Oscar likes dancing to hip-hop. His favorite color is green and he doesn’t like watching sports, he likes playing them.
This isn’t something I know because I’ve witnessed it; I know it because he is my pen pal.
Oscar is one of Kevin Bronk’s students at Clyde L. Fischer Middle School in San Jose, Calif. Bronk, a University alumnus and the former editor in chief of Ethos Magazine, teaches English and history to a group of sixth- through eighth-grade special education students.
Located in an area where the majority of households are low-income, Bronk teaches children who do not see going to college as an accessible option. The students of Room 24 live in a place where college is not a common conversation.
Of course, that began to change once the letters came in.
Bronk started thinking about the value of writing with a purpose. He then decided to send a video to the current staff members of University publication Ethos.
Bronk asked for volunteers to be pen pals to the students of Room 24. A handful of Ethos staffers agreed to be of service.
After the first group of letters came through, Bronk couldn’t believe the immense amount of excitement that emulated throughout the class.
“It was one of the first activities where everyone in the class was excited,” Bronk commented. “I literally had to force them to put away the letters.”
For many, it was the first time they were connected to someone in college. The idea and thought of college stroked the students’ curiosity more and more.
The students of Room 24 replied to the letters with questions about college classes, college life and studying. They also wanted to know what it was like to write for a magazine.
When I first sat down to respond to Oscar’s letter, I didn’t know what to say.
It seems so simple to reply to a child’s letter. Don’t make anything too complex, use little words, and write big and legible. But for some reason I couldn’t start a sentence about college without sounding pretentious, bitter and overwhelmed. That is not what Oscar wanted to hear, and that was surely not what I wanted to portray.
I reread his letter. I stared at his doodles. I knew I needed to find my inner child that I had abandoned somewhere along my academic journey. But where was she?
Then, for the first time in my college career I began to write sentences like “college is fun and exciting!” Sentences that would award me an “F” on any of my college papers.
After that, everything else just clicked.
It was invigorating to use words that didn’t make my writing sound profound and scholastic. I realized Oscar didn’t need to read a big word to paint a picture in his mind; he only needed simple ones.
I then began to doodle. And although my doodle of a bus looked slightly misshapen — with two different-sized tires and a load of passengers who were only floating heads — it felt rewarding to know they would be seen by someone who would appreciate them, just like the words that filled up the lines on that same page.
Words bridge anonymity. Words connect us in ways we could never imagine. Words unearth similarities between complete strangers. Words expose differences between allies.
Words are what connected a special education child and a busy, highly stressed college student.
Responding to Oscar’s letter using the simplest words, I realized how much I take my education for granted. Using words, I provided hope to a boy who inadvertently reignited my passion for learning that had slowly been burning out.
Although Bronk may have intended for this experience to mostly have an effect on his students, I think his idea made an impact in San Jose and right back up to Oregon.
I may never know Oscar’s stature, the color of his skin, or the way he laughs when he identifies something funny. And even though I may never know the magnitude of how I impacted his life, I know that he has forever impacted mine.
My letters may continue to nurture Oscar’s flourishing curiosity for college or it may just simmer down. Oscar could end up attending college, or he may not. But knowing that he may have envisioned, even for a split second, that he is capable of doing something more than he believed he could is the power of words in itself.
And the fact that my words may have contributed to this potential gleam of belief is good enough for me.
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O’Brien: Finding the write way to help kids
Daily Emerald
January 23, 2011
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