By Khalida Sarwari
Past the rain-drenched orange buildings on a quiet March afternoon at Campbell Middle School, students huddled in teams inside a classroom, brainstorming ways to save a person stranded on a bridge during an earthquake.
One group of five decided they’d save the earthquake victim using a foam retractor car, a vision they tried to bring to life with paper clips, CDs, rubber stoppers and skewers, to name a few of a laundry list of items.
Meanwhile, a group on the opposite side of the classroom tinkered with the idea of building a model helicopter to rescue the victim. The students pulled out rulers for measuring and discussed with their teachers what would and would not work in such a scenario.
It is a hypothetical scenario, but one that the students in the “Tech Challenge” class have been grappling with since the end of February. The class is one of many offered as part of the Citizen Schools curriculum, an after-school program for children in low-income communities across the country.
Citizen Schools came to Campbell six years ago and is the program’s only South Bay location. Ninety-five students are enrolled in the opt-in program, according to Kristen Robertson, a campus director for Citizen Schools at Campbell Middle School.
The classes are taught by six educators alongside volunteers from the community who are called “citizen teachers.” Each class is 90 minutes in length, and over a 10-week period teaches students in the fifth to eighth grades skills such as leadership and teamwork.
Christine Dougan, now a freshman at Westmont High School, was enrolled in the program for four years and loved it so much she decided to return as a volunteer.
“It made me become a stronger leader,” Christine said. “I learned a lot of life skills–how to speak publicly without getting jittery. I learned about baking, about the Humane Society; I was in mock trial. It’s good to learn all this stuff at such a young age.”
This week, the students in the Tech Challenge class are halfway through preparing for the Tech Museum’s “Shake, Rattle and Rescue” challenge, an annual program that introduces the engineering design process to students in grades 5 to 12 by encouraging them to solve a real world problem with a hands-on project. On April 21, Campbell students will join students from other schools for a presentation of their devices followed by an awards ceremony at the museum.
The students’ accomplishments will also be celebrated at a community event on May 31, along with the achievements of students in the other apprenticeship courses at Campbell Middle School, such as robotics, video programming, photojournalism and a class on the city’s planning commission, taught by commissioner Phil Reynolds.
The students in that class are learning about what the commission does by working on a fictitious report to place a restaurant in town called Tommy’s Burgers. Reynolds has the students break up into teams to analyze the process from the perspective of a permit applicant, commission staff members and supporters and opponents of the project. For their final presentation in May, the students will perform in the council chamber.
“It’s our first year doing this,” Reynolds said. “We’re just kind of flying by the seats of our pants on this, but it’s working out.”
Reynolds said he became involved in the program through the Silicon Valley Leadership Group’s “1,000 Hearts for 1,000 Minds” campaign, which aims to find 1,000 adult volunteers to serve as tutors and mentors to 1,000 kindergarten through eighth-grade students.
His influence, though, was Ken Wilhelm, Reynolds’ high school English teacher, who was there for him once when he really needed help.
“He was that one teacher that gave me a chance,” Reynolds said. “I think these kids, some of them are looking for that. It’d be kind of neat to be that teacher.”
