Two years ago, a fellow teacher, Tamara Walker, asked if I would be interested in co-teaching NFTE's business class. She had watched a documentary about NFTE called Ten, Nine, Eight and found herself enamored by this entrepreneurship program for at-risk youth. Now, I find myself reflecting back on the whirlwind adventure that this current year of teaching NFTE has been. And to think, it all started with fast food and a formidable dream...
Last fall, when my NFTE students and I were eating lunch at a McDonald's, following a field trip to a local business, our discussion took an interesting turn as we began to ponder ideas for an end-of-the-year NFTE celebration. The idea of Boston popped into my mind as a plausible location to visit that was not too far from our Bronx home. Once we had settled upon the idea of visiting Boston, we thought: Why not visit prestigious Harvard University too? It was at this moment that the idea of "The Boston Marquette" was born. My students decided then and there that in order to make their dream of visiting Boston and Harvard a reality, they would create this Marquette/Store in order to raise the funds to pay for this incredible trip. Pen and paper in hand, the students and I drew up and signed an agreement declaring our intent to visit Boston and Harvard, and recognizing the inception of The Boston Marquette in the process.
Fast-forward through trips to Manhattan's wholesale district to purchase goods to sell; skip past our huge holiday sale at the end of December (which included a gracious donation of beautiful, new clothing by our school's Pencil Partner, Mr. Jeff Fischer of Golden Touch Imports, a Manhattan apparel company); pass by our red-and-pink-themed Valentine's Day Sale, and come around to April of 2012. Around this time, it became apparent that while we could raise enough funds to cover the supplemental costs of this trip, we would not have enough money for lodging and transportation fees. With this knowledge in mind, I took our case to our school Principal, Barbara Kirkweg. I was not pleading the case for even one minute before our principal graciously and enthusiastically agreed that the school would cover our lodging and bus fees. In all my years at Bronx Aerospace High School, Principal Kirkweg has been nothing but supportive and generous when funding college field trips, and she was no less so in this circumstance. This trip could never have happened without her care and support.
Financials taken care of, we still had one problem: we knew no one at Harvard University. It is at this point in time that Steve Mariotti, the founder of NFTE, stepped up to the plate and offered to help us set up what would become the most unbelievably enriching experience at Harvard. When Steve heard about our impending trip to Harvard, he immediately put us in touch with Professor Fernando Reimers, a Graduate School of Education Professor, who then put us in touch with one of his incredible graduate student, Alyssa Chan. With a team of Harvard supporters cheering us on, we were able to set up a dream trip for any rising young entrepreneur.
In seven simple summaries, the following offers a glimpse into our students' Harvard and Boston adventure:
1) The students sat in on a three-hour graduate level course about social entrepreneurship, conducted by Professor Reimers. Two of our students shared out astute comments about business leadership and the cost of a private school education in N.Y.C.
2) Each of our students gave a five- to seven-minute Business Plan Presentation in front of a panel of three Graduate School students, and then received a five-minute Feedback/Q&A Session with the judges and members of the audience. As a result of their incredible presentations, one of our students was offered a bulk sale of 100 + of her key chains, another student was given a contact who could put him in touch with a celebrity to promote his bracelets, and one young man was told that he should consider selling his innovative cinnamon rolls in Japan because they'd do excellently in that setting.
3) The students were given a tour of Harvard University and Harvard's Graduate School of Business by two graduate students, during which we were able to go into Harvard's state of the art Innovation Lab. Serendipitously, during the tour we also ran into a group of NFTE China students and the head of NFTE in China, Henry To, who were visiting Harvard and Boston following a stay in NYC.
4) The students ate a BBQ dinner in a Harvard undergraduate quadrangle with a plethora of undergraduate students. They made new friends and came to realize that many of their stereotypes of Harvard students were completely wrong. Best of all, they realized that they, too, could become Harvard students (with a lot of hard work and effort, of course)!
5) The students had an incredible time at the hotel -- the first hotel stay ever for one of our students.
6) The students had a private breakfast with Steve Mariotti during which he gave them feedback about their business plan presentations from the previous day. He also told them about the value of entrepreneurship and the educational opportunities open to them if they keep working hard.
7) Finally, we drove through the campus of MIT, and then went into Boston and met up with William Chan, a Boston NFTE teacher, and three of his NFTE students. We ate lunch at Boston's famous Quincy Market, we walked around Boston Commons, and we were enamored by the many historic sights we passed through along the way.
NFTE Teachers Jessica Cohen and Tamara Walker with their Bronx Aerospace High School Students at Harvard's School of Ed.
The bus ride home was wonderful, and the students weren't quite ready to leave each other and the memories they created when we finally arrived back at Bronx Aerospace High School. Needless to say, this experience was beyond enriching for all who were involved. Valuable lessons were learned, stereotypes were broken, dreams were fulfilled, and ten young entrepreneurs from the Bronx learned that when you create a formidable dream, with hard work and determination and grit, you can fulfill it.