah!” he said with surprise. “How did you know that?” I thought to myself: Dr. Hueston would be proud.

This tangent began about halfway into the day’s session, and it lasted the duration. Without really acknowledging it, we paused on our project and just had a nice and very engaging conversation about history. We segued at one point into travel and again touched upon Isiah’s affinity for Thailand. Since our first session, Isiah has been talking about Thailand, wanting to go there and wanting to try the food. I had been meaning to grab some Thai food from a local place and have it ready for him at the office when he came by. So, we took the last few minutes of the session to run through a menu online and pick out some dishes he wanted to try. He was very keen on the fried tofu, having never had tofu and really wanting to try it. We also picked out a spicy noodle dish, some satay, and a curry. We’ll have our own little ethnic Thanksgiving feast next week.

It’s hard to pivot like this. In my work I tend to get very focused on a project or a task and be nose down and bang it out, avoiding distraction as best I can. So, being adaptive, picking up on Isiah’s cues, gauging where his head is, and just going with the flow are good lessons when working with a thirteen-year-old. Indeed, I guess we all could use a breather from the seeming intensity of our work and deliverables. We could all stand to pause every now and again to share our favorite studies of history, places we’re most curious to visit, or food we’ve never tried but want to. It’s times like this when roles seem reversed. I am the learner and Isiah is the one modeling, subtly or not, a new or better way to operate.

Seeing Patterns in Data

Part of Isiah’s project I was most looking forward to was examining the results from his survey of his peers. Last week, he worked on developing the survey and he was able to get ten forms back, which is a perfectly fine sample to inform the next stage of the project. The idea is to use the data from the surveys to determine what young people would like to know about Spark so we could design a page of Spark’s website geared toward students.

I was trained in analytics early in my career while working for the federal government in Washington. I worked in national security at the time. When I made the jump to education, I worked for a man who was also a transplant from that world. He had been basically a nuclear war games strategist, during the Cold War when such experts were needed and gainfully employed. When the Cold War ended, of course, so did his professional purpose. He often referred to himself as a “peace dividend,” which was a common refrain at the time as the defense and national security industry was being downsized after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Over time, my boss became my mentor, which he remains today, some 16 years later. One of the things I remember him telling me was the idea of applying skills developed in one industry to another. In both of our cases, it was using the rigorous analytics of the field in which he and I started in and applying it to education. It’s something I’ve done throughout my career.

I told Isiah that analysis is basically looking for patterns in data, figuring out what they mean and, perhaps most importantly, what to do about them. We spent a bit of time entering the data into a spreadsheet and then started looking. Interestingly, five of the surveys were completed by students who are in Spark and five were filled out by non-participants, which is a good (albeit unintentional) sample!

We fixated a bit on one question that had students identify what fields they’d be interested in exploring. I asked Isiah to look at which fields seemed like the most popular. Turns out computers, the medical profession, and science registered the most. We talked about what was common among these fields, and Isiah was familiar with the term STEM – science, technology, engineering and math. I mentioned that more than a third of Spark apprenticeships take place in STEM-related companies. So we agreed that since these opportunities were of such great interest we ought to have a special section of the web page on STEM.

We went through each of the survey questions and put a list together of our “findings.” We then grouped them together – I’m kind of good at “bucketizing” and have always wanted to pass that skill along – and then created the sections of our web page based on that: “What can students explore?” “What can students create?” Isiah was insistent on adding a “Sign up today!” button, which I thought showed good marketing sense.

As we finished up for the session, I felt really good that we did this part of the project. Using analytics to inform practice is a big part of what we do at Spark, and a big part of effective education. So, giving Isiah a flavor for that process offers insight into my work, which is one of the key features of the apprenticeship experience.  It’s also something I just really enjoy doing, and like any mentor, its fun to teach a young person something you just really enjoy doing.

Ironically, perhaps the most analysis I’ve been immersed in recently is about young people just like Isiah. Specifically, I’ve been looking at data from school districts in which Spark operates, where upwards of 40 percent of students do not complete high school on time. That number is sobering in and of itself. What’s more, if you examine the students who do not make it through high school, two-thirds of them either drop out in ninth grade or they are made to repeat ninth grade and eventually drop out. The ninth grade is the great choke point on the path to graduation.

This is the problem Spark is trying to solve. We’re partnering with schools to identify young people in seventh and eighth grade who are showing early warning signs that may lead to eventual drop out. We enroll them in Spark and make sure they are engaged, on-track and ready for success in high school and beyond.

The fact is students of all backgrounds tend to slide in the middle grades. Developmentally, young people start to disengage in school at this age. Gallup conducts a poll of more than 500,000 students each year to measure their level of hope, wellbeing and engagement. While hope and wellbeing remain pretty constant from fifth grade to twelfth grade, engagement drops markedly. Two-thirds of that drop occurs in the middle grades.

This happens to all young people, from every background, in every community. Students in more advantaged communities have traditionally had access to resources and opportunities that help them overcome this commonplace disengagement from school. Other students have less opportunity. Spark is trying to change that equation.

I have a tough time believing that Isiah fits the profile of a disconnected youth. There is no one I have met who seems more connected, more engaged. But, I also know that he’s at an inflection point in his life. He’s at an age where he is beginning to think about his future in more specific ways. Visualizing what he could be, and having people around him – family, peers, teachers, mentors – to encourage and guide, are big parts of the “spark” that he and all kids need to be engaged, on-track and ready.

Tele-mentoring

Like many mentors with Spark, I’m quite busy. I typically have full slates of meetings, phone calls, or “to-do’s” I need to accomplish during precious little “desk time.” I also travel a fair bit, visiting the regions where we have programming or making fundraising rounds in New York or Washington or elsewhere.

So, this week, I missed Isiah at the office. And I was really bummed about it. I was in San Francisco for a set of meetings with stakeholders, our great annual fundraiser, and a national board meeting. It’s common for mentors to miss a session or two. The Spark program staff work with mentors to forecast days missed way ahead of time, which is important so that students know in advance that they won’t be seeing their mentor that day and therefore won’t be disappointed – at least not as much. 

I told Isiah at Match Night that I would be away this week. Since all mentors have to be cleared by a background check, ordinarily we can’t just pass the student off to a colleague. We’d have to skip the apprenticeship session and make it up later (we build in make-up days into the schedule). A majority of our partner companies are now hosting five or more students, in which case fellow mentors in the same office can fill in, which makes it easier. Fortunately for Isiah, he is doing his apprenticeship at Spark, which means he can still come to the office and work with one of my colleagues, because we’ve all been cleared to work with young people.

Isiah came to the office to work with my colleague Amanda, who is as terrific with students as she is with me. I’m glad, because it was an important week. After mapping out our project last session, this week we needed to accomplish the first task, which is creating the survey for Isiah’s peers to determine what they’d like to see on a section of the Spark website for students.

After finishing up a meeting in downtown San Francisco, I walked down to the Embarcadero and got on FaceTime with Isiah for a little bit. I was able to show him some of the beautiful landscape of the city and tell him a bit about why I was there and what I was doing. We were also able to chat a bit about the survey.

He and Amanda had already made good progress on it. They had outlined some of the questions. We want to gather some basic information, of course. So, there were questions on who the respondent is, their gender, their age, what grade they were in, and the like. We then talked about how best to get at some of their interests. We decided to list out a number of ideas and ask people to tick the ones they’d like to see. Other questions were more open-ended.

Isiah’s homework is to get his peers to take the survey. Next week, we’ll work on analyzing the data and using it to start designing the elements of the web page. I was trained early on in my career as an analyst and really enjoy working with data, making sense of it and using it to solve problems. So, I’m especially eager to sit with Isiah next week and go through that process, hopefully sharing some insights into how to do analysis. I like that we’re doing the survey in this project, so we can blend some quantitative work with the more creative aspects of designing the page and promoting it. It feels like a more well rounded experience that way. We’re doing a little math as well as English.

Source: Spark student report cards &
Univ. of Chicago Consortium on School Research

This reminds me how impressed I’ve been by the strides our students make in their core course grades in school during their Spark experience. We are not an academic intervention, yet we are seeing some effect on academic performance. Spark students in Chicago enter our program markedly below the district average in GPA. When they leave the program, they have made significant gains. They start approaching the district average in their GPAs.

My hunch is that the apprenticeship approach gets students more interested in learning. Their level of engagement goes up, and therefore they do better in school. But I also think that many of our mentors do academic-focused things as part of the apprenticeship. Our students do analysis and work on spreadsheets. They are writing, doing research, making presentations. These are all things that students need to do to be successful in their coursework.

Spark is so much more than helping students do better in school. But, doing better in school is one big part of our impact. When students improve their grades, they boost their confidence, and their desire to learn more. It can be the beginning of a virtuous cycle academically. One that we hope will persist with our students for a long time.

Getting from Here to There

When I was thirteen, I wanted to be an architect. I remember it quite well. My school offered a drafting class for seventh graders. It was held in this big open room with high rafters, co-located with what was “shop class” – now we fancily call it “industrial arts” – where you get to work with sheet metal and shellac pretty much anything you want.

I remember that shop class was taught by this rather tall and somewhat portly man, with a slick comb-over and big glasses. The drafting course was taught by a quirky, mustachioed, diminutive man with dark curly hair and big, puffy eyebrows. They were a curious duo for sure. But, they had the distinct advantage of teaching classes where students could get dirty and draw, which made them rather popular. 

I also remember it as a time when my dad became my mentor. The culminating assignment was to create blueprints for a house of our own design. I remember getting early feedback from my teacher – the small one – saying my concept didn’t make the best use of space. When I brought it home and showed it to my dad, he pointed out the long, twisty-turny hallway I created smack in the middle of the house. I remember him taking me around our house and showing me how most of the space was taken up by rooms, and the hallway was short and tight. We sat together at the dining room table redrawing my design until we got it right.

Needless to say, I never became an architect. In high school, I wanted to be a writer, a journalist. I edited the school newspaper and wrote short stories for fun. I carried that quest into college, majoring in communication. But, as a sophomore I decided that in order to be a good writer, I needed to have something to write about. So, I switched to something more content heavy. I loved history and politics, so I changed my major. Over time, I got a degree in history and another in international relations. I eventually wanted to be a diplomat. At some point I took a detour into education – sixteen years long now and counting.

I was telling this story to Isiah when he joined me for our second apprenticeship session. Week two is all about goal-setting. One of the exercises we do as mentors is talk about our own journey to the job we have now. Isiah was floored when I told him I switched career interests a few times. He somehow thought you had to decide really early and you could only major in one thing at college. I told him he shouldn’t put too much pressure on himself and take his time.

We talked about big-picture goal setting. He knows he wants to be a leader one day. So, we talked about all the skills and experiences he would need to become a leader. Being persuasive. Motivating others. Making decisions. We talked about how it mattered less at this point what he was leading, only that he should work hard to put himself in the best position to be a leader of whatever the opportunity may be. We talked about transferable skills, ones you can take with you from job to job, industry to industry even.

Meanwhile, this was the week we had to map out our apprenticeship, which dovetails nicely with the theme of goal setting. Isiah and I talked last week about an idea for creating a new web page on the Spark website that was geared toward students. It would offer information and resources that would get young people interested in Spark. We talked about developing a survey that Isiah could have his peers fill out. We would analyze the data from the survey to determine what to put on the web page. We would also develop a poster we could put up at Isiah’s school and a flyer we can pass out to his schoolmates who aren’t in Spark to get them excited to learn more about it.

To map out the project, we huddled in the conference room in front of the white board. We wrote down all the weeks we had left in the apprenticeship – seven – noted the date when the project was “due” at Discovery Night – December 11 – and then listed all the tasks we’d need to do between now and the end – develop survey questions, build the survey, analyze the results, design the web page, create the content, publish the web page, design the poster and flyer, develop the content, create the poster and flyer. Perhaps most importantly, we have to reserve time to practice the presentation – what Isiah is going to showcase at Discovery Night for all the attendees, which will doubtless include his family, his peers, and members of the school community.

Once we had our list of tasks, we began matching them up with the weeks - next week we'll design and build the survey, the following week we'll analyze the results. And there you have it! We set a goal, we determined the things that will get us there, and we made a week-by-week agenda for getting it all done. Isiah actually got a good kick out of the exercise. He even said he was going to use the same method for his school science project.

Sparking Interest

I’m guessing it was just jitters. I got a call about an hour before Isiah and my apprenticeship was about to start saying he was not feeling well and may not come. This is not atypical. Leaving their school and home communities, often for the first time, can generate some anxiety among students. Indeed, while Isiah says he has been to downtown Chicago before – even toured the top of the Sears Tower – we know that many young people from the south and west sides of Chicago have never been to the Loop. They have never been in a building with a revolving door or an elevator. They have never seen Lake Michigan, one of the great natural beauties of the mid-west, not even a mile away from where many of our students live.

Exposing young people to different people, communities, indeed “worlds” in the metaphorical sense is a core component of the Spark model. Our intent is never to make any value judgment on one world over another, simply that closing the opportunity gap requires exposing young people, regardless of where they are from, to something different. Minimally, it broadens their point of view, and optimally it provides greater access to more options ahead of them in education and life.

Another practical benefit to venturing beyond their home communities, students have to navigate public transportation – an important skill for many working professionals. Spark students travel in multiples – in the case at Gregory Academy, about thirty all together. They are guided and chaperoned by our staff and parent or community volunteers. They are checked and verified at multiple points along the way. The system is quite robust and reassuring, for mentors, school administrators, parents, and students alike, for the sake of safety.

Isiah rallied, aided by his mother no doubt, and he arrived to a warm welcome at the Spark office. The first apprenticeship session centers on mentors like me getting to know our students more, and also giving them an idea for the company, the job that we do, and the people we work with. I gave Isiah a tour of our office – all 2,000 cozy square feet of it – and introduced him to my colleagues.

As we went along, I found myself still calibrating my words and descriptions to his level of experience and understanding, not wanting to dumb down but also not wanting him to feel lost. For example, I introduced Isiah to Spark’s COO and head of fundraising. To explain what it is that they do for the organization, I asked him how much he thought it costs to run an organization like Spark. After a few seconds of contemplation, he speculated: “A hundred thousand dollars.” On top of my raised eyebrow, I rejoined: “Try three point six million.” Over the next few silent seconds, the expression on his face slowly shifted from surprise to curiosity to excitement as he took this in. We then talked about how we need people who can find that much money for us, getting people to donate, and we also need people to count the money, keep it safe, and pay the bills.

Each apprenticeship session includes a “skill of the week.” These are crucial interpersonal and intrapersonal competencies that young people need to develop in order to be successful in school, in careers, and in life. Indeed, recent reports from the National Academy of Sciences and the University of Chicago among many other research reports have increasingly shown these skills to be as essential as academics.  This week, we focused on networking. I can tell Isiah was already rather adept at networking. And he knew it too. I got him talking about how he meets new people and develops friendships. It’s pretty clear Isiah is a connector. Infectiously likeable, genuine and fun, people are drawn to him.

Our Results: Spark Students Improve Crucial Skills

I told him that a lot of the networking we do in jobs like mine is done in restaurants and coffee shops, as well as at events. Clearly, professionals like to eat and drink. Or rather, we like to get out of the office, if you really want the truth. So, after seeking permission from his mother, I took Isiah over to a café in the Sears Tower across the street for our own little networking meeting, so he could get a taste of the experience, as it were.

I could tell he was enamored with the idea. The tea shop is in the airy west side atrium of the building, equipped with comfy chairs. Bright digital displays showcase the drinks on offer, which he selected after some interplay with the counter clerk. He kept mentioning how cool this all was. He said he wanted to come downtown more often. He asked if he could do Spark more than once a week. I confess not knowing if his excitement was driven by the charm of the place or of our engaging conversation, or possibly the number of packets of sugar he added to his drink, which I’m pretty sure exceeded five.

The apprenticeship lasts eight full sessions at the workplace, followed by Discovery Night back at the school. Discovery Night is when all the students and their mentors display the projects they worked on over the course of their apprenticeship. I didn’t expect us to decide upon our project in our first session. But, after talking with Isiah, I got a clear sense of what he was interested in – something that centered on communication, engaging with people, collaborating. So, we bandied a few ideas and rested on one that has some promise. Next week, we’ll map it out. And then the real work of the apprenticeship will begin.

Meeting Isiah

The Scene

The library at James A. Gregory Academy in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood was a nicely air-conditioned and colorful open space on the second floor. I’ve walked into many public schools in my time that were dark, scuffed, cluttered and claustrophobic. But, everything about Gregory was light and lively. There was a lot going on this particular day and into the evening when I arrived – a book fair, some school activities and club meetings, and the Spark Match Event.

The Spark Match Event is the moment when Spark mentors like me meet their students for the first time. I joined a group of 31 adults in the school library; all had signed up for this same experience and were patiently waiting for instructions.

The Mentors 

It was immediately clear that some mentors knew each other. Spark has a number of companies now that routinely host five or more students – indeed some take 30, 40, 50 and more. Given that our model is both staff intensive and highly affected by travel and logistics (students commute from their school campus to their mentors’ workplaces for each apprenticeship session), having larger numbers of students going to one place is a more scalable approach. However, we still have plenty of what I call "onsies" and "twosies," those small businesses and nonprofits that host a student or two. Spark itself counts in that category thanks to employee mentors.

Meeting Our Students 

After a good 45-minute refresher training from two of Spark's program staff, it was finally time for us all to venture downstairs to the auditorium where a group of eager, earnest and excited seventh and eighth graders awaited us with their families.

We were all given the name of our student on a piece of paper, along with a word that was described as “one part of a famous pair.” It’s a cute way to connect the students and mentors and make the "mentoring matches." My slip read “Isiah,” and the term “ham.”

As we entered the expansive room, about 10 students were grouped in front of us. They were each clad with a bright blue polo shirt, adorned with the Spark logo – a thoughtful gesture entirely conceived and created by the teachers and administrators at Gregory.

As the particular group of students standing directly in front of me constituted only one boy and the rest girls, it was pretty obvious whom I should approach. Sure enough, Isiah had a cut of paper of his own with the term “green eggs” on it. And so the match was confirmed. He looked straight at me with a striking wide smile, extended his hand to meet mine, and we greeted.

Getting to Know Each Other 

I was struck not only by how genuine and poised this young man was, but also how comfortable and gracious the initial interaction was. Neither of us felt forced. We were both clearly interested to learn about each other. I began peppering Isiah with questions: 

• “Where do you live?” – just down the street.  
• “Who’s your family?” – mom, stepdad, and two younger sisters.  
• “What food do you like?” – all kinds, especially french fries and crab legs. 
• “What’s your favorite movie?” – favorites in each category, like comedy, action, sci-fi. 
• “What sports do you like?” – basketball and football.

He wanted to introduce me to his mom, who was sitting at the front of the auditorium, so he escorted me down the aisle. When I first saw her, it became clear where this young man got his energy and engaging affect, as well as his big bright smile. Isiah’s mother was effusive, telling me how thrilled she was that her son had this amazing opportunity to participate in Spark. She also wished she had something like Spark when she was growing up. I was really taken by her. Her overt happiness gave me a lift. The cool, almost-best-friend-like interplay she and Isiah displayed was infectious. I just wanted to smile the whole time.

We sorted out all the logistics – him taking the El, me picking him up at the station, making sure his mom had my number. I showed him a picture of the Spark office, so he knew where he’d be spending his time. I confess I felt a bit insecure that he wouldn’t be going to a swanky office on an upper floor of a big high rise like he would have done with one of our company partners. But, I know the adventure for him will be much the same nonetheless.

I left that evening thinking a lot about all the mentors engaged with Spark this session – nearly a thousand, from all stripes, many different fields and all sorts of companies. I wondered what their Match Event experience was like. Did they experience the same emotions? Did they connect with their student? Did they feel emboldened as I did? Did they feel ready to start an amazing experience with a cool kid?